Mostly Monday Reads: Turning in Your Neighbor to the American Thought Police (2024 edition)

Posted: September 18, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Fascist Florida | Tags: , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I remember thinking how the Reagan years reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984 back before it was deeply embbeded in the Republican policies.  We read it in school, along with Lord of the Flies and Brave New World.  It’s on banned book lists in your fundamental Republican Dystopian Red State. Florida found it “pro-communist” and “sexually explicit.” I don’t remember being titillated or lustily singing the Internationale after my first read of the book or any of my rereads.  I reread many of these classics during Republican Administrations, remembering I read about it first in any one of the dystopian novels I was assigned in literature classes.

“I read the News today; oh Boy.”   A day in my life usually includes at least moving one of these books from my hallway library to the small bookshelf by my bed for easy reference. I may need a bigger shelf. Here’s an article from the Washington Post on scenic South Carolina. “Her students reported her for a lesson on race.  Can she trust them again?” This is reported by Hannah Natanson.

Six months earlier, two of Wood’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race. Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America.

The students wrote in emails that the book — and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism — made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” on account of their race.

Reading Coates’s book felt like “reading hate propaganda towards white people,” one student wrote.

At least two parents complained, too. Within days, school administrators ordered Wood to stop teaching the lesson. They placed a formal letter of reprimand in her file. It instructed her to keep teaching “without discussing this issue with your students.”

Wood finished out the spring semester feeling defeated and betrayed — not only by her students, but by the school system that raised her. The high school Wood teaches at is the same one she attended.

It had been a long summer since. Wood’s predicament, when it became public in a local newspaper, divided her town. At school board meetings, and in online Facebook groups, the citizens of wealthy, White and conservative Chapin debated whether Wood should be fired. Republican state representatives showed up to a June meeting to blast her as a lawbreaker. The next month, a county NAACP leader declared her an “advocate for the education of all students.” The county GOP party formally censured the school board chair for failing to discipline Wood.

This is something I could never dream up.  Someone’s point of view can be censored by an arm of the government because it hurts your feelings.  I can only tell you how many times Algebra tests hurt my feelings, but sheesh, buckle up, chucko.  Then, decide you’re not going to be like that because Coates’ book outlines actual harm done to people of color by the actions and attitudes of thoughtless white people and not some idle adventure into name-calling.  We should be ashamed that one group controls everyone’s destiny and grants favor to their own. The country has run like that since the days of slavery and the mass slaughter and removal of indigenous nations from their property.

Things that some of us label Orwellian have become everyday events in totalitarian-tilting Red States that chase women who go to other states or who transport pregnant women to other states, then fine them and jail them or worse. Will we even find justice for this in the courts, given that the majority of the Supreme Court appears to be Theocratic Tolatarians?

“Doublespeak” and “groupthink” came straight from Orwell’s frightening vision of a totalitarian future in which children spy on their parents, and the ultimate punishment for independent thinking is to be confronted by the thing that frightens one most. Anyone who has ever read 1984 cannot possibly forget Winston Smith and the rats.

This is from NBC News.  (Yes, the NBC News that gave Big Brother an interview on Meet the Press yesterday.) “Indiana attorney general sues hospital system over privacy of Ohio girl who traveled for abortion. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Indianapolis federal court, marked Attorney General Todd Rokita’s latest attempt to seek disciplinary legal action against Dr. Caitlin Bernard.”

Indiana’s attorney general has sued the state’s largest hospital system, claiming it violated patient privacy laws when a doctor publicly shared the story of an Ohio girl who traveled to Indiana for an abortion.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Indianapolis federal court, marked Attorney General Todd Rokita’s latest attempt to seek disciplinary legal action against Dr. Caitlin Bernard. The doctor’s account of a 10-year-old rape victim traveling to Indiana to receive abortion drugs became a flashpoint in the abortion debate days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Rokita, a Republican, is stridently anti-abortion and Indiana was the first state to approve abortion restrictions after the court’s decision. The near-total abortion ban recently took effect after legal battles.

“Neither the 10-year-old nor her mother gave the doctor authorization to speak to the media about their case,” the lawsuit stated. “Rather than protecting the patient, the hospital chose to protect the doctor, and itself.”

The lawsuit named Indiana University Health and IU Healthcare Associates. It alleged the hospital system violated HIPAA, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and a state law for not protecting the patient’s information.

Indiana’s medical licensing board reprimanded Bernard in May, saying she didn’t abide by privacy laws by talking publicly about the girl’s treatment. It was far short of the medical license suspension that Rokita’s office sought.

So the state is suing, but the girl and her mother aren’t part of any case?  I’m confused.  Plus, none of this would even be necessary if Ohio hadn’t turned a ten-year-old into state chattel and denied healthcare she desperately needed.

Hunter Biden has sued the IRS for their agents leaking his tax information. This is from CNN.

Hunter Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, alleging its agents illegally released his tax information and that the agency failed to protect his private records.

President Joe Biden’s son alleges the IRS unlawfully disclosed his tax return information and did not establish safeguards to ensure the confidentiality of his records. He is seeking, among other things, all documents involving the disclosure of the tax information, $1,000 for each unauthorized disclosure and attorneys fees.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, DC, does not name the two IRS agents turned whistleblowers as defendants. But the lawsuit is centered on disclosures made by the agents, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, and their lawyers in public statements, congressional testimony and interviews.

