ymeskhout
1yr ago
I ran a little experiment this week. Deep within a thread from last week @motteposting and I were discussing the Hunter Biden laptop story. The quick context necessary here is that some emails discussing a deal with the Chinese company CEFC mentioned "the big guy" getting a 10% cut of the deal. I already think it's obvious that Hunter Biden was getting sweetheart board of directors positions and other highly lucrative financial opportunities almost entirely because of who his father is. But the theory here is that it wasn't just Hunter cashing in on his name, but that Joe Biden was explicitly contemplated as receiving kickbacks from these kinds of deals.
[For the record I agree that exploiting one's own political positions for monetary gain is not good. Even if nothing untoward actually happens, it's still a really bad look for the son of a president to be involved in deals and investments, especially with foreign governments where the influence-peddling concern would be at its apex.]
The evidence that motteposting presented that Joe Biden is indeed the "big guy" is that one of the people involved in negotiating the CEFC deal, Tony Bobulinski, personally confirmed that fact. I hadn't heard of Bobulinski before and didn't know why I should believe what he said. You can click through the thread for the details but I highlighted a few reasons why I would be skeptical of Bobulinski, but none of it was really a smoking gun. If you were to ask me to describe my actual belief it would be "Bobulinski's claim is certainly plausible but this other stuff kind of contradicts him so overall I'm skeptical but leaning towards not believing him." Motteposting was definitely not as skeptical as I was, and I found it curious that he (sorry if I misgendered you) appeared primed to believe Bobulinski in ways that seemed highly credulous.
This reminded me of another instance where someone's credibility was being evaluated as a result of a bombastic claim they made. Think back to six months ago, when Cassidy Hutchinson was in the news. For those who don't remember, Cassidy is the White House aide who gave the bombshell testimony about Trump lunging at the wheel of his Secret Service vehicle and at an agent when he was told he wasn't going to the capitol on January 6th. Everyone here knows I really don't like Trump so theoretically I would be primed to believe something that paints him in an embarrassing light. But similar to Bobulinski, I never heard of Cassidy before and don't know who she is but my opinion of her claims regarding the steering wheel incident hasn't changed: it cuts against her that she's relying on hearsay within hearsay ("someone told me someone else said this happened") but she at least names every level of the hearsay. Immediately after her testimony came out, multiple news outfits cited an anonymous source close to the Secret Service that two agents were prepared to testify that the lunging incident never happened. As far as I can tell these agents never came forward publicly but maybe that's still in the works. Similar to Bobulinski above, if you were to ask me to describe my belief it would be "Cassidy's claim is tenuously supported but is neither implausible nor substantially contradicted, so I would lean towards believing her but wouldn't bet the farm."
So back to the thread about Bobulinski, instead of writing my own position about him transparently, I wrote this instead:
One possible explanation is that Bobulinski is apparently still very upset with Jim and Hunter Biden over a deal he missed out on. He said himself the two brothers "defrauded" him of at least $5 million. This seems like good evidence he's at least partly motivated by payback. The Hunter Laptop saga hasn't really delivered and people lost interest over the years, which means right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are especially excited to herald Bobulinski with a moment in the spotlight. It doesn't matter if all that Bobulinski has is uncorroborated gossip, they know they can shore up ratings by resurrecting a dead story on a political figure their audience loathes.
If any of this comes across as weirdly stilted, I was intentionally trying to mirror what motteposting writing about Cassidy Hutchinson:
Simpler hypothesis: Cassidy Hutchinson is a former employee of Meadows’s who had a falling out with him and was subsequently passed over for a post-WH job in Trumpworld. This is her revenge tour. And the January 6th Committee is only too happy to turn to tabloid gossip because their ratings sucked and it worked well for some of their members three straight years during the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory heyday.
My suspicion was that motteposting was primed to believe Bobulinski and not believe Cassidy solely because he liked one conclusion but not the other. Obviously the two scenarios are not precisely comparable 1:1 but I think they have enough clear parallels for this to be an instructive exercise. If I'm being fully honest, the scenario I would find the most emotionally satisfying and personally motivated towards pulling off would be where motteposting blunders haplessly into my trap and exposes himself as a complete hypocritical partisan about the standards of credibility he applies. I must admit that I did not get that, and I'll specifically give credit for things he did that were commendable.
