2016, 2020 and This Moment

The story that the New York Post published last week about Hunter Biden raised all ...

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The story that the New York Post published last week about Hunter Biden raised all sorts of red flags for veteran journalists. How did they come into possession of the information in the first place? How did they authenticate the story before publishing it? All things considered, the available reporting process indicates that the New York Post’s story was so shaky within the Post’s own staff that the person who wrote it didn’t want his name on the byline. “That doesn’t say that the information is false,” David concedes on today’s episode, “But what it says is that the procedures to vet the information before they put the information into the public square were inadequate.” Tune in to hear our podcast hosts discuss voter enthusiasm, liberal anxiety over a 2016 repeat, and what to expect from Thursday’s presidential debate.

Show Notes:

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  1. Kyle C

    Sarah could go as the blacksmith from the mandalorian

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    Rajeev

    Klaatu barada nikto

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  3. Eryk

    It seems like Sarah knows a great deal about how polls are conducted and has spoken with the people who conduct these polls. So I'm not going to dispute her and I trust that she's much smarter than me in that regard.

    But has she or anyone on this podcast addressed the primary model who predicted that Trump will win in a landslide? The primary model uses actual data from actual voters. This is unlike polling data which is unreliable and has done things like mispredicted Michigan by 12 points in 2016 (well outside the margin of error). I've only been listening to this podcast for a couple months. Plus its possible that I got distracted and missed it. Has she addressed the Primary model at all?

    Sarah is right, if pollsters get 2020 wrong again, the polling industry is in trouble.

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    1. Eryk

      I bring this up because she or someone else on this podcast said that every Trump supporter is sure that Trump will win in a landslide. Often when they are challenged on this point, they bring up the Primary Model. So I'm sure she's aware of it...

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        Angie

        Hi Eryk

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        1. Eryk

          Hi Angie!

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  4. Jackson

    For what it's worth... it's NecroNOMicon, not NecroMONicon :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon

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    Will

    The shownotes should include Goldberg Family Zombie photos.

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  6. Joe1776

    This is why I can't follow politics for long without being disgusted.

    Biden shouldn't talk about the emails because it would hurt him politically. Well the only reason it will hurt him politically is because he wasn't honest about his connection with Hunter earlier. He said he had no discussions at all with Hunter or any of hunter's business dealings. If that is true he can at the very least repeat that and say:

    1) The picture with him, his son and the oligarch is a fabrication.
    2) Anything suggestion he met with foreigners outside his official schedule, knowing that his son did business with them is false.
    3)Any suggestion that he was paid or received any money from his son is false.


    But we should have much more information than that if our press did its job during the years he was vp. But the press is in his party's back pocket so no one ever pushed him on this.

    That all this is happening now is the same reason the october surprise for Hillary was a problem. They both tried to cover up as much as possible early on. It is not republicans fault that Hillary tried to delete emails from her private server and so the new evidence arrived in October. If she had complied with the rules this would not have happened. It is her fault for not being transparent the whole time. It is not the presses fault the reported on the new emails. It was the presses fault she wasn't transparent long before that because the press never asked her anything.

    The same here with Joe Biden. No one ever sat down and asked do you know these people who your son is getting millions of dollars from? If so what do you know about them? How do you know it? etc etc. The press should have been asking all of these questions during the Obama admin but they are in his parties back pocket so there was no transparency then. This is why dems keep getting October surprises.

    You guys say you are all about character but I am sorry your views (perhaps it is because your views are shaped by DC) on character are so far removed from every day Americans it is like a different world.

    And yes Trump's character is indefensible as well, that is why no honest person defends his character. I really questioned trump's character before he even was in the primary - what little I knew about him was distasteful to say the least. But for me he became irredeemable after his McCain comments. At that point I knew we would never see eye to eye. For Ben Shapiro it was how he lied about someone. That's why I can't listen to people who try to defend his character. Hannity is just as disgusting to me I can't stand him. Once that happens I know we are not on the same page. But I just apply that standard to the left as well.

    Think about what we know and ask a few questions.

    Did Poroshenko know Hunter (and Hunters's partner John Kerry's step son) was getting millions from corrupt oligarchs in his country just because of their fathers political connection? Of course he did. Did he know that oligarch wanted shokin out? Yes of course he did.

    Notice in the telephone call with Biden how Poroshenko stresses (link below) he found no problems with Shokin but he will never the less ask for his resignation. Did he really believe Shokin was not corrupt? Probably not, but whether he believed it or not what was Poroshenko communicating when he stressed that he found no corruption but was still going to ask for his resignation?

