Michael Tae Sweeney: Not delighted by the "continued into Biden's presidency" framing when the actual thing the Biden administration did, according to the article, was ordered it shut down immediately after finding out that it was happening

Not delighted by the "continued into Biden's presidency" framing when the actual thing the Biden administration did, according to the article, was ordered it shut down immediately after finding out that it was happening

Reuters: The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public.

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to incite fear of China vaccineswww.reuters.com The covert effort began under Trump and continued into Biden’s presidency, Reuters found. Health experts say it endangered lives for possible geopolitical gain.

I mean especially in context of one of the main axes of debate for the upcoming election being people claiming that Biden and Trump are not differentiated or have similar policies. The article's link summary presents it as "they were the same" when the opposite is true bsky.app/profile/davi...

Right? I mean, every vile thing Trump did continued into the Biden administration until it was shut down or reversed.

Someone stumbling across this in the timeline would conclude that the Biden administration agreed with the Trump administration that this was a good thing to do, when the situation is literally the exact opposite. They were appalled and immediately ordered it shut down upon discovering it.

Easy scenario for "do not print lies in the newspaper" to trump the sharability or neutrality concerns that the headline writer had in mind instead bsky.app/profile/lega...

But how else can the story be “neutral”?

Like it's basically equivalent to saying "Barack Obama's policy of not implementing a Muslim Ban continued into Donald Trump's Presidency."

Yup. Pretty curious as to what this is about! bsky.app/profile/bioh...

WTF?!?! Apparently they were also doing something even *worse*, something the official who would talk about the vaccine misinformation thought was so bad they wouldn't even *mention*.

You may recall that uniquely among modern Presidents, Biden was denied a transition period where the previous administration cooperated with the new one and had his cabinet nominations all blocked and delayed as much as possible by Mitch McConnell bsky.app/profile/jedr...

Taking the Oval Office is not an on-off switch, you do not get a massive data dump into your brain the moment you become President. Your people need to find out what's going on and bring it to you.

I was trying to think of what would be plausible for that, and I'm drawing blanks - which is super concerning to me! The vaccine misinformation is really, really bad - what in the hell would we have been doing that would be *even worse*? So bad it cannot be uttered!!!?!?

Yeah - this is all in the Philippines though, right?

It's basically "The policy of having a portrait of Donald Trump up on the wall of government offices all over the country continued into the Biden Presidency", because of course many of those portraits were still on those walls at 12:01 PM on Jan 20.

Maybe they should go public with all this shit when they find it out, instead of burying it in order to leak it years later when there's an election coming up.

Why do you assume that's what happened? I would just assume, as all evidence suggests, that they're bad at competing against Republicans and Reuters actually dug it up.

But how else can the story be “neutral”?

I know you are being pointed but "program started under Trump was shut down x months into Biden Admin" would do it.

But that suggests the program might have deserved to be shut down, or that Trump was capable of error.

WTF?!?! Apparently they were also doing something even *worse*, something the official who would talk about the vaccine misinformation thought was so bad they wouldn't even *mention*.

Taking the Oval Office is not an on-off switch, you do not get a massive data dump into your brain the moment you become President. Your people need to find out what's going on and bring it to you.

The Trump admin also ran an anti-vax propaganda campaign in the US, just not through DOD.

I agree; the article states the program ended early in Biden’s Presidency. It seems like the program was discontinued soon after Biden’s team learned about it.

Barack Obama wasn't allowed into my SCIF when he was president-elect on the grounds that he didn't yet hold a clearance. He received a classified brief of all pertinent information following his inauguration. So yes, you do get a massive data dump when you're sworn in.

And the transition was not normal in 2021, it was obstructed by outgoing officials

Right? I mean, every vile thing Trump did continued into the Biden administration until it was shut down or reversed.

And the Trump admin was historically uncooperative during the transition, as well.

TIL esper made it so the military could do whatever psy ops it wanted without state dept approval

Same. We sort of "know" what can happen when you elect thugs into office but learning the filthy details is quite enlightening.

Rex Tillerman basically dismantled the State Department.

lol what the fuck no they didn’t they were told in January and they allowed the campaign to continue until after March 21 before they ordered it to stop that’s what the article says

And nobody was punished. In fact, certain actors in this scandal were given renewed contracts.

We still need to maintain a good relationship with amoral contractors that run shady Pentagon psyops, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater!

yeah spring of the same year as the inauguration is very fast for something that a sub branch of a sub branch of an enormous bureaucracy was doing

With literally zero transition support from TFG it probably took 89 days just to find the fucking thing.

No, see, the President is like a Bene Gesserit who immediately gains the memories and knowledge of all prior Presidents

We’ve never had a president decapitate his predecessor before to verify they aren’t highlanders

I’m currently being roasted over on Twitter for pointing that out.

The platform owned by the Nazi who wants to see Trump reelected isn't really great for countering anti-Trump propaganda.

*countering "Trump propaganda," sorry.

I only reply there. I gently pushed back against a well-regarded and widely read writer on the left in the hopes they were only mistakenly sharing right wing propaganda with their audience. In response they tripled down on the both sidesism so I guess I’m just done with that place forever now.

I really think a lot of left-wing and liberal writers on Twitter aren't aware of the way their information environment is propagandizing them.

At some point you have to say people who keep posting on the Nazi site are posting on the Nazi site on purpose

Nazi bar / rule of goats crossover

100%! I have had to block over half of my old follow list. I only lurk there because sports Bluesky hasn’t taken yet. Any discussion of real world issues there is poisoned beyond redemption.

So DOD officials who were still holdovers from Donald's time in the WH hid this vile shit from the Sec Def. They are fucking traitors.

the biden admin might have shut down the covid misinformation pysop but the firm that seeds the misinformation is still there and still doing its thing

Thank you! I noted the same.... "The U.S. military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined."

Probably even before mid-2021: "The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found."

Thank you! Exactly my response, wth

I was wondering about that!!

They are so desperate to make Biden and Trump look like they're basically the same when the differences are huge.

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