We have previously discussed the view of Michigan Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade on free speech. We have strikingly different views on free speech. McQuade just published “Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America” and calls free speech our “Achilles heel.” My book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, is out in the coming days with a more robust view of free speech.
McQuade’s call to limit free speech is justified as needed to combat disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. Yet, McQuade just went public with a full-throated defense of what the U.S. government now calls a “conspiracy theory.” She maintains that the Hunter Biden laptop should still be discounted or dismissed as Russian disinformation.
Notably, after the authentication of the computer in federal court, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, filed a motion on withdraw the lawsuit against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in which claimed that the laptop contained manipulated data.
In her comments, Professor McQuade joins the Post’s Philip Bump as one of the last dogs in this fight. Most media figures have long accepted the view of the U.S. government that the Hunter Biden laptop is “real” and authenticated.
I have previously disagreed with Professor McQuade on issues such as her belief that former president Donald Trump could be charged with manslaughter over the January 6th riot. Yet, those disagreements represent materially different understandings of the operative legal standards. Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe went even further in arguing that Trump could be charged with attempted murder. Academics can disagree on such matters and free speech allows us to hash out our differences.
However, I was still surprised by the effort to resurrect the Russian disinformation claim. Professor McQuade noted that the agent at the Biden trial could not say with certainty that nothing was changed to the laptop before it was obtained by agents from the computer shop. However, FBI agent Erika Jensen said that there was no evidence tampering.
That space, however, was big enough to drive a conspiracy theory through on X:
As noted by @emptywheel, however, questions remain about the chain of custody of the laptop, and [FBI] Agent [Erika] Jensen testified that she was unable to say whether the laptop was tampered with before the FBI obtained it.
And, as @AshaRangappa has noted, even if the content was authentic, it still may have been a Russian influence operation, just like the DNC hack-and-leak operation, designed to sow discord. If so, mission accomplished! […] Therefore, it remains unknown whether Russia was involved with the scheme, and it is still correct to say that the laptop has “all of the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”
Under this theory, any negative stories found in documents or electronic sources can have “the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation” in any given election. That same skepticism, of course, did not apply to the Steele dossier, which was secretly funded by the Clinton campaign and found by U.S. intelligence as containing possible Russian disinformation.
It is a variation on proving a negative. McQuade and others appear to be arguing that you must prove that there was no Russian involvement before giving weight to the damaging contents of the laptop.
Of course, there still has been no showing of any fake file or email. To the contrary, the most damaging emails on influence peddling and other potential criminal conduct have been verified. Yet, McQuade is repeating the claim that “even if the content was authentic, it still may have been a Russian influence operation.” There is also the more obvious explanation that Hunter abandoned his laptop at a computer shop and it was given to the FBI.
What is striking is how advocates are now abandoning the claims of false emails and files in favor of an argument that it may be true but still disinformation. This is consistent with the positions of many academics and the Biden Administration. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains this position.
CISA head Jen Easterly declared that her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure would be extended to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes not just “disinformation” and “misinformation,”
but combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
The chain of custody argument continues to be used in Congress despite the federal court and federal agencies recognizing the authenticity of the laptop. The Delaware jury also did not appear persuaded by the claims of Hunter Biden’s defense counsel. It is, in my view, transparently evasive. The issue remains the files on the laptop detailing a massive influence peddling operation and a myriad of criminal acts committed by the President’s son. None of those files have been challenged by evidence of tampering or planting.
Ironically, the continued effort to keep this theory alive seems precisely the type of disinformation that Professor McQuade has cited in justifying limits on free speech.
There are obviously many media and academic figures who are heavily invested in what the government now calls a “conspiracy theory.” I previously discussed how the Bidens have succeeded in a Houdini-like trick in making this elephant of a scandal disappear from the public stage. They did so by enlisting the media in the illusion. Houdini knew the trick would work because the audience wanted the elephant to disappear.
There was a time when I enjoyed listening to Barbara M’s thoughts on various questions of the day, mostly pre -2020 election.
Not so any longer —-
I believe this site to be Turleys experimentation as to the limits of an open public forum for discussion and opinion. The experiment is to flood the conversations with abject stupidity and vulgarity under various anonymity and observe the results on any other that would desire to express themselves. The results will show that normalcy will surrender to the absurd an seek elsewhere to find a more stable forum for dissenting opinions.
Doubling down? Is that all? What an amateur.
There are people here like George who octuple down
on a daily basis, despite constantly being proven wrong.
By the way, thats ^^^^not me Svelaz-George
The Anatomy of Denial and Deception
Those empty liquor bottles/that laptop are not mine.
Okay, some are mine. But the others were planted or doctored.
Okay, okay. They’re all mine and they’re all real. But it doesn’t matter.
Toddler or Doddler?
See below as turdrunner, brain dead Biden apologist extraordinaire once again implores us to not believe our lying eyes.
