Did a Republican Rep call 12 Year-olds "Ripe and Fertile?
Well... not the one you are supposed to believe
On Friday, May 10th, an account on Twitter/X named “TheSGTJoker” tweeted out the following:
“Leader of the @MissouriGOP, 65yo Rep. Dean Van Schoiack (aka @ColonelDean) is upset that members of the Missouri House have the audacity to try to introduce a bill that won't let him marry a 12yo girl calling it "Interference is my God Given Rights to her fertile, ripe body."
Dean Van Shoiack is a Missouri state representative for District 009.
Missouri is in the middle of reconsidering its child marriage laws.
I ran the “TheSGTJoker” account through Cyabra and there are no indicators that this particular account is a Russian disinformation agent.
However, the language of the tweet is similar to a tweet from Alissandra Murray, who is a state representative from New Hampshire. This tweet showed a video from New Hampshire state representative Jess Edwards who said:
“If we continue to restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option when we do this to people who are of fertile, ripe fertile age and may have… may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not in fact making abortion a much more desirable alternative?”
Allesandra Murray is not followed by the “TheSGTJoker” account, but Shannon Watts is.
Shannon Watts retweeted the video from Allesandra Murray, which was then viewed over 1.6 million times.
Since Representative Jess Edwards and Representative Dean Van Schoiack both look similar.
It is not unreasonable that the “TheSGTJoker” account intended to mislead people.
This is called “misattribution manipulation” and is a common Russian disinformation tactic.
The case for this builds because when I challenged the user on their assertion:
Several Twitter users sent me the video from New Hampshire. They had been fooled as well.
Note that saying “Welcome to the world of facts” to me will probably not work out well for you.
So while I don’t believe that this user is a paid Russian actor, I do believe that they may have been trying to mislead people intentionally.
Holy cow my dude! we are the same age... based on this totally trivial fact I shall extend my support of your work by at least another year. I know this must be a damn stupid reason for doing (but, middle aged dudes must stick together), but I guess you'll take it.
You weren’t going to address the fact that the post grossly misquoted the statement?
The original statement has nothing to do with the SPEAKER wanting to marry a young girl.
He addressed the fact that even a pregnant young girl is prevented by law from marrying. Which, whether you agree that’s a problem or not, is a completely different sort of discussion.