Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

This blog will pay for itself.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

This fight is for everything.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Everybody saw this coming.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

In my day, never was longer.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Not all heroes wear capes.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / COVID-19 & National Security Part III: The Black PSYOP Against Vice President Biden Evolves

COVID-19 & National Security Part III: The Black PSYOP Against Vice President Biden Evolves

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The Black PSYOP against Vice President Biden, begun in 2014 to dirty him up ahead of a potential 2016 presidential run and now intended to damage him in the 2020 presidential election cycle, has evolved. Since the novel Coronavirus/SARSCOV2 and COVID-19 pandemic have now overtaken the news cycle, beating on the joint, repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories that VP Biden interjected himself into Ukrainian politics to protect his son from investigation for corruption and that the Ukraine, not Russia, conspired with the Obama administration, the Clinton 2016 campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the news media to illegally influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and frame Russia for doing so has been abandoned. The Black PSYOP has shifted to tying VP Biden, his campaign, the Democratic Party, and the news media to the People’s Republic of China’s attempts to destroy the United States in general and the President in specific through the novel Coronavirus/SARSCOV2 and COVID-19 pandemic.

This was emailed around to people on the Trump/Pence 2020 reelection mailing list:

COVID-19 & National Security Part III: The Black PSYOP Against Vice President Biden Evolves

I first saw it retweeted by Fred Guttenberg, who is the parent of one Parkland student survivor and one Parkland student who did not survive. But it is also posted on the President’s campaign website at this link.

Yesterday, Chanel Rion, the conspiracist and fabulist hired by the One American News Network (OANN) who had been conspiring with Rudy Giuliani on the Ukrainian conspiracy Black PSYOP against VP Biden, switched to the China conspiracy BLACK PSYOP against VP Biden. She did this by teeing up a two part question focusing on the fact that Democrats, reporters, and just decent people everywhere objecting to referring to the novel Coronavirus/SARSCOV2 as the “China virus”, which allowed the President to go off on the Democratic Party, the news media, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Rion and OANN have been pushing this for a bit, culminating in both an expose broadcast on OANN last week and yesterday’s question.

By teeing up the question the way she did, Rion was able to get it covered live by all the broadcast networks, as well as reported by all the print and digital news media. This laundered the false and untrue conspiracy theory linking VP Biden, Democrats and the Democratic Party, and the news media with the People’s Republic of China through the actual news media and from there into social media. From there further reporting was done on the responses to the fabricated bullshit that Rion is pushing. The entire Black PSYOP circuit occurred in less than 24 hours. And while it is all completely false – VP Biden, the Democrats and the Democratic Party, and the news media are not conspiring with the PRC against the US and the President – it now provides the context, because it was covered by the news media, for the President’s reelection campaign’s use of it to rile up his base and generate donations.

A Black PSYOP conducted from start to finish in a day.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  2. 2.

    Frankensteinbeck

    it now provides the context, because it was covered by the news media, for the President’s reelection campaign’s use of it to rile up his base

    Unfortunately, because he’s spent so much of the rest of these speeches ranting about who’s persecuting him, this will affect his already rabid base and no one else.  If these PSYOPs don’t take with the general public like EMAILS!!! did, they’re not going to do more than line his pockets a bit more.

  3. 3.

    satby

    Explains why all my right wing stalkers on FB came out to fight with me on my posts today. I figured they had sent some sort of alert out.

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    @satby: I’m getting a lot of “Dianne Feinstein is crooked and needs to resign” and am blocking as fast as I can.

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    Apparently the “China Virus” line of attack against Joe Biden is more important than Princess Ivanka’s knock-off merchandise made in Chinese prison sweatshops.

  9. 9.

    JMG

    Dial twitching I went past Washington Week in Review and paused to watch. A big mistake. A show I never missed in the ’80s is now just propaganda. One reporter said Cuomo and Newsom had praised Trump for his actions. Flat out lie. The Capitol Hill reporter made excuses for Burr and said “Senators aren’t really focusing on that.” No shit, Sherlock. Few Mafiosi had a lot to say during the Gotti trials. PBS and NPR news operations exist to offend nobody, meaning they are useless to everybody. Shut ’em down. Don’t give ’em a nickel.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    What is this thing about “a Chinese official blamed the US military” for the virus? I have only heard this coming out of Trump’s mouth.

    I guess this explains why Trump has been so insistent on calling the corona virus the “Chinese” virus. I thought it was just his stupid bigotry.  But was he playing his part in a disinformation campaign?

  13. 13.