He explains that Joe wasnt wandering off looking for the ice cream truck, its just that he has the attention span of 4 year old. He was instead giving the thumbs up to a nearby parachuter, again, like a 4 year old. He looks so happy to be there with these amazing flying people. Just like a 4 year old. Then the italian pm redirects him back to what they were there for. Just like a 4 year old.
You see, we need context when we see our president looking and acting like 4 year old.
It then takes Biden 8 seconds to put on his sun glasses. Like a senile, motor skill limited, 81 year old doddler.
New York Post Promotes Misleading Video Of Biden
Conservative media outlets selectively used a camera angle that left out important context to spread a claim Thursday and Friday that President Joe Biden wandered off from a meeting of world leaders, but the full video at another angle captured by NBC News tells a different story.
Instead of wandering off, Biden was walking toward a group of parachutists who had just landed in an Italian clearing and gave them two thumbs up.
The New York Post, controlled by the conservative Murdoch family, posted a video Thursday that appeared to be taken with a phone in the vertical position, meaning that it showed little of what was happening on either side of Biden. The video shows Biden walking about seven steps away from the other leaders, seemingly with no destination, and giving at least one thump up to whatever was off-camera. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni follows him, touches his arm and directs Biden’s attention in the opposite direction.
The New York Post, in text superimposed on the video, said that Biden “appears to wander off” and “has to be pulled back.” Its post on X got 4.2 million videos, according to X’s tally Friday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/biden-g7-video-conservative-media-uses-misleading-camera-angle-rcna157112
……………………………………………
This story helps clarify why mainstream media wanted nothing to do with the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Yea, no it doesnt.
We all saw the video douchebag. we all saw his goofy thumbs up to the paratrooper. So what? Who else in that group wandered off from the group? No one. Who else had to be corralled back to the group?? No one. Who else tried to sit before it was time in Normandy, and needed their wife/caretaker to tell them not to. Who else takes 8 seconds to put on their sunglasses as biden did in that wandering video? No one. Who else stares into space for 30 seconds with some shit eating grin on their face, while everyone around them is dancing and clapping?
You act like these are some sort of candid moments. Is Joe Biden the only person on the planet who doesnt know that cameras are ALL OVER HIM???
The fact that he doesnt go out of his was to appear “with it” shows his decline. Is he unaware of his goofy ass salutes to no one or to his own family or to the italian pm? Is he unaware that his hands are always out in front of him like he has rigor mortis? Is he TRYING to look and act senile?
Get a grip, turdrunner. This is why no one trusts nbc news.
Toddler or Doddler?
See below as turdrunner, brain dead Biden apologist extraordinaire once again implores us to not believe our lying eyes.
He explains that Joe wasnt wandering off looking for the ice cream truck, its just that he has the attention span of 4 year old. He was instead giving the thumbs up to a nearby parachuter, again, like a 4 year old. He looks so happy to be there with these amazing flying people. Just like a 4 year old. Then the italian pm redirects him back to what they were there for. Just like a 4 year old.
You see, we need context when we see our president looking and acting like 4 year old.
It then takes Biden 8 seconds to put on his sun glasses. Like a senile, motor skill limited, 81 year old doddler.
Yes, I saw the full video, and there was deception for sure, you are likely correct about that.
However, as I watched the full video, I couldn’t help but notice how aloof, disconnected, and delayed his behavior was. These dementia signs are so obvious, and so sad to see his decline. I was reminded of the cab driver I met in Greece, who when he found out I was from the US, asked what is wrong with your president, and why is he still working. He liked Biden, but he just couldn’t believe everyone pretended that he was functionally OK.
I don’t see how you connect the laptop to this. You are grasping at straws, as that evidence is expansive, irrefutable, and corroborated in so many ways. Also, I’ve not seen any arguments that prove/show it’s incorrect, phony, or manufactured.
Prof. McQuade appears to be claiming the mantle of Frankfurt School NeoMarxist Herbert Marcuse, the architect of leftist PC censorship as outlined in his 1965-1969 text ‘Repressive Tolerance’ . The radical left seeks to censor any speech it deems politically incorrect, i.e. which fails to toe the NeoMarxist party line. Worked great in Soviet Russia!! This tendency actually hearkens back to the aristocracy-promoting Plato (who hated democracy for having condemned his beloved Socrates to death), whose argument for the rule of Philosopher Kings has been translated into rule by the Frankfurt School NeoMarxist self-anointed ‘Philosopher Kings’.
Jurgen Habermas represents a second generation of the Frankfurt School intellectuals who in fact rejected this philosophical stance of censorship and repression of ‘politically incorrect’ speech, in favor of his doctrine of ‘communicative rationality’, i.e the free and open debate of ideas (what a novel idea!!). Now if only the rest of the benighted NeoMarxist class would take up his banner of free speech, and finally throw this most distasteful and anti-intellectual politically incorrect censorship on the ash heap of history, which is surely its inevitable, and just, final resting place.