1. I'm going to go through a few issues with the NY Post article on Biden, which I won't link to, but you will probably see on Twitter today.
Follow along if interested.
2. First the information comes from a laptop that was allegedly "dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware" and never picked up.
The "shop owner," who is not identified, "couldn’t positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden"
3. The "shop owner" thinks it was Hunter Biden because of a Beau Biden sticker on the laptop.
This makes no sense. You drop off an expensive Mac laptop at a repair shop and don't leave your name or contact information?
4. But then, after claiming the shop owner couldn't identify the customer, the piece includes a receipt that was issued to "Hunter Biden" and includes an email and phone #
So why would the shop owner produce a receipt for Hunter Biden if he didn't know the ID of the customer?
5. The piece claims the shop owner then alerted the FBI to the existence of the laptop and it was later subpoenaed by a grand jury.
But the grand jury subpoena shown does not connect the laptop to Hunter Biden.
6. Then things get very weird. The shop owner says, before turning over the computer to the feds, they made a copy of the contents of the computer and gave them to Rudy Giuliani's lawyer
Mmmmhmmmm
7. The New York Post allegedly learned about this copy of the laptop through Steven Bannon.
Both Giuliani and Bannon are regular sources of disinformation
8. But this is the important point. Pretending, for a moment, that everything in the story is true (very doubtful) it is totally inconsequential.
Supposedly one "email" recovered on the laptop "proves" that Hunter once introduced a Bursima exec to his father.
9. This is a scandal? There is no word on the length of the meeting or what was discussed.
The New York Post says its significant because Biden then called for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Bursima.
FALSE
The prosecutor was not investigating Bursima
10. The prosecutor was corrupt, which is why the entire international community was calling for his ouster.
Replacing the corrupt prosecutor brought more scrutiny on Bursima, not less
11. Allegedly, the laptop Hunter "forgot" to pick up also contains a 12 minute video of him smoking crack and having sex with an unidentified woman.
12. Nevertheless, this incredibly sketchy, totally unverified, and ultimately irrelevant story is being promoted by mainstream journalists who don't work for the New York Post.
Don't be fooled by that.
13. I should clarify that, assuming the email is legit, it doesn't establish that a meeting took place. Just that Hunter offered an "opportunity" to meet his father.
14. As of 9:50AM, the New York Post piece has been shared more than 26,000 times on Facebook
15. If you liked this thread, you'll really like my newsletter
"[W]e have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place"
17. 1:30PM UPDATE: This article and three other related NY Post pieces have now been shared 75K times on Facebook (via @crowdtangle)
@crowdtangle 18. UPDATE: The Daily Beast interviewed the owner of the computer repair shop who gave the info to Rudy Giuliani and the entire story is collapsing on itself
1. Trump and his Republican allies say their budget cuts are targeted at waste, fraud, and abuse
But Trump's new 1,223-page budget proposal, quietly released on Friday afternoon, reveals the real target:
Poor children
2. The Trump administration is reducing funding that helps pregnant women, children, and breastfeeding mothers who are nutritionally at risk afford fruits and vegetables.
3. The monthly benefit for fruits and vegetables for pregnant mothers goes from $54 to $13. For young kids: $27 to $10.
The administration's budget document provides no justification for these cuts. But it impacts millions of infants and children under five. Previously, WIC has enjoyed bipartisan support. In the 50 years since the program was started, its funding has never been reduced.
1. @Verizon's CEO @hansvestberg said the company was "fiercely committed to diversity and inclusion across all spectrums because it makes us and the world better."
THAT WAS A LIE.
The company abruptly ended all its DEI efforts last week in exchange for the Trump administration approving a merger.
2. In a letter to FCC chair Brendan Carr, Verizon said it was "ending its DEI-related policies…effective immediately."
The company said it would eliminate all positions related to DEI, scrub DEI from its website, and end "workplace diversity goals"
3. Even the June 6, 2020 speech by @Verizon CEO @hansvestberg, where he declares that the company is "fiercely committed" to DEI has been scrubbed from the website.
1. In 2018, many CEOs boycotted Saudi Arabia's investment conference in protest of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi
Since then, US intel concluded the murder was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince MBS
Yesterday, many of those SAME CEOs traveled to Saudi Arabia to lunch with Trump and MBS
Let's name names
🧵
2. In 2018, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: "I'm very troubled by the reports... about Jamal Khashoggi...unless a substantially different set of facts emerges, I won't be attending"
3. Qatar is also home to Al-Udeid Air Base, "the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East" with about 13,000 American troops. The presence of the base serves as a security umbrella for the country and enhances its diplomatic stature in the region.
1. We've been told there's a federal budget crisis that necessitates gutting the social safety net and slashing funding for medical research and national parks
Meanwhile, Trump's budget includes a record $1 TRILLION in military spending
Who benefits?
Military contractors like @elonmusk
Let's dig in
2. Trump is proposing a $1.01 trillion military budget — $119 billion more than this year — alongside a $259 billion cut to non-military spending.
3. With his $1 trillion Pentagon budget request, Trump is proposing that the US spend as much on its military next year as it did annually from 1942–45.
Effectively, Trump is asking Congress for a World War III-sized military budget even though troop deployments are at a historic low.