Friendship Test
Imagine for a moment that you’re dating someone who you truly love. You’re happy, content, and excited because in just a few weeks you’ll be proposing. What a fantastic moment to be you.
Then your BFF comes to you and says that your partner is cheating!
You can’t believe what you’re hearing so you ask for details. Your friend tells you that they caught your partner red headed and that the proof of the infidelity is at their home. So, you pull out your car keys and say, “I need to see this now! One of the most important days of my life is on the line!”
That’s when your friend starts making excuses as to why you can’t see the proof. It’s at home but their roommate has COVID-19 so it’ll have to wait, or they didn’t mean it’s at home right now but they can get their hands on it.
You find this strange and push your friend further. Backed into a corner, they say let’s meet tomorrow and in the meantime, they’ll get the evidence verified just in case. It’s weird and suspicious but you need to get to the bottom of this so you agree.
Professionals vet the proof and all it amounts to is pictures of your partner with someone else having lunch; it’s actually her gay friend Tommy who thinks you’re a good guy and is playfully pressing you to propose.
What would you do? Would you dump your partner? Or would you tell your friend off and let them know that they’ve seriously damaged your trust?
Right now you’re wondering how any of this relates to Hunter Biden and the laptop that allegedly contains damning evidence proving Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. Well, the story I just told you is similar to what happened with the laptop but the Hunter Biden story is even wilder and more convoluted.
I told you the story because I believe we should put ourselves into other’s shoes instead of simply judging someone based on what others with biases and ideologies have said.
This story alone would make you question whether you should continue your friendship with your shit disturbing friend, right? If not, you need to see someone professionally and speak honestly about why you choose to believe anything without actual evidence. You need to explore why your mind is willing to be so easily manipulated.
Now, just imagine if it was as convoluted as this …
Back in the News
Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop has re-entered the spotlight, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s candid remarks on The Joe Rogan Experience. Zuckerberg revealed that the FBI had warned him of an impending story they believed might be a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at meddling in the election. Sounds damning, doesn’t it? Well, only if you’re someone who thinks “context” is just the name of a new energy drink … like Joe Rogan.
Once upon a time, I was an avid fan of Rogan’s podcast. But let’s face it: he refused to listen to Public Enemy, believed the hype, and now he’ll parrot a mall tarot card reader if it fits his world view.
When you’ve got an audience the size of a small country, doing any research before amplifying a narrative should be mandatory. Instead, we get Joe, fervently fixated on this laptop saga while sidestepping pesky things like context, nuance, proof, pattern, or any other substantive approach to truth.
Case in point: Rogan brought on a reporter who claimed he was fired for pursuing the laptop story. Cue the outrage, wide eyed look on Rogan’s face, and MAGA pitchforks. However, the reality is, of course, far less nefarious — his employer stated they let him go because the story failed to meet journalistic standards, and he reportedly wouldn’t let it go. Ex-colleagues described him as, let’s say, less “Woodward and Bernstein” and more “Guy in a Tin Foil Hat.”
Yet here’s Joe, armed with his 130 million subscribers, devoting six of his last eight episodes to ruminations on this laptop, insisting it’s a “smoking gun.” He confidently declares the story “proven” and the evidence “real.” Spoiler alert: the situation is vastly more complex and unresolved.
And what happens when the most influential podcaster on the planet spins tales of political intrigue? His listeners assume the worst. The power of a microphone, eh?
This article is an exercise in proper research. You will see that the laptop story appears to be nothing more than a vicious election tactic by the party that pretends the other guys are always responsible for vicious election tactics.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Questions to Ask
To get to the root of any controversial story you need to ask questions, and the answers must be backed up by proof or at the very least, pattern. You can’t simply read an article and accept it as truth. So, here are the questions I decided to ask about this story.
- Who is Hunter Biden?
- What was allegedly on the laptop and who discovered it?
- Who said the content proved Biden family corruption?
- Are there any weird plot twists that suggest convolution?
- Why did the FBI tell media and social media outlets that the story was likely false?
- If the laptop was secured by Trump’s team weeks before the election, why was the damning evidence not made public?
- Did Hunter do anything legally or morally wrong?
- Was this story handled properly?
