by Christopher Gage
Bigfoot conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers on Wednesday sought distance between themselves and those claiming the Hunter Biden pay-for-play scandal is “Russian disinformation.”
Written off as skullduggery, the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story now entangles his father, Joe Biden.
On Tuesday night, Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s ex-business partner, confirmed in an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s vice president was deeply involved in his son’s murky dealings in China. Carlson aired more recordings between Bobulinski and the Biden family on Wednesday night.
The final week is not a cozy one for Joe Biden, as 2016’s most accurate pollsters show the presidential race at a dead heat, and President Trump climbing in key states.
At the national level, the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)/TechnoMetrica Institute of Politics and Policy (TIPP) presidential election tracking poll on Wednesday remains around four points between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, that gap flirting with just two points last week.
IBD says Trump now leads by eleven among seniors—a marked shift from earlier polls—while Biden’s support among black voters appeared to drop 10 points overnight. Biden is running nearly six points shy of Hillary’s 85-point black vote gap.
Interestingly, IBD says Trump’s support among Hispanics and Latinos is at 36 percent—a significant bump on his 28 percent showing four years ago.
Over at Rasmussen, the president’s approval rating hit 52 percent—five points higher than President Obama on the same day in 2012.
And Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll on Wednesday found President Trump has swung back into a one-point lead with 48 percent of the vote. The same poll on Tuesday had Biden two points up.
Biden was 12 points ahead according to that same metric four weeks ago.
Despite Big Tech’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, Rasmussen found 54 percent of Americans think Joe Biden was in on Hunter’s dealings. A majority in every demographic agrees, except one—Democrats.
Those findings came before Tucker Carlson’s interview with Bobulinski on Tuesday night.
Bobulinski told Tucker Carlson he twice met with the former vice president and came forward only when detractors smeared his name with that of “Russian disinformation.”
Asked if it was clear that Hunter Biden had told his father about the dealings, Bobulinski said: “Crystal clear.”
He added: “I didn’t request to meet with Joe. They requested that I meet with Joe—and Hunter says this in writing—they were putting their entire family legacy on the line. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were dealing with a Chinese-owned enterprise . . . that had strong financial and political support from the Chinese Communist Party, that’s how they read me in on this.”
Bobulinski took matters to the TV screen only after his repeated and time-limited requests for his name to be cleared from talk of Russian disinformation.
On an audio clip between Bobulinski and Rob Walker, a self-described Biden family representative, we hear these protestations:
“If he doesn’t come out—on record—I am providing the facts,” Bobulinski says.
“Ah, Tony, you’re just going to bury all of us, man,” Walker replies.
When asked about Joe Biden’s repeated denials of involvement with Hunter’s business dealings, Bobulinski said: “That’s a blatant lie.”
“Hunter introduced me as ‘This is Tony, Dad, the individual I told you about that’s helping us with the business that we’re working on and the Chinese.’”
Bobulinski, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant and prominent businessman, confirmed Joe Biden was “the big guy” Hunter refers to in a profit-carving email.
Bobulinski was forceful: “People were accusing my family of treason, after I defended this country, and after I served this country.
“I was focused on pushing these guys to do the right thing.”
Bobulinski, whose naval career involved a high-level security clearance, said: “I think Joe Biden and the Biden family are compromised.”
As the show aired, Twitter slow-walked the story. Despite rapidly hitting 200,000 tweets—40 times the “trending” threshold—the story somehow never registered as “trending.”
Despite the unprecedented censorship of recent weeks, the New York Post’s original Hunter Biden article exploded on Facebook and Twitter, followed closely by the censorship surrounding that story.
Between October 12 and 19, that report garnered 2.6 million interactions on Facebook and Twitter, while related interactions nearly doubled that with 4.7 million mentions.
The Facebook and Twitter censorship effort hit 2.8 million interactions, despite the social media giants’ desperate attempts to crush the story.
Of course, we cannot say whether the scandal has had any effect on the presidential race.
Although, tightening Pennsylvania polls pushed Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight to convince himself and Democrats that Biden doesn’t need to win the Keystone State.
This is partially true: If Biden loses Florida and Pennsylvania, his chances drop to 13-in-100—a barfly’s bet, but not mathematically impossible.
Add Texas, Ohio, and Arizona to Trump’s column, and Biden’s chances sink to just 5-in-100.
Silver’s glib dismissal follows a slew of post-debate polls showing Pennsylvania trending towards Donald Trump.
The New York Times joined Silver in what therapists call “social reinforcement,” asking: Can We Trust Pennsylvania’s Polls?
According to Times reporter Shawn McCreesh, the polls show Biden winning, so: “Why does it feel so different on the ground here?”
Good question. Why would reality feel different from polls with a wobbly record of recording reality?
Trafalgar—which accurately predicted the outcome of the 2016 race—now finds Trump inching ahead in Pennsylvania, with the RealClearPolitics average sitting at just 3.8 points. Meanwhile, Trump took the lead in RCP’s Florida average.
One could suggest Biden’s debate promise to “transition” 600,000 Pennsylvanians and destroy the oil industry and 6 million jobs isn’t all too popular.
They’re not worried. Biden doesn’t need Pennsylvania. But they sure act like he does.
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Christopher Gage is a British political journalist.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