The first thing motteposting hones in on is that Cassidy has a motive to lie. The evidence he cites is entirely just this:
But there was a falling out between Hutchinson and Meadows in 2021, a former White House aide told CNN. She was supposed to become permanent staff at Mar-a-Lago, but those plans fell through, the outlet reported. The New Jersey native has yet to hold a full-time job since leaving the White House, the Washington Post reported.
So an anonymous source told CNN that Cassidy was supposed to have a job at a Mar-a-Lago but didn't, and now she's still unemployed. Based on this alone motteposting comfortably claims that Cassidy's testimony is "her revenge tour". I can see how being passed up for a job might make someone bitter, but it seems highly implausible that's enough to motivate someone into a public scorched earth campaign of defamation (and this didn't come out until later but the Daily Caller obtained text messages where Cassidy expresses annoyance at being subpoenaed to testify).
In contrast, Bobulinski claims Hunter Biden "defrauded" him of $5 million, which seems a much sharper indication of personal animus. To motteposting's credit he at least gives a concession of this point with "Maybe so. That's something to take into account." and "I agree that his motive for revenge means what he says should be taken with a grain of salt." But why is this not enough to conclude "This is Bobulinski's revenge tour" in the same way he concluded about Cassidy?
The second thing mentioned is that Cassidy's audience (J6 committee) is motivated to accept her lies because their TV ratings suck. That's a plausible explanation but it seems to apply at least as much to cable news pundits who rely on a content pipeline constantly running for their living. But unlike with Cassidy, motteposting does not appear to think audience credulity is a salient point in Bobulinsky's case.
I think motteposting made some good points about the structure of the CEFC deal. The fact that Hunter Biden was getting double the shares (20%) compared to his partners is compelling evidence he was going to hold it for someone else. If that's the surreptitious structure, then it makes sense for Joe Biden's name not to be on the agreement itself. There's good reasons to not believe Gilliar's denial that Joe Biden was involved, since there are text messages where he tells Bobulinski not to talk about Joe Biden's involvement except in face-to-face. Bobulinski also appears to be cooperating with the FBI and I agree that raises his credibility. Overall, motteposting did a good job convincing me that Bobulinski is telling the truth and that Joe Biden was at least contemplated to receive a cut of a deal that fell through. I updated my belief to "I have questions about some details but Bobulinski is probably telling the truth."
It still seems that motteposting was unusually primed to denounce Cassidy as a vindictive liar on a revenge tour. I think it's helpful to investigate to what extent our biases motivate us towards credulity and away from skepticism when presented with conclusions we already favor. If you ever suspect me of doing that, you should call me out.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Given that he's formed a branch of the State Law Enforcement specifically to investigate election crimes, I'd guess the odds of such an investigation both taking place and finding evidence if fraud did occur is substantially higher than it was before.
I mean, the motivation behind forming this agency was as a response to completely delusional claims of voter fraud that are unfortunately held by a significant portion of the electorate. I get that DeSantis is a politician that has to cater to the people who vote for him (no matter how crazy they are), so I can't fault him too much on this point. However, it does undercut the notion that this necessarily means it's an earnest and non-crazy investigative endeavor. It's possible that it was just put in place for the sake of appeasing the louder loons. Of course this doesn't mean that the agency is incapable of doing honest police work, but it definitely doesn't augur well that they chose — as their opening salvo — to go after random nobodies who are guilty of being misled by their government.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
The issue with your question in general is that if you apply a broader definition to the term 'stolen' then it becomes a both sides issues; and if you apply a narrower definition with respect to whether particular constitutional or electoral laws were broken, that argument simply hasn't borne fruit despite numerous challenges. With a broad definition, what kind of argument can be made that doesn't come down to 'their side stole the election more than my side', and with a narrow definition the argument is already settled.
