BONUS NUMBER 40: MIKE JOHNSON, SECOND IN LINE FOR THE U.S. PRESIDENCY, IS A...(fill in the blank)
(Did You Sleep With the Models?)
If you believe, as I do, that Mike Johnson, the newly-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, is a dangerous hypocrite, an insanely ambitious demagogue, a liar, the complete opposite of the clean-living Baptist that he pretends to be, rotten even by current Republican standards, a naive prig, and also stupid — then I hope you’ll read the excerpts below from today’s Guardian website.
The implications are damning.
And never forget that he is two heartbeats away from the Oval Office.
I urge you also to read the full article, which appeared today, November 21, on theguardian.com. The title of that article, by Adam Gabbatt, is “I Tried Mike Johnson’s Favorite Anti-Porn App. It Didn’t Go Well.”
Excerpts from Adam Gabbatt’s feature:
“The first thing to say about Covenant Eyes, the anti-porn phone app used by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, is that it did change my relationship with pornography. It dramatically increased the amount of time I spent thinking about it.
“The word ‘porn’ is splashed absolutely everywhere across CovenantEyes.com, where you can create an account and download the app. It appears 18 times on the home page alone. The message isn’t positive — ‘porn creates shame,’ ‘shame fuels porn usage’ — but the effect is unavoidable: if porn wasn’t on your mind before you visited Covenant Eyes (unlikely), it sure will be after.
“Turning website visitors into horndogs isn’t quite in Covenant Eyes’ mission statement. The app, which Johnson said he and his family had been using for ‘a long time,’ promises to help people ‘discover the freedom of living porn-free,’ essentially through a shame-oriented method of sending all your phone activity to a designated accountability partner.
“The app works – when it does work – by taking screenshots of whatever you’re looking at on your phone a couple of times a minute, and feeding the results into its system. From there, AI technology decides what constitutes regular phone use and what it deems to be pornographic incursions. When the app thinks you’ve viewed porn, it sends an alert to your ‘accountability partner,’ a trusted person you have designated to help you on your porn-free journey.
“It’s unclear what your partner is actually meant to do with this information – issue a stern telling off, offer an arm round the shoulder, or turn up at your house with a crucifix and some holy water.
“In a video clip from 2022 that resurfaced earlier this month, Johnson, 51, said he had been using Covenant Eyes with his son, Jack, who was 17 at the time. The pair received a report on one another’s internet usage once a week, Johnson said. He added that his son had “got a clean slate so far” but did not comment on the cleanliness of his own slate. (emphasis added) Having used the app for a week, I can confirm that mine, unfortunately, is soiled.
“But soiled unfairly, largely because of issues with what Covenant Eyes considers porn.
“Over the course of several days, the app frequently reacted prudishly to numerous pictures of women, repeatedly flagging distinctly PG content as inappropriate and sending my accountability partner’s phone into meltdown.
“An Instagram photo of a female friend on a beach, wearing a bikini, triggered a push notification to my partner’s phone, wrongfully accusing me of delving into pornography. An article about women’s soccer, which had a picture of two athletes after a game wearing their under-shirt garments, did the same.
“If the House speaker were to type ‘pretty ladies’ into his Google search bar, he would find himself in hot water. When I tried it, one of the image results showed a woman in a blue bikini, and Covenant Eyes immediately flagged it as explicit content. ‘Attractive dames’ also triggered Covenant Eyes, while ‘conservative hotties’ sent the app into a frenzy, after Google produced images of women in swimwear in front of American flags.
“Curiously, the app does not have a problem with the male form. When a friend sent a link to a New York City-based all-male strip club, Covenant Eyes didn’t seem to care – even letting it slide when I clicked through to some photos of the oiled-up dancers. (emphasis added)
“Aside from a general (albeit gendered) overzealousness, a problem with Covenant Eyes is that it only properly works on Android phones. The Google app version will monitor all your phone activity, across everything. Trying to sneak a glimpse of hot women on Instagram? Your son/accountability partner will get an alert. Look for smut on Facebook – where Johnson has 36,000 followers – and your buddy will know.
”On the iPhone, however, the app is only able to track what you search for in Safari, which makes it very easy to sidestep watching eyes. (emphasis added)
“Hours of research yielded photos from this year showing the speaker using an iPhone with three rear cameras. The first iPhone to boast three rear cameras was released in 2019, which means Johnson could theoretically have evaded the full scrutiny of Covenant Eyes for four years. Other images, however, suggest Johnson also has access to a non-iPhone product. His office did not respond to questions. (emphasis added)
[Gabbatt’s feature ends here.]
************************************************************************************************************
QUESTIONS:
Many studies over the years have demonstrated, quite predictably, that the main protestors against porn are usually its biggest consumers. Isn’t having a “designated accountability partner” like putting on handcuffs to avoid masturbation — then having a “designated partner” perform the motions for you?
If he is as happily married, in an air-tight covenant marriage, as he proclaims in every interview, why would he need technological assistance in resisting female nudity and sexual activity online?
Is Mike Johnson struggling with issues of intimacy, sexuality, family harmony? If one has no interest in a particular subject, one doen’t need a governess to shoo one from it, not even a nanny in the form of an app. For instance, I have never peeked at Truth Social, Trump’s creation. My own common sense steers me away, as it does from similar trash: anything connected with Elon Musk, the Kardashians, fundamentalist religion, etc.
Does it strike you as unseemly for a 51-year-old man and his teenaged son to dabble together in a subject — viz., “pornography” — that the father considers damnably destructive? Teenaged boys, in general, find their hormonal outlets minus paternal alliance. Does the boy have any privacy at all, or is Daddy watching every time Junior gets a boner?
Incidentally, this boy, Jack, is not the same as the 14-year-old male who moved in with the Johnson family about twenty-five years ago. That young man is now 40 years old…just eleven years younger than the Speaker. Which suggests a bromance more than a father-figure-to-needy-son.
Does it strike you as a queer lapse indeed that Covenant Eyes flags only females — not only nude women but also those acceptably attired — “PG content,” as the Guardian writer puts it? If I were as desperate to shield myself from certain images as Mike Johnson apparently is, I would seek 100 percent coverage, not half of that. Covenant Eyes reminds me of those couples who practice monogamy…but only on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and religious holidays.