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The New York Post has a big story. Very big.
Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad
By Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.
The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads
An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.
The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer.
But the story of what is happening to that story is even bigger. The Daily Mail reports,
Outrage as Facebook AND Twitter throttle story about Joe Biden meeting son’s Ukraine partners until it’s been vetted by its third party so-called ‘fact-checkers’.
The Mail article describes how Sohrab Ahmari, an editor at the New York Post, tried to tweet about his paper’s story, and got this message:
Tweet not sent
Your Tweet couldn’t be sent because the link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more.
And Andy Stone, policy communications director at Facebook, has announced:
While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want to be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.
Edit: Not knowing much about social media myself, I have two questions for readers. (1) What can people do to spread the New York Post‘s report about Joe Biden’s lies regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the Ukraine? (2) What can people do to spread the even more important news that Facebook and Twitter are censoring this story?
Update: Via Instapundit, I learn that Sohrab Ahmari’s twitter account has been suspended. They are silencing the opinion editors of major newspapers.
Two years ago the worldwide media furore over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court was at its height. Every second story in the British press seemed to be about Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. Some may find it difficult to cast their minds back to the fevered atmosphere of that time. In these enlightened days of 2020 we rest secure in the knowledge that American politicians of all sides respect the principle of the presumption of innocence, which is why a TV report about Tara Reade’s accusation of sexual assault against Joe Biden is only being shown in Australia.
The Times of London is the Times. It has been the voice of the British establishment for over two centuries. It is seen by many, including itself, as the standard bearer for serious journalism on serious issues for serious people. I have been a Times subscriber for many years, as my parents were before me. At several points over that time my faith in the paper wavered, but never enough to make me switch to another paper. Which one would be better? The Guardian? The Telegraph? The Daily Mail? So ingrained is my own habit of regarding the Times as at bottom a responsible newspaper that I had to spend some time checking that its coverage of the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh really was as bad as I remembered.
→ Continue reading: I thought they were better than this: recollections of how the London Times covered Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination
On the 21st September, to my surprise, the New York Times carried this report by Nellie Bowles: “Some Protests Against Police Brutality Take a More Confrontational Approach”.
Both the writer of the headline and Ms Bowles herself in the article made some attempt to keep the dam plugged with the euphemistic reference to “a more confrontational approach”. But the facts themselves are reported honestly enough:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Terrance Moses was watching protesters against police brutality march down his quiet residential street one recent evening when some in the group of a few hundred suddenly stopped and started yelling.
Mr. Moses was initially not sure what the protesters were upset about, but as he got closer, he saw it: His neighbors had an American flag on display.
“It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, ‘How dare you fly the American flag?’” said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. “They said take it down. They wouldn’t leave. They said they’re going to come back and burn the house down.”
[…]
Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational — and personal — approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come “out of your house and into the street” and demonstrate their support.
These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests.
[…]
The American flag that generated controversy is displayed in Kenton, a neighborhood of Portland with small bungalows, lush front gardens and ripe fruit trees. Weeks after the confrontation, the husband and wife who fly the flag said they were fearful of retaliation from the roving protesters, who had found their phone number.
But they say they will not be intimidated into removing the flag.
I think that couple are wise as well as brave. Submission did not help this man:
But around 9:30, the group [“an autonomously organized direct action march” listed on the Black Lives Matter Portland Events page] was in some organizational chaos. They had decided that the neighborhood close by was too racially diverse for them to protest in. They needed to go somewhere whiter.
So the protesters caravaned 20 minutes away to Alberta, a more affluent neighborhood that began being gentrified in the 1990s. They reassembled and marched through the streets.
Neighbors in impressive Craftsman-style homes pulled down their shades and turned off their lights, though many could be seen peering out of dark windows. One woman stepped out of an expansive home looking angry; upon seeing the crowd, she quickly retreated indoors. A few young couples stood in their doorways. A Black woman driving past honked and cheered.
One white man stepped onto his patio clapping and hollering in support of the passing march. The group called for him to join. He smiled and waved them on, still clapping. They began to chant that he was spineless. He looked worried. But the march moved along, and he went back into his house.
