today over on Capitol Hill and in the
courts right Stephen Lee Myers and
Sheriff Frankel for the New York Times
Republican law make mounting a sweeping
legal campaign against universities
think tanks and even private
corporations this study the spread of
disinformation
now let me ask you
who would want to stop
anybody who studies how disinformation
is created and spread
the only people I can think of who would
want to stop
scientific analysis and understanding of
disinformation are the people promoting
it
and surprise surprise this is the this
is institutional across the Republican
Party
they go on to note the effort has
encumbered its targets with expensive
requests for information and in some
cases even subpoenas demanding notes
emails and other information related to
social media companies in the government
dating back to 2015.
can you imagine getting a subpoena a
court order
demanding that you turn over all of your
correspondence going all the way back to
2015 that has anything to do with say
Donald Trump and the 2020 election and
or you know Donald Trump and Russia or
whatever maybe any you know whatever
disinformation that they happen to be
trying to uh put the kibosh on you
revealing
as uh Myers and Frankel note in the New
York Times this has already affected the
group's ability to do research and to
raise money
they know many of those behind the
Republican effort had also joined for
former president Donald J Trump and
falsely challenging the outcome of the
2020 election well gee what a surprise
Jim Jordan runs the house Judiciary
Committee and the house Judiciary
Committee is the one that's actually
issuing subpoenas
and threatening if you don't answer the
subpoena in a timely fashion we're going
to throw your butt in jail
another group is a conservative advocacy
group led by Stephen Miller the you know
the the racist who used to work for
Donald Trump they filed a class action
lawsuit last month in the U.S District
Court in Louisiana I should say alleged
racist
targets include Stanford Clemson and New
York universities the University of
Washington the Atlantic Council the
German Marshall fund the National
Conference on citizenship all of these
are non-partisan groups
but God forbid they should look at Whose
Line and who is telling the truth
they went after the Wikimedia Foundation
that owns Wikipedia they went after
Graphica a company that researches
disinformation online
the committee's chairman I'm reading
from The New York Times representative
Jim Jordan a close Ally of Mr Trump has
accused the organizations of censorship
of disfavored speech end quote involving
issues that have galvanized the
Republican Party the policies around the
covid-19 pandemic and the Integrity of
the American political system the 2020
election
how low do these guys go
I guess you know there is no bottom
there really isn't
people at least 200 and maybe 200 000
and maybe as many as 500 000 Americans
died unnecessarily
because of disinformation and lies about
covid-19 about masks about vaccines
they're still dying
and yet the Republican party wants to
stop any Research into how those kinds
of Lies spread
our political system is in crisis and
our country was almost overthrown
if it hadn't been for five Republicans
standing up to Donald Trump he would
today be the dictator of the United
States and we would more closely
resemble Putin's Russia than we would
France or Germany
and Jim Jordan and the Republicans want
to make sure that whoever reveals the
information about how those lies that
led to January 6th how those lies that
led to the death of five people on that
day and three police officers
subsequently how those lies that led to
the near overthrow of our form of
government and still threaten our form
of government how those lies get spread
those researchers Jim Jordan and
Republicans want to shut them down and
shut them up
and how does that Advance democracy it
doesn't
this is pure
fascism absolute attempt to stop
democracy because democracy requires
honest information to have in
well-informed voters making
well-informed choices and the Republican
Party understands that if the voters
know what's really going on with the GOP
that they're really just for the
billionaires and billionaires like
Donald Trump for grifters and
professional professional politicians
who make their money as grifters and for
and for giant corporations that's it
those those are the only groups that the
Republican Party represents the
interests of now yes they will
make it hard for women to get abortions
to suck up to Catholics and and and and
abortion fanatic Protestants they will
trash gays or the entire queer Community
they will go after after people who are
not gender conforming in order to to get
the bigot vote
they will gerrymander and do everything
they can to suppress the vote of Black
and Hispanic people and Asian people
because those are the things that are
necessary to seize and control Power but
those are not the groups whose interests
they really care about
the groups that they really care I mean
look at the legislation they pass the
groups they really care about are the
wealthy
and the corporate and the polluters
the people who will give them money
because money and power is what this all
boils down to
and of course their their whole you know
white supremacist male-dominated
hierarchical stick