I agree with your framing, the level of disagreement depends almost entirely on people consider 'stolen'. The OP was made in response to incessant accusations that I have been weakmanning the issue, which is why I left an open invitation for my accusers to bring forth whatever they believe are the strongest claims I have been ignoring/dismissing.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
Motte-and-bailey fallacies rely on ambiguity in order to maintain as much flexibility as possible to jump between the two positions, and so the best guard against this tactic is to get people to be specific and unambiguous about their positions. A request for disavowal is only appropriate if there is a history or suspicion of this kind of slipperiness, and I would apply it consistently to any other topic where this issue applies.
The word 'stolen' perhaps implies some measure of dishonesty but is still too ambiguous to have a hard technical meaning. Someone claiming that the election was 'stolen' doesn't tell me enough information about what they actually belief, and paired in contrast to 'unfair' it's my imperfect attempt to try and draw a distinction between the two camps of allegations. I don't really care what vocabulary people use as long as the meaning is clear and unambiguous enough.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
How do the rules favor other trained lawyers, and what changes would you suggest?
ymeskhout
2mo ago
If there is a problem, at best, you pause the counting until a satisfactory solution to all parties is agreed upon. Not kick people out, board up windows, and then plow on ahead in the chaos.
In a similar case in Philadelphia, Trump's campaign filed for an emergency halt to the count because they claimed it was proceeding without Republican observers present, but then their lawyer had to admit to a judge that actually there were "a non zero number" of Republican observers in the room. This is part of a common pattern around that time where they'd make explosive claims only to have to walk it back significantly once they were in court where lying carried penalties.
Based on the number of blatantly frivolous claims that were credulously trotted out, I believe the concerns over electoral safeguards were generally not earnest. Instead, the overwhelming motivation was upset that Trump was losing and so they used election integrity as a pretextual facade. That's why there has been such a flood of low-quality claims (remember Sharpiegate? Italian satellites? Bamboo ballots? Dominion algorithm?) that would get dropped as soon as they fell apart, only to move on to the next thing.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
Ok, I was hoping for something new and I'll keep my mind open towards that. We're repeating the cycle from a year ago where I ask for specifics and you scoff at having to provide proof for something so patently obvious. I've outlined before the reasons I believe your reluctance to substantively engage by providing specifics:
I can't prove this conclusively because I can't read your mind, but I strongly suspect that your refusal to provide arguments because I'm purportedly acting in bad faith is just a pretextual excuse (a lie) used by you as a dodge to avoid defending your beliefs or having them scrutinized. I suspect that anti-Trump arguments in particular make you upset, but because you are unable to construct a legitimate counter-argument, you resort to a dogged and persistent response campaign which compensates for the lack of substance with a heavy dose of vitriol.
I'm again open to having my mind changed but you're still responding with riddles and disdain even after a lengthy sabbatical.
Do you want to do a Bailey episode about this? You can quiz me all you want about whatever you want! You'd keep both our raw recordings and can do whatever with it! Let me know my man, otherwise sleep tight my friend.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
He wrote a whole book so it doesn't seem like the silence intimidation worked very well. What property was seized, are you talking about the laptop?
What reasons would TTV have to believe that election authorities in Arizona and Georgia would not cooperate with them in good faith? Why would TTV lie in court and tell a judge that they don't have evidence if they actually did have evidence?
ymeskhout
2mo ago
That's interesting, how do you know that Giuliani actually had evidence to present instead of just bluffing? Assuming he had evidence, why didn't Giuliani just release the evidence elsewhere? I think the reason he didn't release evidence is because he was lying about having had evidence. Which part of my conclusion do you think is unreasonable?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
I assume that you chose to avoid answering what I thought was a simple question because it challenged your worldview to an uncomfortable degree. Ideally, you could introspect and openly scrutinize why your feelings do not match up with reality. Less ideally, radio silence is an option. The least ideal is trying to evade scrutiny by throwing a ball of confetti in the air. This only serves to draw attention to the fact that you don't have an answer. It's especially obvious when done with such little finesse and subtlety.