    Van Buren

    Anybody have an opinion on who in my household should venture out for shopping tomorrow: mid 50s wife in very good health, or 22 year old asthmatic son? I’m right out as a late 50s man who has been exposed and has a mild heart condition.

  14. 14.

    JMG

    @Brachiator: I believe one actually did, which shows the utter futility of the ethnic blame game for both sides. Trump’s already moved on to blaming illegal immigrants. The Chinese might still decide to just bribe him.

  15. 15.

    Darkrose

    I’m more concerned about the “Where’s Joe?” nonsense from the Bernie stans. I’ve seen it from people on my Twitter timeline who should know better, combining it with the “Biden has dementia” bullshit.

  17. 17.

    Duane

    Trumpov and the Republican party have conspired with the Chinese to infect the US with coronavirus and cause a national emergency so they can enrich themselves and he’ll be a war-time president and ride a wave of support to re-election. Makes sense to me.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    @Darkrose:

    Don’t be concerned about that.  They are a fixed quantity that we can’t do anything about. Hillary almost overcame them and Biden surely will.  That’s all that matters.

  21. 21.

    Aleta

    (Post)  U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting.

    Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration, and who, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information.

    Spokespeople for the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, and a White House spokesman rebutted criticism of Trump’s response.

    The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

    The surge in warnings coincided with a move by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to sell dozens of stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified reporting on the coronavirus.

    …

    …

  23. 23.

    Jeffro

    @dr. bloor: if/when trumpov falls, there’s a good chance the whole corrupt enterprise comes crashing down.

    he, and they, are ‘all in’.  I have no doubt that they have no bottom here

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: there Is some reporting, (the stuff I saw was via NYT) and some video, of various Chinese officials denying that the virus even originated in China, and speculating that it might even have originated in the United States.

    It is what they put out during their own epidemic to help keep the population in line.  Unfortunately, The no-scruples GOP is now using it to fan the flames and deflect blame for trumpov’s  colossal failure to protect the country

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Aleta:

    Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration, and who, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information.

    Dubya and Cheney didn’t pay attention to the intelligence agencies and we got 911.

    Trump didn’t pay attention to the intelligence agencies and we got the corona virus.

    At least the Republicans are consistently stupid. Unfortunately, other people end up paying the price.

  27. 27.

    Duane

    @Aleta: Every bit of that report perfectly supports my recently invented, I mean discovered, conspiracy against the Amercan People. I am not a crackpot.

  28. 28.

    dm

    I’ve seen push-back along the lines of “why are you siding with Chinese Communists?” when someone objects to the term “Chinese flu”.

  29. 29.

    The Dangerman

    For some reason, this tripped the fuse; don’t know why, I knew they were shits. It’s going to be such an ugly campaign. Right now, it THIS ugliness, that is just … enough for now.

    Mental health break. Back in a while.

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    As I hop and skip around the internet, I often see people insisting that Trump is showing signs of dementia but reading this post I am reminded on why those posts and comments never convince me: he is clearly in on every dirty trick.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: The real purpose of all this is for the campaign to be able to package the misinformation for micro-targeted ads on Facebook and reference legitimate news outlets when doing.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    I hear Pompeo and other Trump apologists on the radio, emphasizing China’s culpability in the spread of of Covid-19 because the authorities tried to cover it up last December, and early January. That is a barely plausible excuse for our government’s inaction in January. But what’s Trump’s excuse for wasting February? Which measures he brags about taking in March couldn’t have been taken last month, and to better effect?

  35. 35.

    Miss Bianca

    Dear Adam Ann Landers, I’m starting to wish that all these vile people would catch the virus and just die.

    Is it wrong?

  36. 36.

    Mary G

    @lamh36: @Aleta: That whole article is just infuriating.

    Azar couldn’t get through to Trump to speak with him about the virus until Jan. 18, according to two senior administration officials. When he reached Trump by phone, the president interjected to ask about vaping and when flavored vaping products would be back on the market, the senior administration officials said.

     

    And here it is. No surprise. “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn't get him to do anything about it,” this official said. ‘The system was blinking red.’” https://t.co/RgflWwERYZ— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 21, 2020

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @The Dangerman:

    For some reason, this tripped the fuse; don’t know why, I knew they were shits. It’s going to be such an ugly campaign. Right now, it THIS ugliness, that is just … enough for now.

    Mental health break. Back in a while.

    Just want to formally note that I know exactly how you feel.

     

  38. 38.

    Dmbeaster

    Does this influence anyone’s thinking about the post earlier today whether we should pause during a time of medical crisis or continue to engage in the political war against these monaters?