    He was communicating he was willing to shoot some dirty pool for Biden to get what Biden wanted done. Now Biden and the US had good reason beside his son to have Shokin out. I have no reason to dispute that. But surely Biden knew he was making America look completely hypocritical. I mean here he is with his son collecting millions from a thoroughly corrupt oligarch forcing Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor that oligarch wanted out even though Poroshenko was saying in his opinion there was no honest reason to do that other than he wanted US money.

    Now it doesn't end there. Poroshenko also runs the new prosecutor by Biden before he tells anyone else so Biden can give the ok. Well it just so happens that the new prosecutor was someone Hunters boss could "work with." And Biden said he wanted to check with his team and sure enough he was appointed and soon thereafter Hunters boss is taken off "the list" and allowed back into the country! This is according to the New york times article I will quote below.

    Now yes maybe this was all a coincidence that Biden's and this horribly corrupt oligarch's interests were aligned not only in firing Shokin, but also in his replacement. Maybe Biden never talked to Hunter about this. But can we think for a moment that Porenshenko thought that? Of course he picked someone that Hunters Boss was ok with. Of course the USA looks horribly corrupt as we are telling them how to fix corruption. It is a complete joke. And honestly with our media basically in the back pocket of one of the parties I can not say our politicians should be the ones trying to correct corruption anywhere.

    There are reasons the rules do not allow the appearance of conflict of interest and, at best, this is exactly the worst case scenario. Joe Biden's best defense is that he is just so completely ignorant he doesn't understand how bad this is then he has no business being vp or at least shouldn't be tasked to clean up corruption anywhere. But he knows its bad but he also knows he can get away with it and the press will cover for him while claiming to be unbiased. This is all lies and corruption.

    And you guys say everyone knows our politicians get wealthy from their elected positions. This stuff happens all the time. No biggy. If your ethical bar is there at a place where you justify this fine. The only thing I ask is don't hold yourselves out as being concerned about character or ethics because your justifications are just dragging our country down.

    Demand more transparency from our officials. Demand that the press find out all the facts about possible corruption and not rest until they do regardless of partisanship. Don't feel you need to justify politicians being evasive and about how they are selling their influence for money. Otherwise you are just dragging the country down in the muck you have grown accustomed to.

    Here is how the NYT reported it in September of 2019:

    "Mr. Zlochevsky’s allies were relieved by the dismissal of Mr. Shokin, the prosecutor whose ouster Mr. Biden had sought, according to people familiar with the situation.

    Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor.

    Mr. Shokin was replaced by a prosecutor named Yuriy Lutsenko, whom former Vice President Biden later called “someone who was solid at the time.” Mr. Zlochevsky’s representatives were pleased by the choice, concluding they could work with Mr. Lutsenko to resolve the oligarch’s legal issues, according to the people familiar with the situation.

    While Mr. Lutsenko initially took a hard line against Burisma, within 10 months after he took office, Burisma announced that Mr. Lutsenko and the courts had “fully closed” all “legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations” against Mr. Zlochevsky and his companies.

    The oligarch, who had fled the country amid investigations by previous prosecutors, was removed by a Ukrainian court from “the wanted list,” and returned to the country.

    This year, though, Mr. Lutsenko’s office moved to restart scrutiny of Mr. Zlochevsky.

    The Times reported that Mr. Lutsenko had been communicating with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has become a leading voice in accusing the Bidens of corruption. And allies of Mr. Biden and Mr. Zlochevsky accuse both Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani of injecting politics into the equation.

    Ukraine’s new government replaced Mr. Lutsenko last month."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html

    Here is the phone call where Poronshenko makes it clear he is firing shokin despite not believing he is corrupt and also making sure biden is ok with his replacement:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIRVHNTsr0&t=537s

    Of course Kerry is there too. His stepson is a partner with Hunter.

    Did Biden meet with his son during this time at all? Biden may not want to answer any of these questions but that is to bad. He is the one who has made the entire USA look corrupt to Ukraine and the world. So he should be asked these questions. But our press doesn't want to know the answer. The most important thing for them is beating Trump. That is also corruption.

    And again this is just Ukraine but there are other issues about china and other countries that he has not been transparent about.


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    1. Joe1776

      Also someone said I was being selective because the new york times reporter also said:

      "As The New York Times reported this spring, no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor’s dismissal."