“You’ll never sleep tight, we do this every night,” the protesters chanted.
There are 992 comments. When I spoke of a dam breaking at the New York Times, I was referring as much to the comments as to the article itself. Here are the top seven “Reader Picks” from the NYT’s overwhelmingly liberal readership:
Juliana James
Portland, Oregon | Sept. 21
I have had enough of the arrogance, self righteousness and selfish attitude of these kind of do or die protesters, they’re bullies bullying good people. To say being nice does not work, neither does being a violent threatening bully. Grow up and use your civil voice as a citizen to work long term for change within organizations that do not advocate shaming or blaming marches such as yours. You are feeding FOX news and helping Trump win, admit that and you will actually have made some progress.
15 Replies 1247 Recommend
John Zotto
Ischia | Sept. 21
These same tactics were used in Germany during the 1930s and the communist in Russia after the revolution. You are never pure enough and any deviation from the party line means trouble.
6 Replies 937 Recommend
Isully
Bronx | Sept. 21
…and this is how Trump gets re-elected.
5 Replies 921 Recommend
Dave BX
Goshen NY | Sept. 21
I would have a hard time imagining a NY Times article bending over backwards as this article does to try to explain violent tactics and harassments if the subjects were right wing protesters. They would be excoriated and rightfully so.
These tactics are unjustifiable and cannot be tolerated and only serve to get more votes for Trump.
4 Replies 908 Recommend
C
NYC | Sept. 21
Threatening to come back and burn someone’s house down because they refuse to take an American flag down? And people wonder why people are buying firearms across the political spectrum?
2 Replies 881 Recommend
Jim
PA | Sept. 21
Force me to pick a side? Well heck that’s easy; I choose to oppose anyone who threatens me. So go ahead and threaten me, and watch me side with the people who don’t.
Lesson: Don’t make enemies of your allies.
1 Reply 838 Recommend
Balderdash
NW | Sept. 21
I subscribed to WSJ when reporting in this paper described the protests as peaceful despite what I could see with my own eyes. I sincerely recommend subscribing to both papers for some much needed perspective. I’m deeply confused by the phrase “mostly peaceful” when events routinely include projectiles and fireworks thrown at police.
20 Replies 585 Recommend
The biggest UK news overnight was this:
Birmingham stabbings: Manhunt as one killed and seven hurt.
That BBC report dates from last night when the man who had already randomly murdered Jacob Billington was still at large. It reads:
A knifeman who killed one man and wounded seven other people in a two-hour stabbing rampage across Birmingham city centre is being hunted by police.
The first stabbing was in Constitution Hill at 00:30 BST then the killer moved south, apparently attacking at random, officers said.
The stabbings did not appear terrorism related, gang related or connected to disorder, West Midlands Police said.
Murder inquiry detectives said they were hunting a single suspect.
The force urged anyone with CCTV or mobile footage to contact them.
One man died, another man and a woman suffered critical injuries and five other people were left with non-life-threatening injuries.
Ch Supt Steve Graham said the attacker went on to stab people in Livery Street, Irving Street and finally in Hurst Street, where the city’s Gay Village meets the Chinese Quarter, at about 02:20 BST.
Police said there was no evidence the stabbings were a hate crime.
I expect they were the non-hateful sort of stabbings. The BBC article continues,
Ch Supt Graham said officers – some armed – remained across the city centre to reassure people.
He added they had received a number of descriptions of the suspect but would not be releasing any details for the time being.
So while a man who had already killed one person and murderously attacked several other men and women was still on the streets looking for more victims, the police felt the need to issue a statement about his motives, about which they could not possibly know. They did not feel the need to tell the public what he looked like, which they did know, being in possession of multiple statements from the surviving victims and other witnesses, plus CCTV footage.
To be fair, anyone familiar with modern policing could deduce what the absence of a police description actually meant.
*
A related post from six years ago: Politically correct evasiveness fails on its own terms.
Sometimes I start to make a Samizdata post and then that silly business of Real Life gets in the way and the post is left to languish as a draft. And sometimes Real Life comes back months later and tells me I was right the first time: there was a story there worth talking about.