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Donald Trump appointee, has been assigned to the case.

It’s being filed amid a swirl of other legal issues facing Hunter Biden, who was indicted by special counsel David Weiss on three felony gun charges last week and is potentially facing additional tax charges by Weiss.

“Despite clear warnings from Congress that they were prohibited from disclosing the contents of their testimony to the public in another forum, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s testimony only emboldened their media campaign against Mr. Biden,” the lawsuit states. “And finally, since their public testimony before the House of Representatives on July 19, 2023, the agents have become regular guests on national media outlets and have made new allegations and public statements regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information that were not previously included in their transcripts before the Committee on Ways and Means.”

Specifically, Hunter Biden’s attorneys point to details Shapley shared in an interview with CBS News that aired in late June. During the interview, Shapley alleged that Biden took certain personal expenses as business expenses, including “prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers,” and that Biden owed $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, the lawsuit alleges.

Everyone is talking about Meet the Press and Kristen Welker’s first interview. She chose poorly.  NBC characterized it this way. “Here are 11 top moments from Trump’s ‘Meet the Press’ interview. The former president tells Kristen Welker he’s not worried about going to prison, and he thinks he can broker peace on abortion, and he explains where he stands on shutting down the government.”  CNN, however, characterizes it this way. “Fact check: 14 of Trump’s false claims on ‘Meet the Press.”  I’ll just single out this horrifying moment.

Trump, attacking Democrats on abortion policy, claimed, “You have some states that are allowed to kill the child after birth.” He also said specifically, “You have New York state and other places that passed legislation where you’re allowed to kill the baby after birth.”

Facts First: This is false. Killing a child after birth is not allowed in any state, and New York did not pass legislation permitting infanticide.

A law New York approved in 2019 makes abortion illegal after 24 weeks with the exception of cases where the fetus is not viable or the abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.” The law does not legalize post-birth murder. Since its passage, however, it has been the subject of online misinformation falsely claiming it does.

There are some cases in which parents decide to choose palliative care for babies who are born with deadly conditions that give them just minutes, hours or days to live. That is simply not the same as killing the baby.

Let’s just change “online misinformation falsely claiming” to right-wing religious propaganda and leave it at that.  Trump also gave the country’s Jewish population a special Rosh Hashanah Greeting. This is from The Guardian. “Trump marks Rosh Hashanah with antisemitic post claiming ‘liberal jews’ voted to ‘destroy America’, ‘Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward,’ New Year’s message from former president says.”

Donald Trump decided to mark the Jewish New Year by sharing an antisemitic message stating that “liberal Jews” voted to “destroy America and Israel” by supporting President Joe Biden.

The former president shared an image wishing Jewish Americans a happy new year on Rosh Hashanah on Truth Social on Sunday.

“Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed in false narratives!” the image said. “Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!”

The image posted by Mr Trump also included a flyer from JEXIT, a group based in Florida working to push the message to Jewish Americans “that the Democratic Party has abandoned them and Israel,” The Times of Israel has reported.

“Wake Up Sheep. What Natzi /Anti Semite ever did this for the Jewish people or Israel?” the flyer states.

So, this one is the strange one to me.  I think he just admitted to a lot of felonies. This is from CNN again. “Trump acknowledges he was told 2020 election lies were false in wide-ranging interview.”  It’s reported by Katie Sullivan.  I wonder how Trump’s attorneys feel about this?  Also, exactly who is under the bus here?

Former President Donald Trump acknowledged in a new interview that, despite receiving counsel from multiple people that the 2020 election was not stolen, he pushed ahead anyway with his false claims to try and overturn the results.

The comments to NBC’s “Meet the Press” directly address a central premise of special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results: that Trump knew the election claims he was making were false after being told by several close aides that he had lost.

“It was my decision, but I listened to some people,” Trump said.

In his first broadcast network interview since leaving office, the 2024 Republican front-runner also criticized members of his party over how they’ve approached abortion policy, discussed pardoning himself in the final days of his presidency and said he would testify under oath he did not direct an employee to delete security footage.

The former president said he didn’t listen to his attorneys who told him he had lost the election because he didn’t respect them and that he “respected many others that said the election was rigged.”

“I was listening to different people, and when I added it all up, the election was rigged,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker.

He added, “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened.”

In the indictment against Trump, prosecutors detailed the “prolific lies” Trump made in the wake of the 2020 election, including knowingly pushing false claims of voter fraud and voting machines switching votes despite state and federal officials telling him the claims were wrong.

Prosecutors put forward several examples of Trump being told by his aides that fraud claims he was promoting were false. The indictment cites instances where Trump was informed that his claims were false by then-Vice President Mike Pence, the director of national intelligence, senior members of the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, his own staffers, state lawmakers as well as state and federal courts.

“But the defendant disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election,” the indictment reads.

So, what fools would want a President who takes lousy advice?  Uh, that’s rhetorical.

So, let me quote directly from Nineteen Eighty-Four to address that.

“Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”

Do your remember a time when pretty much all of us agreed that NAZIs and Fascists were terrible?

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?