Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates

A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity.

The main targets appear to be Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president.


A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms, as well as interviews with data scientists and digital campaign strategists, suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary.

The cyber propaganda — which frequently picks at the rawest, most sensitive issues in public discourse — is being pushed across a variety of platforms and with a more insidious approach than in the 2016 presidential election, when online attacks designed to polarize and mislead voters first surfaced on a massive scale.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/2020-candidates-social-media-attack-1176018

The wife of White House communications director Bill Shine claimed Wednesday that the measles, now in an outbreak in New York and Washington states, "keep you healthy" and "fight cancer."

The comments from Darla Shine came in a string of anti-vaccination tweets lamenting her own children's vaccinations and touting her immunity to the contagious disease.

"The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases they keep you healthy & fight cancer," Shine said on Twitter.

She continued, referencing the measles vaccine known as MMR: "I had the #Measles #Mumps #ChickenPox as a child and so did every kid I knew - Sadly my kids had #MMR so they will never have the life long natural immunity I have. Come breathe on me!"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/02/14/darla-shine-wife-white-house-chief-bill-shine-tweets-measles-vaccination/2870223002/

Being president isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Imagine how hard it must be if you’re Donald Trump.

“I probably work more hours than almost any past president,” Trump announced Sunday, adding that he “had no choice but to work very long hours!”

On Monday, after retweeting his own assertion from a few days earlier that he is “working hard,” he eliminated any doubt: “No president ever worked harder than me,” he declared.

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The president appears to be stung by a leak of three months of schedules showing he spent about 60 percent of his workday in “Executive Time” — watching TV, tweeting, gabbing and the like. When last week’s schedule was leaked to Axios, it showed Trump had cut back Executive Time — to
50 percent!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-sacrifices-are-hard-you-think-its-easy-working-11-to-5/2019/02/12/0495d612-2f04-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html?__twitter_impression=true&utm_term=.4a8ebf1cc7c9

https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/1094716387577159681?s=20


Brian Krassenstein
@krassenstein
Conservatism:

When a kneeling football player and immigrant toddlers are a bigger threat to the future of this nation than a presidential candidate conspiring with a hostile foreign power to undermine our democracy in order to make a buck

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