That is how I come to be posting about a Times report dating from early June on August 27th.
On June 10th 2020, the Times reported:
Royal Opera House under fire for ‘silence’ on Black Lives Matter protests
The Royal Opera House has been described as an “unrelentingly white organisation” by a senior employee who said he was “ashamed” of its silence over the death of George Floyd.
Mark Dakin, the organisation’s technical director, said it had paid “lip service to the inclusion and progression of a black and minority ethnic workforce”.
In an email which has been posted on the Royal Opera House intranet Mr Dakin said he had “only an exhausting, burning rage and desolate sadness that still nothing has changed . . . you continue to exclude us”.
He said that during the Black Lives Matter protests over the killing of Mr Floyd the Royal Opera House was “silent and chooses to not even show public solidarity”.
Mr Dakin, who joined in 2016 to run Covent Garden’s technical and production department after 20 years with the National Theatre, said that unlike other organisations the Royal Opera House had not sufficiently supported #blackouttuesday on June 2.
Mr Dakin, who grew up as an adopted child in Bristol with a white family, also claimed that the Royal Opera House had continually declined to publicly support Black History Month.
In an open letter posted on the website of Stage Sight Mr Dakin said he was “ashamed the organisation for which I work has chosen to exercise the privilege of staying publicly silent about the racist murder of the African American George Floyd, proactively choosing to ignore #blackouttuesday, as it always publicly ignores Black History Month.”
Mr Dakin’s “burning rage” at the Royal Opera House for the horrible crime of not participating in his favoured hashtag campaigns that were utterly unrelated to opera seemed almost comical in June. Less so in August.
America’s Woke Red Guards Enforcing Goodthink by Harassing D.C. Restaurants Patrons
That was from PJ Media. A little to my surprise even the Independent seemed to have cottoned on to the idea that a mob surrounding a random woman and berating her for not making a gesture of solidarity at their demand might be a bad look. Interestingly the woman in the pink top, Lauren B. Victor, is herself a supporter of BLM but was commendably resistant to being coerced.
Edit: The story about the harassment of the diners has been reported worldwide.
– Une foule agressive de manifestants BLM accostent des convives blancs à l’extérieur des restaurants de DC
– Los huéspedes del restaurante estaban rodeados de manifestantes enojados de Black Lives Matter: “Un regalo para Trump”
– „Heb deine Faust!“ – US-Aktivisten bedrängen Restaurantbesucherin
At the time of writing neither the BBC nor the Guardian had any mention of it.
Another edit: The Guardian is not merely declining to mention the Lauren Victor story, it is actively deleting mention of it by readers in comments to this opinion piece on the US election by Nathan Robinson. I assure you that my own two comments were polite and relevant but they were instantly deleted. I think I saw a couple of comments from other readers mentioning unsavoury behaviour by BLM supporters that, like my two, have now disappeared.
In 1960, he worked as an economist with the Labor Department. His task was to study the sugar industry in Puerto Rico, where the department enforced a minimum-wage law. Upon discovering that unemployment was rising with each increase in the minimum wage, Sowell wondered whether the law was causing the rise—as standard economic theory would predict. His coworkers had a different take: unemployment was rising because a hurricane had destroyed crops. Eventually, Sowell came up with a way to decide between the competing theories: “What we need,” he told his coworkers excitedly, “are statistics on the amount of sugarcane standing in the field before the hurricanes came through Puerto Rico.” He was met with a “stunned silence,” and his idea was dismissed out of hand. After all, administering the minimum-wage law “employed a significant fraction of all the people who worked there.”
This was not an isolated experience.
Coleman Hughes’ article on Sowell has much information that I knew and much that I didn’t. I’m unsurprised to learn that Sowell has even more admirers than I guessed …
[Stephen] Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and leading public intellectual, named Sowell the most underrated writer in history. [Kayne] West, for his part, tweeted out a handful of Sowell quotes to millions of followers in 2018.