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Brachiator: The PRC rolled it out last week. It is a PRC influence operation aimed at two audiences. The first is domestic, to shift blame off of the government and the second is external to be used as part of the Belt and Road Initiative paired with the PRC directly providing testing kits and medical assistance and indirectly doing so through state backed Chinese millionaires and their companies.

    The misinformation is that novel Coronavirus/SARSCOV2 was brought to China during the International Military Games in Fall 2019 by a US Soldier who participated in the games. And therefore the novel Coronavirus/SARSCOV2 is not China’s fault because it didn’t really start in China, it started in the US, and it is the US’s fault that an infected American Soldier was allowed to travel to China, effect one or more people, and leave China to deal with the immediate impact.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    NBA PLAYER: *gets access to a coronavirus test*

    SENATOR: *uses inside info to sell stocks before the market crashes*

    NORMAL PERSON: *trades family heirloom for black market toilet paper*— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 20, 2020

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Darkrose: Biden told reporters on the conference call with him today that they have spent all week building appropriate broadcasting facilities for him and his team at his home in Delaware and starting Monday he will be on everyday presenting what is essentially a shadow government contrast to what the President and his administration are doing regarding the pandemic. He made it clear that the reporters would be seeing far more of him than they could imagine.

  42. 42.

    Mary G

    LA Times:

    The nation’s second-largest municipal health system has told its staff that it is essentially abandoning hope of containing the coronavirus outbreak and instructed doctors not to bother testing symptomatic patients if a positive result won’t change how they would be treated.

    The guidance, sent by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to its doctors on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of tests, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in L.A. County contracted the virus.

    So they will not be capturing people with mild cases, and maybe not even the serious ones?

    Why do something so stupid, you say? No money.

    In addition to the lack of tests, public health agencies across the country lack the staff to trace the source of new cases, drastically reducing the chances of isolating people who have been exposed and thereby containing the outbreak.

    For years, state and local health officials have been warning that steep cuts to federal grants meant to boost preparedness for a pandemic would mean there wouldn’t be enough equipment and staff on hand to respond in the crucial, early stage. Those fears have come to fruition now, officials said.

    Isn’t this something the feds should be doing?

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    there Is some reporting, (the stuff I saw was via NYT) and some video, of various Chinese officials denying that the virus even originated in China, and speculating that it might even have originated in the United States.

    Interesting. I missed all that, or tuned it out, because it really doesn’t much matter where the virus was first noted.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

     

    @CaseyL:

     

    I have zero confidence given the Average American Voter, Domestic and Foreign troll farms, the Reich Wing Media, Facebook and Twitter, and the venal US MS October , this attack on Biden won’t have legs.

  47. 47.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The difference between 2016 and 2020 is that Clinton Derangement Syndrome won’t be a factor in this year’s election. Too many dumb people hated Hillary so much that they thought that voting for a vulgar, stupid and bigoted fake millionaire was a good idea. The Usual Suspects won’t be able to ignite another firestorm of hatred against Joe Biden because most folks like Joe.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @Mary G:

    RE: For years, state and local health officials have been warning that steep cuts to federal grants meant to boost preparedness for a pandemic would mean there wouldn’t be enough equipment and staff on hand to respond in the crucial, early stage. Those fears have come to fruition now, officials said.

    Isn’t this something the feds should be doing?

    This really puts things into perspective.  The Republicans want to shrink the federal government because they don’t see that it does anything useful.

  56. 56.

    Fraud Guy

    I commented to my wife on this very Q/A when it happened that it was a setup.  [sigh]

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Imagine how I feel. I actually track this stuff professionally.

    I had not been paying much attention to earlier briefings because of work. But I happened to see this one.

    I had heard Trump emphasize the Chinese virus thing before.

    But in this briefing, a few things stood out.

    Chinese virus

    The emphasis on Communist China and Communist Chinese government.

    The invisible enemy

    the explicit mention of Dianne Feinstein, but no Republicans, in response to a question about the crazy stock sale…

    And all this in a briefing that was supposed to give us information about the status of fighting the corona virus

    And now this disgusting attempt to tie Biden to hatred of the country and, of course, hatred of the most patriotic president ever

    It really gets weary  watching this crap unfold.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Brachiator: All the “China” virus stuff is signaling to the white Christians in his base. For them to use it and then for them to get riled up when everyone who isn’t a bigot calls them out for being bigots. So they can accuse everyone else of putting PC ahead of the US’s interests and American’s health.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Too many dumb people hated Hillary so much that they thought that voting for a vulgar, stupid and bigoted fake millionaire was a good idea. 

