Morning Briefing: South Carolina GOP Lawmaker Accused School Librarians of 'Grooming'
A South Carolina GOP lawmaker accused school librarians of 'grooming of children' based on accusations made by Moms for Liberty, called for investigating school librarians “throughout the state.'
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Morning Briefing: In Anderson County, South Carolina, the local county chapter of Moms for Liberty, the right-wing anti-LGBTIQ so-called “parents’ rights” group, reportedly “claimed school librarians stocked inappropriate books for students and went to lengths to conceal those titles from parents.”
Republican South Carolina State Rep. Thomas Beach wrote an open letter in which he accused school librarians of “grooming of children” based on the accusations made by the Anderson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, and called for the state to fire the librarians and investigate other school librarians “throughout the state.”
Christian and Bridget Ziegler, the former head of the Florida Republican Party and former co-founder of Moms for Liberty, have reportedly “filed a lawsuit to block the release of records that were gathered by officials during a rape investigation,” including “web browsing history, text message conversations, and other data from Christian Ziegler’s phone.”
In Fort Worth, Texas, a teacher who works in the Northwest Independent School District was reportedly “the target of fake bomb threats last week, days after she was the subject of a social media post by the controversial Libs of TikTok.
In Springfield, Missouri, there have reportedly been several White Supremacists messages “spotted at local parks, on lamps and signposts, and at bus stops,” and local officials have said the groups behind the messages “groups promote violence, discrimination, and oppression based on race.”
Michael Mackrell, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, was sentenced “to more than two years in prison for attacking seven police officers” during the Capitol Riot. Mackrell, who traveled to Washington, D.C. from Ohio “with his son, co-defendant Clifford Mackrell,” allegedly “pushed back barricades with other rioters” and “engaged in multiple assaults and other unlawful conduct.”
A members of a white supremacist prison gang escaped from an Idaho prison and remain at large, reportedly “after the accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital.”
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Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, and Jill Colvin report that “initially relegated to a fringe theory on the edges of the Republican Party, the revisionist history of Jan. 6, which Trump amplified during the early days of the GOP primary campaign to rouse his most devoted voters, remains a rally centerpiece even as he must appeal more broadly to a general election audience. In heaping praise on the rioters, Trump is shifting blame for his own role in the run-up to the bloody mob siege and asking voters to absolve hundreds of them — and himself — over the deadliest attack on a seat of American power in 200 years. At the same time, Trump’s allies are installing 2020 election-deniers to the Republican National Committee, further institutionalizing the lies that spurred the violence. That raises red flags about next year, when Congress will again be called upon to certify the vote. And they’re not alone. Republicans in Congress are embarking on a re-investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that seeks to shield Trump of wrongdoing while lawmakers are showcasing side theories about why thousands of his supporters descended on Capitol Hill in what became a brutal scene of hand-to-hand combat with police.” [Associated Press]
Rick Perlstein writes that the companies that market to combat veterans, that “nothing more clearly expresses that culture’s rendering of the moral universe into two incommensurate categories—us, who are blamelessly pure, and them, who are dangerous pollutants of that purity—than a Blue Lives Matter flag identifying the stripe in the center as the ‘Barrier between community and lawlessness.’ (Only those who hate freedom, one supposes, dare suggest communities can include lawbreakers, and that lawbreakers can have community.) A certain esoterism is central to the marketing strategy for stuff like this: a delineation between the us who know and the them who scratch their heads. Which is how you know they are not part of the Family/Faith/Friends/Flag/Firearms tribe. For instance, do you know what a shirt reading ‘22’ signifies? I had to look it up. It’s not the ‘angel number’ signifying wisdom and relationship balance to woo-woo New Agers. Nor, God forbid, the 22nd catch in Joseph Heller’s classic novel about the meaninglessness, dehumanization, and waste of war. It’s the number of veterans who commit suicide on an average day.” [The American Prospect]
Chrissy Stroop writes “there’s a reason the American Right pursues a politics of moral panic. While the irrational and conspiratorial beliefs that accompany this fear-mongering are false, that’s a feature rather than a bug of an authoritarian movement with a primary goal of dominance, power, and control. As it turns out, moral panic – making vulnerable groups the target of people’s fears through lies and stereotypes while rallying around the notion of, say, ‘protecting the children’ – can be a powerful means of reaching that goal. As the 2024 electoral rematch between Joe Biden and former president/indicted insurrectionist Donald Trump approaches, Republicans are increasingly focused on scapegoating migrants and undocumented immigrants, which endangers not only immigrants (documented or otherwise), but also anyone perceived to ‘look like’ an immigrant. Of course, Trump has long used racist rhetoric to dehumanise migrants. But at a rally in Ohio on Sunday he escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric, stating: ‘In some cases, they’re not people, in my opinion.’ He also threatened a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses in 2024 and referred to people imprisoned for their roles in the 6 January insurrection as ‘hostages.’ But while Republicans clearly want immigration and border security to be the defining issue of 2024’s presidential election, LGBTQ and especially transgender Americans continue to be the target of significant hateful rhetoric and legal persecution by the GOP at state level.” [openDemocracy]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
"Moms for Liberty, the right-wing anti-LGBTIQ so-called “parents’ rights” group..."
What are these folks afraid of? Reading books saves lives. Banning books does the opposite. Banning books anywhere for any made-up, authoritarian reason, is anti-democratic and un-American.
Correction: "In Anderson County, South Carolina, the local county chapter of Moms for Liberty, the right-wing anti-LGBTIQ [ed., pro-threesome] so-called “parents’ rights” group, reportedly “claimed school librarians stocked inappropriate books for students and went to lengths to conceal those titles from parents.”