… or that the woke whites who pretend they care about respect for blacks are the ones doing the underrating:
Like others with similar views on race, Sowell has encountered countless smears, though the usual avenues of attack—accusations of racism, privilege, and all the rest—have not been available. Someone should have told Aidan Byrne, who reviewed one of Sowell’s books for the London School of Economics blog. Doubtless convinced that he was delivering a devastating blow, Byrne quipped: “easy for a rich white man to say.”
Aidan’s review has been updated to remove that line (credit to ‘Blog Admin’ who properly notes its former presence at the end of the article).
The BBC reports,
Hydroxychloroquine being ‘discarded prematurely’, say scientists
The Oxford University-led trial is aiming to enrol 40,000 frontline workers around the world.
Investigators hope the large-scale, double-blind randomised study will show if early use of the treatment prevents the virus from getting worse.
“We know now that it doesn’t work in treatment of hospitalised patients,” says Prof Nick White, one of the study’s investigators.
“But it’s still is a medicine that may prove beneficial in preventing Covid-19.”
The UK medicines regulatory body MHRA halted hydroxychloroquine trials, following a now-discredited paper in The Lancet claiming it caused harms.
Trials resumed in late June but the investigators says these concerns over safety, and the drug’s politicisation, have made it difficult to get participants.
I know nothing about medicine and have no opinion as to whether Hydroxychloroquine is any use in treating the coronavirus or as a preventative. But I know enough about the history of science to be deeply frightened by this:
And social media companies have removed viral online posts by doctors who reject the scientific consensus, praising the drug’s effectiveness.
I am just glad to see that there are still scientists such as Professor White who keep an open mind and are willing to go on the record as saying that the politicisation of Hydroxychloroquine may have cost lives. In fact there is no “may” about it: whether Trump is wrong or right on this occasion, the politicisation of science always costs lives. The politicisation of science is the cessation of science.
“….the Americanisation of culture wars deserves resistance in itself. It homogenises national priorities, obscuring cultural and political differences, to such a ludicrous extent that British people end up arguing about police violence in a year when, yet again, it was revealed that the police had sat back and done next to nothing as a gang of men had groomed and raped young girls in Britain. Police brutality and overzealousness might be a particular problem in a Midwestern US state, while not being a priority in a northern English county; the globalisation of politics obscures local conditions.”
“It also distorts our understanding of the world, limiting our awareness of international affairs to those which are the focus of the narrow spectrum of social media trends. Whether you are a progressive or a conservative, you should be so in the terms of your national circumstances, and with broader frames of references than those which have been provided by social media monopolies.”
– Ben Sixsmith
It shouldn’t affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.
The well-written open letter from the professor with no (safe to add) name has (of course) been cancel-cultured from where it was first put, but I you can read the whole thing here (and I recommend you do). It is also on pastebin, and another link to the text is here.
(I wrote this as a Samizdata quote of the day – h/t instapundit – but decided the title needed to tell you something not in the bit I quoted. Read the whole thing.)
Given the irrational and potentially violent, dangerous, and lethal behaviour of an Excited Delirium Syndrome subject, any law enforcement officer interaction with a person in this situation risks significant injury or death to either the officer or the subject who has a potentially lethal medical syndrome. This already challenging situation has the potential for intense public scrutiny coupled with the expectation of a perfect outcome. Anything less creates a situation of potential public outrage. Unfortunately, this dangerous medical situation makes perfect outcomes difficult in many circumstances.
– White Paper Report on Excited Delirium Syndrome, issued by the American College of Emergency Physicians, September 10th 2009
Ya think?!
When we get to see the bodycam videos of the police officers, we’ll know whether George Floyd had Excited Delirium Syndrome. Had the officers switched off their cams beforehand, that absence (like Hillary Clinton’s missing emails) would speak volumes. If the cams show a calm Mr Floyd ready to be put in a police car, then the officers’ defence of excited delirium will be tossed with contempt. As we’ve heard nothing about the cams from the media, they may not support the narrative.
– in the video we have been allowed to see, a panicking Mr Floyd says he can’t breathe – showing that he can breathe but it’s not doing him much good. Despite his being able to breathe, and so speak, his organs are begging for oxygen they’re increasingly not getting. That fits final-stage Excited Delirium Syndrome.