    And the people who hated Hillary so much that they voted 3rd party or didn’t vote.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator:

    The Republicans want to shrink the federal government because they don’t see that it does want it to do anything useful.

    FIFY.

    And that’s fine as an abstract political philosophy. They can build an actual ethos on that if they want. They should run on it if they believe it!

    But they won’t, because they know it’s unpopular and they can’t win elections on that. So they run on trumped up nonsense and then when they get into office they start breaking everything.

    It’s infuriating…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  71. 71.

    Mart

    That OANN lady makes me miss those bygone days of the militarystud.com – Jeff Gannon (Guckert) tossing softballs at Bush pressers. I guess her trip with Rudy to Ukraine did not work out so well; or are they waiting for the right time to dump?

  72. 72.

    glory b

    Just now, Rachel Maddow called on the media to stop broadcasting Trump’s press conferences, she said the lies are leading to people’s deaths.

    Then she began weeping when she talked about the msnbc sound man who died of the virus today.

  74. 74.

    Mike in DC

    Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate–sign above the entrance to Hell  April in the United States.

  75. 75.

    Patrianakos

    @Geminid: Yeah. Both Xi’s minions and Trump’s are pointing fingers for all they’re worth, hoping folks will get confused.

  76. 76.

    evodevo

    @satby: Luckily, all my usual wingers/libertarians are so freaked out by the stock market they have temporarily shut the hell up…which is nice

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    DeLong reads too much, but we all benefit.

    Very interesting: whenever “one side of a social divide regards the political system as flawed or illegitimate,” then lies become the truth. Those who feel like disrespected outsiders can regard a lying demagogue or their authentic champion. Their authentic appeal is precisely that they delegitimize what their supporters regard as an illegitimate system. Thus Trump’s core supporters know full well that he constantly lies, and love it. young is not a bug but a feature: Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan: The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth about Political Illegitimacy8 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417749632: ‘We develop and test a theory to address a puzzling pattern that has been discussed widely since the 2016 U.S. presidential election and reproduced here in a post-election survey: how can a constituency of voters find a candidate “authentically appealing” (i.e., view him positively as authentic) even though he is a “lying demagogue” (someone who deliberately tells lies and appeals to non-normative private prejudices)? Key to the theory are two points: (1) “common-knowledge” lies may be understood as flagrant violations of the norm of truth-telling; and (2) when a political system is suffering from a “crisis of legitimacy” (Lipset 1959) with respect to at least one political constituency, members of that constituency will be motivated to see a flagrant violator of established norms as an authentic champion of its interests. Two online vignette experiments on a simulated college election support our theory. These results demonstrate that mere partisanship is insufficient to explain sharp differences in how lying demagoguery is perceived, and that several oft-discussed factors—information access, culture, language, and gender—are not necessary for explaining such differences. Rather, for the lying demagogue to have authentic appeal, it is sufficient that one side of a social divide regards the political system as flawed or illegitimate…

    (Emphasis added.)

    Hmm…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Brachiator:

    What is this thing about “a Chinese official blamed the US military” for the virus? I have only heard this coming out of Trump’s mouth.

    Some Chinese officials are saying this. It’s a propaganda campaign on their side

    ETA: I see Adam answered this in more detail.

  80. 80.

    Mary G

    Ed Kilgore has a good piece at NY Mag about why Red staters may still side with Twitler no matter how bad he gets:

    So how will that play out psychologically and politically? It’s possible confidence in Trump and his administration will flag in Red America as the pandemic ceases to be mostly a blue-state, big-city phenomenon. But it’s also possible heartland insularity will feed on itself and embitter endangered people even more toward the godless, elitist mongrels of the East and West Coasts and the pathogens they breed.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    Sean Spicer is now in the WH briefing room as a reporter so I guess we’ve come full circle on how fucking insane this whole nightmare administration is.— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) March 20, 2020

  82. 82.

    Jay

    @Mary G:

    on the other hand, Red State-rs with their Gobernment hate, proud sheep like individualism and disdain for facts and science will be dropping like flies.

  86. 86.

    Bill Arnold

    From the donaldjtrump.com link:

    Additionally, a cyber attack was directed at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While the perpetrators are currently unknown to the public, China must be counted as a prime suspect.

    Uhm, nope. Anyone with a few K$ can (illegally) buy a DDoS attack, e.g. to manipulate the stock market. That’s red-flag bullshit, until they have actual attribution.
    (Also, I have logs of (at least) 6 “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services” IP addresses trying to log into my home machine (via an exposed ssh port). They were probably part of a botnet. That strongly suggests real sloppiness.)

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