      But whether someone considers something "evidence" is an opinion not a fact. If I say "there is no evidence God exists" that is an opinion just like it is an opinion to say "there is lots of evidence God exists." How people look at facts is subjective and decide whether they constitute evidence - and evidence of what is opinion. I look at the facts and see that Biden pushed for the exact same changes in the posecutors office as a corrupt oligarch that was paying his son money and I think that is some evidence he was helping his son. The new york times reporter can disagree but that is just his opinion.

      I would say the fact that there were other good reasons to fire shokin is evidence that it was not Biden's intent to help his son. It would have been really strong evidence if the oligarch didn't want shokin fired and Biden did it anyway.

      But as it turns out the facts suggest that the Oligarch paying millions to Joe and Kerrys relative agreed with and benefitted from the changes they used their influence to make happen. That is evidence. But I agree it alone may not be proof.

      The fact that there were good reasons beside helping his son to fire shokin is evidence that maybe that wasn't biden's intent but it is not "proof." At least not in my opinion. Maybe that is all the proof some others need. But for me just because there may have been an alternate good reason beside corruption for someone to take an action does not prove the action wasn't motivated by corruption.

      We need to know more. We need to know whether Kerry or Biden spoke with their relatives on the board or others as go betweens. That may be impossible to find out now but it should have been scrutinized by our press at the time. I just find it hard to believe that this never came up between Archer Hunter Kerry or Joe but Joe and Kerry should have to finally start giving some long overdo answers to questions that the press failed to ask at the time.

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      1. Jackson

        This comment is reposted from one I shared in a different thread, but I think it applies here well:

        On the whole Hunter Biden thing, let's just stipulate for the sake of argument that it's actually as bad as the worst versions of it being pushed at the moment (I'm staying skeptical in both directions, and appreciate the way The Dispatch has approached this). Even in that case, does anyone think that this would convince people not already committed to Trump that they're so opposed to corruption that they should vote for Trump after all? Particularly corruption involving the candidate's children? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you follow politics and aren't in the Bretibart/OAN bubble, you already know that Trump gave his daughter a senior role in the White House, has been charging the Secret Service to stay at his properties, and significantly raised his membership fee at Mar a Lago after becoming president. How would this all of a sudden make Biden a worse choice for people who are bothered by corruption? It certainly wouldn't change my mind, even if I hadn't already voted.

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        1. Maddmac

          Just read the Ben Collins piece "Inside the campaign to pizzagate Hunter Biden". It's really good, and very detailed. This whole thing is insane...and guess what? All pizzagate roads lead to Steve Bannon. I am shocked!

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        2. Joe1776

          Some people might think that Biden has a certain minimum integrity necessary to get their vote but Trump doesn't. Those people would presumably not vote for either candidate. Biden loses votes.

          Also most people have it all sort of mixed together. Character and policy all weigh in. So they may have liked all of Trumps policies but thought trumps character was so bad they gave it to Biden. Knowing Biden's integrity is also completely lacking might mean they do vote trump. Both candidates lack any integrity so who has the better policy?

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        Rajeev

        The reason no one cares is because there is always a double standard applied to Democrat politicians. If there is just an appearance of impropriety, a Democrat is considered guilty. Bill Clinton meets with Loretta Lynch and everyone already says she's compromised even though there is no transcript of what happens. Various DOJ officials testify before congress that Trump discussed his own cases with them and no one bats an eye. Trump has a criminal fraudulent charity which was easy for any person to see and instead the talk is on the Clinton Foundation which does a lot of good and operates the same way many prominent global charities operate (dealing with awful characters to get what is needed).

        Every aspect of Trump and his Republican congressmen are brushed away because it doesn't matter to Republican voters. If Karen Bass is considered for VP, they go crazy that she made some pro-Cuba words 30 years ago when Trump continually to this day praises to the extreme the worst dictators of the world:

        https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/trump-and-dictators/

        At this point the Hunter Biden story is for the red meat of the Trump base and for the elitist WSJ editorial board that have no bounds on their hypocrisy. No one should care about Hunter Biden because every kid of a high level politician has access that no regular citizen will and to no one's surprise many of them use it to their financial advantage. Yet only Hunter Biden is relevant now for some reason?

        While there are for sure many unanswered details about these relationships, the one that is not unanswered nor legitimately disputed was how Biden fired Shokin not because he was investigating Burisma, but for the contrary reasons of him not investigating companies like Burisma.

        Trump can use Barr, Ratcliffe, and other archetypes of corruption all he wants. It won't matter because anyone can see that this just an obvious red herring meant to distract from Trump's failures.