- And of course, is there anything to this story?
Who is Hunter Biden?
Hunter Biden is the son of current POTUS and former Veep, Joe Biden. He is President Biden’s last surviving child. Hunter’s brother [Beau] died from cancer and his sister was killed along with his mother in a car accident when he was quite young. He too was in the car but survived.
Haunted by the accident, Hunter has made some terrible choices. He’s been linked to hard drug use and prostitutes. The guy is a mess. There is a no doubt about it. It’s hard enough for addicts to function and get clean, never mind having your every move on public display. Joe Biden has been a high ranking official for much longer than I’ve been alive and their tragic family story has become fodder for many Americans.
In a nutshell, Hunter is the guy that did not handle things well; he spiralled. I think we all know someone who just can’t get their shit together but yet somehow they’re extremely high functioning in a couple of areas. I know several people like this and while it is sad, they have to want to get better and stay that way.
Basically, he’s made himself an easy target because many misunderstand addiction and trauma. The number of people that think doing drugs, paying for sex, and stewing in your trauma makes you a terrible person is staggering. While everyone should be held accountable for their actions, sometimes we need to also understand the root causes before we make a decision about their overall character.
I’m not making excuses for him; just stating reasons why some people fall off. In general, I don’t like his face or his attitude. He comes off as a total creeper.
What Was Allegedly About the Laptop and Who Discovered It?
The story of the laptop goes like this. Hunter Biden walks into a computer repair store stoned out of his mind with 3 damaged lap tops. He gives the blind shop keeper, John Paul Mac Issac, the lap tops and asks him to try and fix them.
Hunter doesn’t return so John decides to snoop. Yes, the guy decides that it’s a good idea for him to go through someone’s personal computer that has been left in his care instead of just setting it aside like every other shop. Red flag #1. Now, there was a stipulation in the agreement that if the laptop was abandoned, it became the shopkeeper’s property, but there are a couple of problems with this narrative. First, the subjectivity of “abandoned”. Second, the shopkeeper has said that Hunter wasn’t in his right mind, voiding any agreement.
While snooping, he allegedly finds all kinds of evidence on 1 of the 3 lap tops (the other 2 had too much water damage to repair) that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden had a master scam to defraud a China and Ukrainian based company. He also claims there were matters of national security on an external hard drive (HDD) as well as now famous pictures of Hunter with a crack pipe in his mouth and sex with a woman.
This is probably a good time to mention that we should stop shaming people for having sex, even the freaky kind. We all have different varieties of sex and it’s kinda pathetic that we use it as a weapon.
John decides that after finding this smoking gun, it’s time to contact the authorities. The FBI picks up the laptop and external HDD. They also interview John who is a Trump supporter. Red flag #2. John does allege that the FBI threatened him in his store. Too bad this guy runs a Mac store with no cameras … like no computer store in the 21st century. Red flag #3.
After the FBI takes possession of the laptop and HDD, they go through it but don’t find much. They report back to John that they can’t find the evidence that he suggested they would find. John gets the lap top and HDD back and starts making calls. He allegedly reads excerpts to people.
You notice how the FBI is always suppressing info according to the MAGA people? They must be the most corrupt agency on earth, even though they basically tanked Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming POTUS and have investigated more Dems than Reds but I digress. Red flag #4.
Who said the Content Proved Corruption?
Well, first there was John. After he was “alarmed” at the lack of action by the FBI he handed the contents of the laptop (backup?) over to the man, the myth, the mess, Rudy Giuliani and other MAGA supporters. Red flag #5!
Rudy tells the world that they have this laptop and they’re going to release the contents that prove Hunter Biden and Joe Biden used the office of the Vice President to corrupt ends. Oh … and apparently he verified the contents.
Several other Trump supporters say the same thing so now the MAGA community is parroting the information.
And here’s where it gets weird …
Weird Plot Twists
So we have a blind shop keeper with no cameras in or around his shop who allegedly gets a laptop from Hunter Biden that proves his dad is corrupt. The shop keeper is a Trump supporter and a devout MAGA member. I would like to know how he discovered the contents. I’m not shaming his disability; I’m genuinely curious as to how that all went down.
But that’s just the beginning.
