Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[John Iacoletti]

As an aside, I noticed that Richard Smith made 106 posts in December so far. It appears you had to make a large search to find anything that could be construed as being a conspiracy theory. And failed.

It’s not a “failure” merely because you’ve fashioned a narrow concept of “conspiracy theory” that would exclude it.

It takes more than one person to (as he charges) deliberately change election laws to sway election results.

[John Iacoletti]

There. I can effortlessly find quotes from Griffith and Fritzke where they talk about the massive evidence for a 2020 election conspiracy theory. Where is the Richard Smith quote that is remotely like this?

When did I ever claim that Griffith and Fritzke aren’t conspiracy theorists?

[John Iacoletti]

To me, there is nothing suspicious in the large number of ballots or the large number of mail-in ballots. Making it easier to vote would naturally bump up the numbers a lot, especially if long voting lines, common in urban area, where Democratic candidates tend to do well, were suppressing the voting in the past.

I agree completely. But to “Richard”, there is something wrong or shady about taking steps to ensure that people have the opportunity to safely vote in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

[Allan Fritzke]

That would explain why, after many days of asking, no one ever points to me a specific post by Richard Smith. Just a lot of claims about what a big conspiracy believer he is as far as the 2020 election is concerned. But no reference to any such posts. Maybe I should stop asking for an example, but as long as they post about Richard’s belief in the 2020 stolen election, I’ll keep asking.

This all sounds reasonable and plausible. I guess my kneejerk reaction is, that with Trump pushing this narrative, I tend to be skeptical. But certainly, Hunter Biden could be involved in the common sort of shenanigans that the rich get themselves involved in.

And what made Hunter so rich?  Was it his father's influence to gain position in Ukraine and China?  What about Tony Bobulinski? He was interviewed and stated that he knows the "big guy" Joe and that his brother stated deniable plausibility as the way to avoid indictment?   Less than 30 seconds on MSM I supect!   At the very least,  Joe Biden should come clean and say that he never met Tony Bobulinski and that Hunter did not have a laptop.    Instead he says it is all Russian misinformation  - oops I guess that falls into plausible deniability.  Don't make a statement that will incriminate you and don't make a comment that can be used against you.  Why doesn't he sue Bobulinski who went on record?   Of course that story never gets aired by MSM - total propaganda pushers.

MSM ignores these stories and fails to nail Joe down on the issue.   "What kind of ice cream do you like Sir Joe?"   Twitter and Facebook are all in the same bed and answer Joe Biden's denials for him.  Pretty sad when a 78 year old man can't make his own statements!

[Joe Elliott]

“Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy” is your qualifier, not anybody else’s.

Yes. CTers seem to hint that LNers don’t believe in any conspiracies. We do. I believe that at least 8 individuals were involved in the Northfield raid. I don’t think 8 individuals happened to drift to the same spot at the same time by chance. So this is an  example of a real life conspiracy. By LSE-CT I mean a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theory. Involving hundreds of programmers working for on election code involved in a secret scheme to made Biden win. Hundreds of thousands working who believe, or pretend to believe, that they are building a rocket capable of going to the Moon. These LSE conspiracy theories are the ones that are implausible. Not the small conspiracies that only involve a few individuals. So I use LSE-CT in place of CT to make it clear what sort of conspiracy theory I tend to discount out of hand.

He claimed that election laws were changed in order to change the election results (neither of which is demonstrable), and by the way conveniently ignores that election laws were changed in states that Trump won too.

Neither of which is demonstrable?
Point 1: The election laws were changed.
Point 2: The changes were made to change the results.
Certainly “Point 1” is true, the election laws were changed. Before the election. Always better to change them before the election than afterwards, as the rabid Trump supporters want to do. The latest change they want is to change the law so that instead of the election being determined by the voters, it is instead determined by the Vice President.
And Certainly “Point 2” is not demonstrable. But I wouldn’t say the neither is demonstrable. Point 1 is undeniable.

