BREAKING NEWS (and not P)

[David Morris]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/30/1990971/-Fake-Hunter-Biden-folio-pushed-by-Steve-Bannon-was-written-by-a-genuine-fake-person

So how could this story get better? Well … how about if another version of
it emerged a month earlier than the one that appeared in the *Post*, making
many of the same claims about connections between Hunter Biden and
China and offering up many of the same salacious stories? Only this version
didn’t come from a mystery laptop dropped off by a mystery man. It comes
from a Swiss security analyst who put together a folio of data that appears
to be genuinely damning. Except … drop the “genuinely.” Because the Swiss
analyst doesn’t exist. Which didn’t stop him from becoming a right-wing
media star.

As NBC News
<https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/how-fake-persona-laid-groundwork-hunter-biden-conspiracy-deluge-n1245387>
reports,
the 64-page “intelligence file” on Hunter Biden from a supposed Swiss
security analyst named Marten Aspen has circulated widely around the right
for weeks. Only Aspen doesn’t exist. Not only has no one at the company
where Aspen was supposed to have worked ever heard of him, no one by that
name lives in all of Switzerland.

Then there’s the problem of Aspen’s photo. Because it’s not a photo. It’s
an image created using an AI program that generates fake faces based on
algorithms. And speaking of fake, no one seems to have noticed that this
Swiss superspy’s name is actually just a version of the name of the British
automaker Aston Martin.

The fake folio from the fake analyst has not only been the basis of a
far-right AM radio and social media blast, it’s been distributed by people
associated with the Trump campaign. The document, known as the “Typhoon
Investigations” report, first appeared on a website from economic
adviser Albert Marko. The real author appears to be a blogger and economics
professor named Christopher Balding. And it turns out there is an actual
Chinese connection in all this … because Balding actually lives in Beijing.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 10:08 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> somewhat surprised Greenwald would fall on his sword for the Hunter Biden
> story such as it is. Hardly earth-shattering, corruption in Ukraine, from
> which everyone involved is somewhat tainted, no matter which side of the
> aisle we speak.
>
> rich
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 8:38 AM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "Enjoy" in the sense of being able to write his defense of Greenvalt
> > myself, in my head, before having read it, only to once again be proven
> 100
> > percent correct in my assumptions about Taibbi's sad decline, and be
> forced
> > to once again consider the possible influence of "kompormat" (sp?) on
> said
> > decline?
> >
> > Oh, and predictability being what it is with your particular cohort... we
> > all know you did, too.
> >
> > Jerky
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 8:14 AM Thomas Eckhardt <
> > thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > You may enjoy Matt Taibbi on this:
> > >
> > > https://taibbi.substack.com/p/glenn-greenwald-on-his-resignation
> > >
> > > I know I did.
> > >
> > > Am 29.10.2020 um 19:17 schrieb Mark Kohut:
> > > > Glenn Greenwald, who is seldom right but never in doubt,
> > > > has resigned from The Intercept. it became what he din't found OR
> > > > we see through our own glasses.
> > > > --
> > > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>