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        1. Joe1776

          We disagree about how the double standard is applied.

          The press actually forces republicans to respond or else ruthlessly talks about their evasiveness and tries to get the facts - see trumps tax returns. But they never want to dig into democrat scandals. They get the response "that is just a republican smear" and thus have their loyalty to the party challenged. They always then back down and stop asking about it.

          They even cover for the politician as they are doing here claiming it is russian disinformation despite our DNI and FBI having the laptop and saying no evidence supports that hunter's laptop is part of russian disinformation.

          Biden may make that claim tonight and we will see if the press backs him up on that.

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            Rajeev

            Trump has been covered for his tax returns by the courts and everyone else. If a Democrat had refused a lawful congressional subpoena no court in their mind would delay it until an artificial date. David French has written extensively on how the law as it exists now entitles the House Ways & Means committee to have access to his tax returns plain and simple.

            As to the DNI, I would read the letter sent by John Ratcliffe to Lindsey Graham where he admits he is passing on potential Russian intelligence with no verification. Obama did everything to not do any of this but Trump wants his DNI to be a political hack. You can reference Steve's topic of discussion on the Dispatch Podcast a few weeks ago.

            Referring to the press as not wanting to dig into democratic scandals is without evidence. Every official communication & under oath testimony shows the double standard. The Republicans just complain without any actual evidence about the "mainstream media" because they don't have anything actually legitimate to offer up just innuendo and rumor that usually has its origins with their own members and operatives. They use effective conspiracy theorists like Tucker Carlson because they understand that most Trump supporters do not have the capacity or willingness to actually research official statements and documents so it's easy for them to spin things like Burisma or murdering seal team 6 to keep their base interested. Won't do them any good because the average American not in the fox bubble can see right through it now that enough of them realized they bought the lie back starting in 2015.

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    Adicesa14

    I have a retort and a comment. Sarah, I am not a hermit, and Jonah, you are correct about weak Parties. Allowing voters to choose Party candidates is insane. Its Democracy run-amok!

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    Rev Snow

    French speaks the fast-food chicken truth. Testify!

    Chick-fil-A is loved for its customer service, not its food quality, nor its value for price.

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      Jason Gibson

      *scratches head*

      Of course a chicken sandwich is not worth the purchase when a breaded pork tenderloin is available (States that begin with I people will all heart this statement I bet)........but the best chicken sandwich on the planet is at Chick-fil-A

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        Angie

        BBQ pulled pork is my preference...lol

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        Angie

        I have never actually been to a Chik FilA..there aren't any close to where I live

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          Jason Gibson

          I’ve been once. It was tasty. But none here now

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        Rev Snow

        Don't know if I dare bring up Pete's Pride.

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          Jason Gibson

          Please do.......have I gone without breaded pork tenderloins in this state for 15 years for nothing??????

          Bad enough I have to deal with U of M football

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  9. Matthew

    The "Blue Wall" concept was always bizarre to me. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had all elected conservative Republicans to statewide office in recent memory--not just liberal/moderate Republicans like Massachusetts and Maryland. How could states that elected Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, Rick Snyder, and Ron Johnson to statewide office be considered part of a "Blue Wall?" These same states also voted for Democratic presidents consistently and elected many liberal politicians to statewide office. I think Minnesota was considered part of the "Blue Wall," and they elected Jesse Ventura of all people to statewide office. These were always properly understood as swing states, and I don't think we can read the zeitgeist without that understanding.

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    1. Jackson

      This is a really good point.

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  10. Richard Greydanus

    I love the polling analysis. Even so, I am left to wonder where the reflective conservative pieces are that examine whether Trump deserves people's votes? whether Senate Republicans deserve people's votes? whether House Republicans deserve people's votes? Most of the analysis I am seeing from conservative sources seem like attempt to game out possible outcomes. Where's The Dispatch editorial listing its electoral endorsements and well-reasoned arguments for giving out those endorsements?

    For example, if character counts, does Trump deserve my vote? Or, if managerial skill counts, does Trump deserve my vote? Or, if dealing making and ability to reach across the aisle, does Trump deserve my vote? Repeat from Senate Republicans... Repeat for House Republicans...

    Is Trump better for America than Biden?

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      Angie

      I don't think they endorse anyone...they just give an analysis of events mostly...none of them are fans of Trump, and as far as I can tell, no one is voting Biden either....so who would they endorse?

      They generally just think Trump is bad for America, but have no suitable replacement

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