Russian Meddling, QAnon Crazies, & a San Francisco Set Up
Facebook announced they’ve decided to ban political ads the week of the election, and will place fact check warnings on postings making erroneous claims about voting and election results. Big whoop.
In an election where it’s likely that a majority of Americans will vote in advance, this is like using a spoon to empty a bathtub.
In case you haven’t noticed, the President is only making a stab at winning re-election. He is, however, trying to stay in power. There is a huge difference between the two.
Just to spite the media (I think), Trump posted his latest voting advice on social media today. Facebook has amended the post, adding a link to Reuters on voting. Twitter, not so much::
Just to be safe, here are the facts about North Carolina (Other states have similar measures)
https://twitter.com/RedTRaccoon/status/1301534353697234944?s=20
Facebook did take down a small number of Russian-backed pages this week, and a few freelance journalists desperate for work discovered their paymaster was actually the Russian Internet Agency.
From the Washington Post:
In the case of the Russian disinformation network, Facebook said the operatives created fictitious personas on Facebook to direct people to a new site called Peace Data, which billed itself as a “global news organization” whose goal was “to shed light on the global issues and raise awareness about corruption, environmental crisis, abuse of power, armed conflicts, activism, and human rights.”
One article posted on Facebook about the far-right “boogaloo” movement featured a headline that read, “USA Far Right is Growing Thanks to President Trump,” according to a report provided by Facebook.
A report Tuesday by Graphika, a network analysis firm based in New York that received the Facebook data in advance, found that the Russian effort was small but echoed past efforts to undermine support for Democratic Party candidates by appealing to left-wing U.S. voters. Among the targets were Biden and Harris (D-Calif.), who were criticized by the phony network as immoral tools of political conservatives. Some posts also criticized Trump, but the target audience in the United States was democratic socialists, environmentalists and disaffected Democrats, the report found.
One mass media effort the Russians did succeed with involved a widely reported story about Michigan voter rolls being hacked and sold on criminal virtual trading posts. I fell for it, and felt stupid about not being more thorough.
From Techdirt:
Russian newspaper Kommersant was quick to proclaim that nearly every voter in Michigan -- and a number of voters in additional states -- had had their personal information compromised. The report was quickly parroted by other outlets including the Riga-based online newspaper Meduza, which insisted that the breach was simply massive:
"Russian hackers have leaked the personal data of nearly every voter in Michigan (7.6 million of the state’s 7.8 million voters), as well as the information of another million voters in Arkansas, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida, according to the newspaper Kommersant. The data recently appeared on a Darknet forum, posted by a user nicknamed “Gorka9.” The information was current as of March 2020 and a source at the security firm “InfoWatch” confirmed to Kommersant that the data is authentic.
For each American voter targeted in the leak, the following information is now available: full name, date of birth, sex, date of registration, home address, zip code, email address, voter ID number, and polling station number."
That "hacked data" was just public records.
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Once again, the intelligence about Russian intentions is hiding in plain sight.
From ABC News:
In early July the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to internal emails and a draft of the document obtained by ABC News.
Maybe it was withheld because the President already knew about the plan. Because it sure seems like it was being executed.
Check out these headlines:
Joe Biden's mental health is a big issue for voters | Bradenton …
Trump Questions Biden's Mental Abilities and Calls Harris ...
And, of course, Fox News is on it:
But wait! There’s more! Who needs Russian trained disinformation specialists when there’s already a QAnon taking charge?
Via Julia Davis at the Daily Beast:
The Kremlin’s coordinated efforts to aid the incumbent during the 2016 presidential elections are well-documented in the recently released bipartisan report by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Several senators taking part in the investigation pointed out that “Russia is actively interfering again in the 2020 U.S. election to assist Donald Trump, and some of the President's associates are amplifying those efforts. It is vitally important that the country be ready.”
Indeed, there is much to be ready for. In addition to the international purveyors of disinformation, some of the crank calls are coming from inside the house. Enter QAnon, the internet-driven conspiracy theory that portrays Trump as the messiah, sent by God to defeat an alleged cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek global domination and feast on hormones extracted from children’s blood. Trump described QAnon followers—a group that the FBI has labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat—as “people that love our country.” To date, Trump has reportedly amplified accounts promoting QAnon conspiracy theories at least 216 times…
...Kremlin-funded state TV channel Rossiya-1, for example, has labeled Kamala Harris “The Protector of Pedophiles,” claiming that “not a single pedophile priest was imprisoned” during her tenure as the San Francisco’s district attorney. In reality, the claims are based on files being released for civil litigation, hardly Harris letting off criminals—an important distinction intentionally twisted by Russian state TV.
Fact checker Daniel Dale at CNN has written an article helpfully pointing out (and refuting) nine conspiracy theories being circulated by the Dear Leader’s campaign. From soup as a weapon to rehashed George Soros conspiracies to plane loads of antifa, the torrent of lies and distortions appears to be never ending.
(BTW -- Rep. Devin Nunes is reportedly the source for the president’s plane load of antifa story. Considering the source, it’s even more udderly ridiculous.)
UPDATE: First person account of the incident; a truly mooooving experience:
https://demcastusa.com/2020/09/03/exclusive-what-really-happened-on-the-plane-full-of-anarchists/
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It’s one thing for the President to share his paranoia, it’s another when he tries to use the power of the federal government to act on his fear-mongering. On Wednesday, his minions issued a rambling memo threatening to cut funding for Democratic-led cities.
From the Guardian:
The president has often suggested that his political opponents, including Joe Biden, want to defund the police departments, despite the fact that most Democrats, including Biden, have said they do not endorse that approach to police reform. Pushing hardline “law and order” rhetoric, Trump has also advanced baseless conspiracy theories about leftwing violence amid protests against police brutality and systemic racism while refusing to condemn rightwing and white supremacist vigilantism.
The memorandum that the White House shared on Wednesday night, which specifically names Portland, New York City, Seattle and Washington DC as examples of jurisdictions that might lose federal funding, is unlikely to result in any of those cities losing significant funding, according to legal experts. Congress determines how funding is distributed, and agencies cannot “willy-nilly restrict funding”, said Sam Berger, a former senior policy advisor at the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration.
The five-page memorandum “reads like a campaign press release”, Berger told the Guardian. “The first two pages are a bizarre diatribe – that’s not what a government document looks like.”
Fortunately, just about every legal expert interviewed by the media has reminded us that Congress directs funding, and that this memo isn’t likely to withstand legal challenges. My gut on this memo is that it’s simply bluster, but I recognize Trump’s desperate situation.
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Finally, in today’s journey down the political rabbit hole of US politics, there’s the scandal involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done.
Oy. The same nits refusing to wear facemasks and pushing herd immunity mythology are having a meltdown over Pelosi’s “hypocrisy.”
The owner of the salon where the Speaker lady had her coif attended to set her up, sending a video of the dastardly deed to Fox News. How do we know this? Because the woman who did the actual work refuted her boss via a lengthy letter issued by a high powered law firm.
https://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery/status/1301348229997445121?s=20
Stay safe, folks. It’s only going to get worse.
Remember, the goal in all this misinformation and bad behavior is to make voters feel angst, hoping they’ll stay home for this election.
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Today’s news about a-holes getting what they deserve…
https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1301559981490212865?s=20
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