– His autopsy showed fentanyl and methamphetamine. That drug cocktail is good for giving yourself Excited Delirium Syndrome, especially when it is far from your first time.
I hope we get to find out at the trial, if not before. Till then, if anyone tries to make you swallow the media’s narrative whole, add a pinch of salt.
Meanwhile, this grim subject at least raises a grimly amusing question: are the politically correct experiencing a kind of excited delirium syndrome? Some common symptoms are very much present, especially in the rioters:
remorse… and understanding of surroundings … are absent in such subjects. … subjects are known to be irrational, often violent … delirium and agitation … destructive or bizarre behavior generating calls to police … ongoing struggle despite futility … Subjects are incoherent and combative … delusional, paranoid
Not yet observed in the rioters (AFAIK) are
unusual physical strength and stamina
nor
Impervious to pain
(unless it’s the pain of others), and I don’t think we’ve yet had a chance to observe whether the rioters would show
Significant resistance to physical restraint
or an absence of “normal fear and … rational thoughts for safety”, as there has not been much physical restraint, let alone cause for the rioters to feel afraid. Since we are clearly in the early “sudden onset” stage of “violence and hyperactivity”, it is no surprise we have not yet seen any symptoms from the syndrome’s late stage:
“sudden cessation of struggle, respiratory arrest and death.” (The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2010)
If we make the diagnosis, how should we treat excited delirium in the politically correct?
the specific physical control methods employed should optimally minimize the time spent struggling, while safely achieving physical control. The use of multiple personnel with training in safe physical control measures is encouraged. … research is needed to establish field protocols and techniques that allow police, emergency medical services and hospital personnel to interact with these agitated, aggressive patients in a manner safe both for the patients and the providers.
I share the writers’ desire for safety all round, but while this research on how to achieve it proceeds, I refer readers to the top-of-post quote: these perfect outcomes are ‘difficult’ – and these US physicians seem to have perfected the art of English understatement. (I assume this belief – that achieving swift safe control is essential, to end the subject’s wild agitated activity that is speeding his own death – is part of why the elected Minneapolis authorities teach their police to use knee-to-neck-hold as department policy.)
A less technical summary seems to be saying the same thing.
Deescalation does not have a high likelihood of changing outcomes significantly …
The subjects require physical restraint (this is because if they continue to struggle it accelerates the death) …
Once the decision to do this has been made, action needs to be swift and efficient …
I feel sure this is the treatment the rioters need. Whether it would have been (or indeed was) also the right (albeit, sadly, too late) treatment for Mr Floyd is something the bodycam videos will tell us.
—-
(In the above quotes, I have expanded ‘ExDS’ to ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’, ‘LEO’ to ‘law enforcement officer’ or just ‘officer’, and ‘EMS’ to ’emergency medical services’, for ease of reading.)
“China proposes controversial Hong Kong security law”, reports the BBC:
China is proposing to introduce a new security law in Hong Kong that could ban sedition, secession and subversion.
And:
Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which provides the territory certain freedoms not available on the mainland, does require its government to bring in a security law. It had tried to enact the so-called “sedition law” in 2003 but more than 500,000 people took to the streets and it was dropped.
I would have welcomed more information on this mysterious clause in the Basic Law that requires Hong Kong’s government “to bring in a security law”. On what timescale? Who is the judge as to whether a security law does or does not meet this mysterious requirement? Oh yes, and SECURITY FROM WHAT?
But that paragraph was a model of robust independent reporting compared to this one:
A mainland source told the South China Morning Post that Beijing had decided Hong Kong would not be able to pass its own security law and the NPC would have to take the responsibility.
That makes it sound as if Hong Kong’s parliamentarians were not clever enough to pass this law, or that they were dodging the “responsibility” of passing it the way a negligent father might dodge his maintenance payments. To be charitable, these are the words of a “mainland source”, that is, a man whose tongue is operated from a distance by a controller with a joystick, but why does the British Broadcasting Corporation let pass without challenge the Orwellian language of the Chinese Communist Party? We do not have to do that. We are not in the EU any more.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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