Actually, I don’t see where Richard says the election laws were changed so as to change the results. I have just seen him complain that the election laws should not have been changed. And there, I disagree with him. The pandemic gives excellent reasons for changing the election laws and I think these changes were good both for limiting the pandemic and for giving a more accurate read of the will of the people, by limiting long lines in urban areas. Unless widespread voting fraud by individuals is conclusively proved, not mere suggested as a possibility, I would like to see mail-in ballots to be an easy option, even in non-pandemic years.

[Joe Elliott]

It’s not a “failure” merely because you’ve fashioned a narrow concept of “conspiracy theory” that would exclude it.

It takes more than one person to (as he charges) deliberately change election laws to sway election results.

My definition of an LSE-CT is not too narrow. Your definition is too broad.

Are attempts to change the election laws a conspiracy because more than one person is involved?
Are attempts to change the laws to limit the purchase of automatic weapons a conspiracy?
Are attempts to change the law to allow Charter schools a conspiracy?

Under your definition, any group trying to change the law is a conspiracy. Well, I guess under that definition, Richard Smith is a CTer. As am I. As is everyone.

When people are talking about a conspiracy, they mean:
1.   Multiple people have to be involved.
2.   Secret, they have to act, or attempt to act, in secret.
And to be an implausible conspiracy, it has to be:
3.   Large, so a large number of people are successful in all keeping their secret.

I don’t see how Richard meets all three criteria. Yes, points 1 and 3 but not the all-important point 2, where the people managed to change the election laws, but did so in secret.

[Joe Elliott]

Those conspiracy theories, both of which are backed by lots of evidence, pale in comparison to the wholly fictional, totally bogus Russian collusion conspiracy theory that the Democrats peddled for the first half of Trump's presidency (until the tale got destroyed by the Mueller report, and then got destroyed even more thoroughly during the Senate impeachment trial).

What sort of evidence supports the Stolen 2020 Election hypothesis?

1.   Witnesses reporting on what they observed the poll workers were doing while observing the counting process?
2.   The Relationships between the software companies, like Dominion Voting Systems with other countries?

In a nutshell, what is the nature of all this “lots of evidence”. Is it really a lot?

[Jack Trojan]

Did you ever wonder why Hunter got involved with Burisma in the 1st place and why Drumpf cared? If you go back to 2014, Biden was recruited to the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine owned by the oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. Guess who else had their eyeballs on Burisma? That's right, Putin. The gas companies are the only reason he wants the Ukraine to reunite with mother Russia.

When Hunter joined the board of Burisma, it was mired in a corruption scandal. Authorities in Ukraine, Britain and the US had opened investigations into the company’s operations. Mr. Zlochevsky had also been accused of marshaling government contracts to companies he owned and embezzling public money. But that was Putin's money he was embezzling so Putin put some goons on it, namely Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman who recruited Rudy Guliani and Drumpf to put the screws to Burisma.

Feeling the heat, Zlochevsky reached out to the US and others to shield Burisma from a coup. He tried to get to Joe Biden by luring his son Hunter into a position on the board. Hunter accepted since he had just been discharged from the Navy Reserve for drug use and even though he had no apparent experience in Ukraine or natural gas, accepting the board position was legal, even if it reportedly raised some eyebrows in the Obama administration. Joe obviously wasn't crazy about the optics of Hunter's appointment, but the Burisma board position was lucrative and it helped protect Burisma against a hostile takeover, which was what Hunter was getting paid $50,000/month for, protection. Good deal, IMO.

A year later, Viktor Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general, a job similar to the attorney general in the US. He vowed to keep investigating Burisma amid an international push to root out corruption in Ukraine. But the investigation went dormant under Mr. Shokin. In the fall of 2015, Joe Biden joined the chorus of Western officials calling for Mr. Shokin’s ouster. The next March, Mr. Shokin was fired and drummed up the Biden conspiracy. A subsequent prosecutor cleared Mr. Zlochevsky but not before Drumpf put all his eggs into the Hunter Biden basket and wound up getting impeached for what will be known as the "Ukraine Shakedown". The rest is still being played out by the right wingnutters.