As a last note, I do sincerely commend you for the transparency in linking to my writing directly so that everyone can judge for themselves how much your feelings match up with reality. I should note that I've never heard of Minnesota SRA before but in case it needs to be said, I support 2A for everyone and do not support ending capitalism. Hope that clears things up!
ymeskhout
1yr ago
It depends on what you consider a "lie". Two potential examples come to mind with the first being an ACORN lawyer, Juan Carlos Vera, who took down information about the (fake) sex trafficking coming in through Tijuana and immediately reported it to law enforcement. Even after this information came out, O'Keefe still kept implying that Vera was indeed an enthusiastic participant in sex trafficking. The second example comes from the NPR sting, where Veritas used deceptive editing to imply that NPR executives were very eager to accept a $5 million donation from a Sharia group in exchange for coverage input.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Some people thought that my post was a pretextual excuse where I discuss the US legal system just as a vehicle to criticize Trump. The whole point of the post was to criticize Trump, so I wanted to make that clear to anyone who would read this. How else would you propose I address this concern?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
where many of the "rioters" who committed no crime worse than trespassing (in some cases not even entering the building, just supposedly-forbidden parts of the grounds) are getting harsh punishments
What's your definition of "harsh punishments"? There are a bunch of databases of Jan 6th cases, and this one from Politico is at least searchable (though hasn't been updated since January). Most of what I've seen for misdemeanor pleas was just probation with no jail time. I plugged in "entering a restricted building" in the full table and sorted by incarceration and saw only three people got jail time, with the highest being 50 days for William Tryon (keep in mind that the database is incomplete though). Reading the guilty statement that was filed, I would guess that the aggravating factors that made his case stand out was that he asked police to enter the building, was denied, tried to enter anyway, was pepper-sprayed, created an opening at another location by removing broken glass, encouraged other people to enter the building, and then confronted another line of police. He couldn't have claimed a plausible defense of "I didn't know I couldn't enter" based on those facts. 50 days of jail for this type of misdemeanor does not strike me as out of the norm.
Can you link to any specific cases where you think the sentence imposed was outrageous?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
If this is how common criminals are treated, how does the US end up with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
you have failed to uphold in this very day's update regarding Desantis's domestic political context, in which multiple contemporary contexts of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, potential evidence of fraudulant voting, and systemic weakness for fraud have been noted without sufficient rebuttal
But I did, in the same post above you're replying to. If DeSantis was serious about actual voter fraud, I don't have an explanation for why he'd choose to make a public spectacle of people who were misled by his administration and dragging them to jail.
Given your past ruts on this topic with similar tendencies of not acknowledging contrary evidence...
We've been over this so so many times by now, and this exchange from May 2021 remains the most illustrative. I ask questions and your response is along the lines that it's not your job to educate me. Ok, fine, I accept that it's not your job, but I have no idea what exactly you expect of me. I have no idea how I'd even try to parody your position if I wanted, because you repeatedly refuse to state what it is besides a generalized complaint! If I said "Trump's election fraud allegations were true, or at least were made in good faith" you'd accuse me of strawmanning or whatever and then darkly hint that I am somehow missing the point or that I am intentionally ignoring the real and totally valid election fraud theories that apparently exist somewhere out there.
I get that you don't like it when I talk about the 2020 election fraud theories, you've made that abundantly clear! What I don't get is why you keep wasting time on this beat. You either have specific arguments to make or you don't. If you don't have any, or you just refuse to make them out of principle, vaguely complaining is not going to accomplish anything. I'm not a mind reader, and you can't expect me to respond to arguments you choose to keep cloistered in your head.
given your frequent shills for your private substack and the financial interests in catering to your desired target audience I would submit you are not impartial
Well, you caught me. The dozens of subscribers paying $0 a month pose a grave liability to my impartiality. I hope my reputation can someday recover.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
ymeskhout
2mo ago
Closing off motte-and-bailey acrobatics is a great way to raise one's credibility.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
Yes, you're right. We used to have a sort of peace treaty around discussing religious beliefs where we generally left people alone and didn't badger them about it, even if you think the beliefs are completely delusional. The problem is we don't have a similar convention for folks who want their non-religious beliefs to be similarly immune from evidentiary scrutiny, perhaps because admitting the desire for immunity is a bridge too far. The culture war topics for me that fit this bill the most are 2020 stolen election claims on the right, and the incoherent and vague concept of gender identity on the left.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
onus of proof is not on the losers to provide evidence of illegitimacy, the onus is on election officials to convince the losing party that they lost fair and square.
