Monday Reads: Republicans and their Cultural Revolution

Sunrise over the Fields at Eragny, Camille Pissaro, 1891

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Yes.  That headline associates what’s going on today with Republican government officials and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

It’s still hot here, although we’re not topping out at 99.  It was 86 at 9 am, and I’m still not used to waking up to that kind of heat.  I believe this is the new normal, even though I seriously don’t want to believe it.  This is extreme heat.

Judd Legum reports this today in a piece called “Pride and Prejudice.”

Last week, seven Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Target CEO Brian Cornell warning that selling LGBTQ-themed merchandise “to families and young children” may be illegal. The letter, written by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) — and co-signed by the attorneys general of Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and South Carolina — alleges that selling “LGBT-themed onesies, bibs, and overalls, t-shirts” could violate “[s]tate child-protection laws” prohibiting the “sale or distribution… of obscene matter.” An item is obscene, the letter notes, if its “dominant theme… appeals to the prurient interest in sex.”

The actual LGBTQ-themed merchandise sold by Target in kids sizes, however, is patently not obscene.

The letter cites a number of other state laws “to protect children,” including new laws requiring material “harmful to minors” to be removed from school libraries, prohibiting “gender transition procedures on minors,” and banning the use of a minor’s preferred pronoun. The attorneys general admit that “these laws may not be implicated” by the merchandise for sale at Target but “they nevertheless demonstrate that our States have a strong interest in protecting children.”

Unable to marshall a real legal argument, much of the letter involves parroting misinformation about the items offered for sale in Target during Pride Month. For example, the letter claims that Target sold “girls’ swimsuits with ‘tuck-friendly construction’ and ‘extra crotch coverage’ for male genitalia.” This is false. Those swimsuits were “only offered in adult sizes.”

The attorneys general also object to Target selling a t-shirt called “Pride Adult Drag Queen Katya.” As the name suggests, this is a t-shirt that is offered only in adult sizes.

So, is this obscene in your view?

Sunset, Rouen, Camille Pissarro, 1898

The Culture Crusaders of the Republican party are getting more outrageous by the day. Nick Robbins-Early at The Guardian describes the right’s behavior in Congress, taking aim at the Maga crowd. “‘A deranged ploy’: how Republicans are fueling the disinformation wars. Several actions by the far right in the last month could result in a flood of conspiracy theories before the 2024 election”  Republicans use propaganda to drive their cult to extreme beliefs.  Stacked Federal Courts allow the crazy to question established law and weird interpretations of the US Constitution.

A federal judge in Louisiana ruled last week that a wide range of Biden administration officials could not communicate with social media companies about content moderation issues, and in a lengthy opinion described the White House’s outreach to platforms as “almost dystopian” and reminiscent of “an Orwellian ministry of truth”.

The ruling, which was delivered by the Trump-appointed judge Terry Doughty, was a significant milestone in a case that Republicans have pushed as proof that the Biden administration is attempting to silence conservative voices. It is also the latest in a wider rightwing campaign to weaken attempts at stopping false information and conspiracy theories from proliferating online, one that has included framing disinformation researchers and their efforts as part of a wide-reaching censorship regime.

Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana have sued Biden administration officials, the GOP-controlled House judiciary committee has demanded extensive documents from researchers studying disinformation, and rightwing media has attacked academics and officials who monitor social media platforms. Many of the researchers involved have faced significant harassment, leading to fears of a chilling effect on speaking out against disinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The Republican pushback against anti-disinformation campaigns has existed for years, alleging that content moderation on major platforms has unfairly targeted conservative voices. Many tech platforms have instituted policies against misinformation or hateful speech that have resulted in content such as election denial, anti-vaccine falsehoods and far-right conspiracy theories being removed – all which tend to skew Republican. But research has found that allegations of anti-conservative bias at social media companies have little empirical evidence, with a 2021 New York University study showing that these platforms’ algorithms instead often work to amplify rightwing content.

The rightwing narrative of tech platform censorship persisted, however, intensifying as companies prohibited medical misinformation about Covid-19. It gained additional momentum last year after the Department of Homeland Security rolled out a disinformation governance board aimed at researching ways to stop malicious online influence campaigns and harmful misinformation. Republican politicians and rightwing media immediately seized on the board as proof of a leftist authoritarian plot.