You might be asking, what did Hunter Biden say about going to the laptop repair shop? Did he admit it? I mean, if he’s trying to cover something up he probably said that he wasn’t there right? Nope. Dude was honest and said that he isn’t sure because he was so high around that time for weeks on end that he just doesn’t know. Red flag #6.
If you’ve ever had a friend that’s an addict, you know they wake up oblivious often and they’re sketchy af with details at the best of times. Lies are their motto.
Now, Rudy and Trump apparently have this content with irrefutable proof right before the election so they release the damning evidence, right? WRONG! They release nothing. They say they’ll wait until the election is over. Does that sound at all like Donald Trump? Restraint, not wanting to play dirty, and not taking any chance he can to take down an opponent? In fact, I challenge you all to find one example of Trump or Trump era Rudy having restraint. Go for it. Red flag #7.
Then we have media outlets (including FOX) clamouring to verify the contents but they are denied constantly by Trump’s people. Red flag #8.
Eventually, reputable outlets like The Washington Post and bipartisan organizations such as the Brookings Institution — described as “bipartisan” and somehow “aligned with all sides” (an amusing contradiction) — gain access to the laptop and hard drive, only to uncover… well, nothing particularly compelling. In fact, they find that the lap top has been greatly altered around the date they received access and Trump’s people say that the evidence was there but they accidentally deleted it. WHAT? Hold up!
So, you’ve got the smoking gun to take down your political opponent and you tamper with the evidence and claim that you accidentally deleted the good stuff? Yeeeeaaaah. That sounds like a real possibility. Red flag #9.
In fact, aside from the pictures of Hunter naked, the only real “evidence” left on the laptop was an email between Hunter and a Chinese company saying they were holding 10% of shares for the big guy. Of course, the assumption by MAGA is that the big guy is Joe Biden, but there is zero proof of that. And, if you look at that company today, it went nowhere and Joe Biden never had interest in it at all. Red flag #10.
So far, no real evidence; just conjecture and hearsay.
Either Trump’s people are too incompetent to be in positions of power or they’re liars because the first thing you do when you have proof of a crime is you back it up, you take pictures, you log it, you send it to people … you make sure that there is no way you lose the content. That’s what anyone would do, but not the Trumpette inner-circle.
The most remarkable trait of ardent MAGA supporters is their unwavering loyalty, even as Trump and his inner circle repeatedly display a masterclass in incompetence, egotism, and hypocrisy. Yet, the enthusiasm persists, undeterred and seemingly unshakable.
Why the FBI Alerted Media This Story Could Be False
The laptop was discovered approximately 8 weeks before the 2020 election. The person who found the laptop reported it to the authorities and they “did very little to investigate it” but knew it was going to turn into something based on the weird circumstances around the entire story.
So why tell media the story was likely fake?
In the 2016 election Russian trolls duped the world many times over with fake stories about Presidential candidates and the circumstances around this story were suspicious so they were erring on the side of caution in 2020. What else were they supposed to do?
Of course, the MAGA folks would have you believe the story was suppressed because the Democrats were scared Trump would win a second term “if the truth came out”. Reminder: they said they had the truth but didn’t want to release it.
But that’s just a case of bleaching history. By the time the story started to pop up early voting indicators and advanced polling showed that Democrats had a sizeable lead. Remember, Trumpettes do exactly as their oddly orange hero tells them, and he told them not to vote with advance ballots.
Joe Biden and the Democrats weren’t scared; they were poised for victory. They were also aware that the alleged evidence was fake news so why would they ever be scared?
Red flag #11.
If the Laptop Was Secured by Trump’s Team Weeks Before the Election, Why Was the Damning Evidence Not Made Public?
No one MAGAt in the MAGA camp has come forward to give a reason as to why they sat on the evidence so we can only speculate. The problem with this particular matter is that no one, not even the experts, can come up with a valid reason.
It’s simply out of character for Trump and his people to have restraint on something like this. No one can find a single example of them having restraint in the past.
It’s also Trump’s stance in business and politics that if you can then you absolutely should stomp the fuck out of your opponent.