I agree that election officials have a responsibility to affirmatively defend the integrity of the elections they manage. The problem is that some election skeptics are implacable and immune to evidence. They believe the only legitimate outcome is when their preferred candidate wins, and so they see a loss as presumptive evidence of fraud and they'll work backwards and credulously repeat whatever theory happens to be convenient to their narrative. It's a big problem but I don't know how you're supposed to reason with delusional people.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
@Dean and I have gone round and round on this issue for literally years where he continues to insist that I am ignoring blockbuster evidence, but then simultaneously he'll write very long posts articulating why he's justified in refusing to mention this blockbuster evidence I'm ignoring. A sample of responses to my (many many many) requests:
- "I'm not particularly interested in trying to feed you sources to be judged by you on your standards on credibility to consistency standards you impose that helpfully weed out things other people might care about and could even be true."
- "I am uninterested in providing you sources on other people's positions given your conduct on this topic."
- "Can I? Sure. Will I? A waste of time when you are involved, given your pattern of conduct which has been noted repeatedly over the years even if you have also repeatedly denied the feedback."
Dean is intelligent, knowledgeable, and articulate on a wide array of topics (particularly in the realm of geopolitics). The only topic I'm aware where he has maintained this years-long stonewalling vow is on the 2020 election, and the only explanation that makes sense to me is that he's concerned that I'd eviscerate his supposed blockbuster evidence. I admit the weakness in this explanation is that I don't understand how someone who is otherwise intelligent could compartmentalize to this degree without self-awareness.
ymeskhout
2mo ago
If I'm making an argument about TTV, it would be nice if the responses are about TTV so I don't see what's irrelevant about that. I can't control what people say but my interest here is wanting to avoid time-wasting Gish gallops and motte-and-bailey diversions, because an unfortunately common rhetorical trick used by some when they encounter arguments inconvenient to their position is to try and change the subject.
You're welcome to suggest an alternative disclaimer wording, and you're also welcome to challenge my premise for why I even included a disclaimer.
ymeskhout
1yr ago
you really threw out Italian satellites as a bailey? How can you do that in any good faith discussion?
As you point out, Mark Meadows specifically asked the DOJ to investigate the claim of Italian satellites changing the election outcome. Why, specifically, do you think it's bad faith for me to bring up what a top level Trump official earnestly asked the investigative arm of the US government to investigate? My assumption is that people get upset when I bring up the Italian satellite theory because it's especially embarrassing and impossible to hand-wave away as just the work of some fringe crazies given the actors involved. You can prove me wrong of course: there are and were so many theories of election fraud, you can specify what filters that, if met, you'd agree makes those theories fair game to criticism. Can you do that?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
Truth is a defense to defamation. Why do you think Fox isn't trying that approach?
ymeskhout
1yr ago
You're losing me on the definition of trolling you're using. I don't see anything wrong with exposing someone's mistake, especially if I am emphatically accommodating rehabilitation ("it's fair to conclude DradisPing was mistaken. If so, I will preemptively praise them for editing their post and admitting their error."). I don't see the problem with this approach because I explicitly invite others to do the same to me. A good example of where I was scrutinized and a situation I wish happened more often is this post by @Fruck where they ask genuinely thoughtful and penetrating questions about why I had the beliefs I had. I walked away grateful for that exchange because it prompted productive introspection on my end.
If someone pointed out a mistake I made and gave me space to either correct it or justify it, I can't think of a reason why I would register that as a hostile act.
Do you have any theories for why this changed? Were there any chants at political rallies or something agitating for this shift in norms?
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