Sunrise on the Sea, Camille Pissaro, 1883

Extremist positions are imperiling the lives of pregnant women.  This is an exclusive from CNN. “A 45-year-old got pregnant in a state with a ban on abortions. She flew across the country to get one.”

When 45-year-old Victoria realized she was five weeks late and the lines showed as positive on two pregnancy tests, the New Orleans resident dreamed up a plan to get an abortion.

Traveling out of state was the only abortion option for Victoria, who asked CNN to withhold her last name out of fear of backlash against her and her family. Louisiana is one of several states that have essentially banned all abortions.

“It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through, from the moment of discovering that I was pregnant at age 45 to actually having to have to take time off work, travel across the country, do a meeting with a doctor, and then take the pills and then skedaddle back home and then go to work like nothing had happened,” Victoria told CNN of her experience earlier this year.

Victoria’s story about the distance she traveled and the hardships she endured to get an abortion reflects a wider American reality, where women seeking the procedure must navigate through a patchwork of states with varying levels of access.

The average travel time to an abortion facility more than tripled, from less than 30 minutes to more than an hour and a half, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a November study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And for women in Texas and Louisiana, average travel times to the nearest abortion facility were seven hours longer – almost a full workday in travel time to get an abortion.

Victoria says she was grateful she could drop everything and afford to spend $1,000 for the procedure, including same-week airfare with connections both ways and appointment and medication fees.

Sunset, Claude Monet, 1880

You can imagine what it would take if this woman didn’t have a supportive boss as well as money.  Read more about her journey at the link.

Of course, for many of these folks, it’s all about the money.  This is another dynamite piece of journalism by ProPublica.  “Right-Wing Websites Connected to Former Trump Lawyer Are Scamming Loyal Followers With Phony Celebrity Pitches. A mysterious network called AdStyle is placing ads with fake endorsements from celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Elon Musk on conservative sites based in the U.S. and abroad.”

Oprah Winfrey looked upset.

The photo caught her midsentence, her left hand jabbing at the camera.

“They are twisting everything,” the TV icon was quoted as saying, under a red “BREAKING NEWS” banner.

The ad featuring the Winfrey image and quote ran on the conservative website DC Swamp Tales. It directed readers to a webpage that resembled a news article. The text spun a narrative about a television interviewer who unfairly berated Winfrey for promoting a revolutionary product that could “reverse Dementia instantly & for good.”

But there was no such dispute. Winfrey’s quote was fake, and her name and likeness were used without permission. The product, a low-dose, cannabis-derived gummy supplement, does not treat dementia, let alone reverse it.

“These ads are false. Oprah Winfrey does not have anything to do with these products,” Nicole Nichols, a spokesperson for Winfrey’s company Harpo Inc., told ProPublica.

Such scam ads have proliferated on right-wing websites worldwide in the past eight months. They use fake endorsements from celebrities including Winfrey, country music singers Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire, Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk, actor Ryan Reynolds, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder to promote dubious medicines and cryptocurrency frauds. Conservative publishers make money from each click on a deceptive ad, exploiting their like-minded readers.

The ads were placed by AdStyle, an ad network whose corporate website lists it as being registered in Delaware with an office in Boca Raton, Florida. Its website said it is “trusted by” major brands including Toyota, Ikea, EA Games and L’Oréal. But Florida and Delaware corporate registries have no record of AdStyle, which appears to be operated by a Latvian couple living in Italy. Spokespeople for Toyota and Ikea said they could not find any records of those companies working with AdStyle. EA Games and L’Oréal did not respond to queries.

“These ads are certainly terrible,” said Kirsten Grenier Burnett, a spokesperson for McEntire. Spokespeople for Trudeau, Musk, Reynolds, Shröder and Parton either did not respond or declined to comment.

This month, after reporters contacted AdStyle, the “trusted by” assertion and the brand logos were removed from the company’s website.

So, I’m about to go to lunch with a pal I’ve known from grade school to high school. We were folk-singing girls with guitars!  Anyway, continue the conversation or post what you’re reading!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?