So why didn’t Trump’s camp release the damning contents that would prove Joe Biden is corrupt and as a result send him to prison, guaranteeing a second term? There’s only one reason I can think of … the proof never existed and MAGA just jumped the gun without verifying what the shop keeper was saying. After all, the Trump administration wasn’t exactly known for organization, vetting, caution, restraint, or any real logic and reason of any kind.
But they wouldn’t be this stupid right? Oh no. It’s not like they said the 2020 election was stolen with zero proof. They definitely locked up Hillary. They for sure held Obama accountable for his “crimes against humanity”. Give me a moment, my eyes rolled so far into the back of my head I can’t see anymore.
Red flags #12, #13, #14.
Did Hunter do Anything Legally or Morally Wrong?
I guess that depends on what you consider morally wrong. As far as I can tell from all reporting, Hunter Biden’s most heinous of acts involved trading on his father’s name. In fact, it’s his willingness to do so that likely made him as messy as he is. The guy has known his entire life he can act a fool and get away with it because daddy will save him (edit 2024: except when Joe has to compromise his office).
Ask yourself: if you could trade on a parent’s name to get ahead in the world, would you? The answer is yes. We trade on everything we can to get ahead in this world because the trite expression is true, “it’s not what you know, it’s who”.
But, I’m sure there are some people who live by a stricter moral code than the majority so you can say Hunter Biden is immoral. He does drugs, sleeps with prostitutes and trades on Joe Biden’s name. Morals are subjective and a lack of morals isn’t a crime. If it were, pretty sure we’d have no politicians.
I don’t have a last name I can trade on but I wish I did. I’ve seen a last name of prominence in action and it really changes the way people treat you. So, is it Hunter’s bad for using the advantage or is it the mass public’s bad for perpetrating it?
I run a small business in Canada and I’ve held job interviews where people bring up others that we have in common to win favours. In some cases it does establish trust, in others, it’s off-putting. It really depends on the person.
Personally, I find Hunter Biden very off-putting but that doesn’t mean this story is real. We have to be able to separate our feelings from our reasoning.
Look, there is no question that Hunter Biden’s education combined with his family name got him jobs and favours.
The ironic part of this story is that the Trump family has been calling Hunter out for this. The Trumps! Has there been a family that exemplifies nepotism more astutely than them? Donald hired his kids and other family to work in his White House despite zero qualifications or established skills. When Jared Kushner (his son-in-law) was done working for his father in-law at The White House, his firm received $2 billion in Saudi investment from people he met while working at the White House. This is all a matter of public record.
Glasshouses and stones, MAGA.
Was this Story Handled Properly?
Yes and no. On the heels of an election where Russia and China planted fake stories to sway results, the FBI, media, and social media platforms definitely had reason to question this really odd series of events.
Should they have suppressed the story? No. They should have put a disclaimer on the story saying that it was unsubstantiated with no real proof. Obviously that’s the move in hindsight but lest not forget that the political climate was a powder keg at best. *cough* January 6.
Conclusion
There is no real evidence that this is true. There’s also no real evidence it’s not. If the Republicans win in 2022 they’ll likely launch investigations and I guess we’ll see if the public records I went through to write this story were missing anything. (edit 2024: hearings were held and the burden of proof was not met) But the fact that Trump’s people had the laptop, said the contents were damning, and didn’t release the information prior to the 2020 election is probably a good indicator that this is all a giant waste of time.
I mean, c’mon … if we see 2 or 3 red flags on a Tinder profile we swipe left! But for a news story with serious implications for the future of the most powerful country in the world … over a dozen red flags is a-ok?
I believe that the Biden’s have traded on their name to make money and advance in the world but I don’t believe there was anything on that laptop that proves a crime was committed. We’d know by now.
Think about it; we know everything about everyone! You can’t hide information this damning, especially in the hands of those that would want to expose it.
And that’s where we’re at today. The FBI can find properly catalogued evidence of crimes in Trump’s home and the MAGA people don’t believe any of it. But, say that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden are committing crimes with zero proof and they’ll die on that hill.
To quote Trump, “sad”.
Now, to close this out I’d just like to say that I hope Hunter Biden gets the help he needs for his addiction and demons, and if you’re an addict I hope you get help too. Start here, talk to someone, and do something to help yourself before it’s too late.
