Here’s the first political advertising of a post-Roe world
Plus: Holy cow, the FBI seized 25 paintings at a Basquiat exhibition in Florida and they seem fake
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
Here’s the first political advertising of a post-Roe world
This Tucker Carlson screenshot is being sold as an NFT by Jenny Holzer
Holy cow, the FBI seized 25 paintings at a Basquiat exhibition in Florida and they seem fake
Here’s the first political advertising of a post-Roe world
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling last Friday allows states to ban abortion, and political groups have rushed to condemn or celebrate the decision. These are the first ads of a post-Roe U.S.
In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, many digital ads from abortion rights groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America emphasized the fact that this was big breaking news. As Insider’s Bryan Metzger tweeted, “when big things like this happen you always see people who aren’t that political posting Obama quotes on their Instagram stories.” True.
Planned Parenthood ran a number of ads about their challenges to bans passed in specific states. Since the Dobbs ruling, at least 11 states now have bans or strong restrictions limiting abortion in place, and 11 other states have bans set to go into effect.
“They won’t stop at abortion,” reads the copy on one Planned Parenthood ad, a reference to Justice Clarence Thomas writing in his opinion that the court should reconsider rulings on contraception, and same-sex relationships and marriage.
Planned Parenthood is also running ads showing a full-page newspaper ad of celebrities who signed a letter opposing the ruling, including Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion, Hailey Bieber, and Billie Eilish, as well as ads in English and Spanish for women looking for an out-of-state abortion provider.
The Democratic National Committee is going with two messages, “Protect Abortion Access” and “Abortion is healthcare,” and yes, there are gradients.
Democratic fundraising appeals have been met with a degree of backlash. A viral clip of a protester complaining about a party text message asking for a $15 donation summed up the sentiment: “They have had multiple opportunities to codify Roe into law over the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they haven’t done it, and if they’re going to keep campaigning on this point, they should actually do something about it,” protester Zoe Warren told MSNBC.
As a meme shared by @OrganizerMemes read, “I am going to create a donation email that is so urgent.”
On the right, the GOP ran several of its own digital ads with the breaking news, and two of the designs have the look of Fox News social graphics.
The group SBA Pro-Life America is running an ad of a video of its president Marjorie Dannenfelser celebrating the decision and laying out what’s next.
“Now we begin,” Dannenfelser says. “We begin the beautiful work that is the fruit of God’s grace and our labors. … It is our job to be as ambitious for life in every single one of those legislative bodies, and our governors’ mansions and the White House.”
This Tucker Carlson screenshot is being sold as an NFT by Jenny Holzer

As a response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, artist Jenny Holzer is selling an NFT to raise money for abortion rights groups.
The NFT is a tweet of a screenshot from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with the chyron “Making An Informed Choice Regarding Your Own Body Shouldn’t Be Controversial.” The chyron appeared in a May 11, 2021 segment about Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., saying he wouldn’t get vaccinated against COVID-19, which has killed more than 14,000 people in Wisconsin.
ACLU comms staffer Gillian Branstetter tweeted that the chyron read like work from Holzer, whose 1977-79 “Truisms” included declarative statements like “Abuse Of Power Should Come As No Surprise” and “Disgust Is The Appropriate Response To Most Situations.”
“This is like a Jenny Holzer installation or something right” Branstetter tweeted.
Titled “Body” (2022), Holzer wrote that the sentences in her work are “direct, emphatic, self-important, and as a whole, full of contradictions.”
“These statements speak to the anxiety, humor, banality, tragedy, and urgency of modern life,” she said. “Gillian Branstetter was kind to encapsulate the similarities between Carlson’s chyron and mine.”
The sale of “Body” will raise money for Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and PAI, according to Hyperallergic.
Holy cow, the FBI seized 25 paintings at a Basquiat exhibition in Florida and they seem fake

The FBI seized 25 paintings from the Orlando Museum of Art’s Heroes and Monsters exhibition on Friday after investigating their authenticity.
The work was attributed to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and said to have been found in a storage locker, but in an affidavit reviewed by the New York Times, the FBI said it found “attempts to sell the paintings using false provenance, and bank records show possible solicitation of investment in artwork that is not authentic.”
One detail that led investigators to believe the work might not be the real deal? The typeface used on the back of a piece of cardboard reading “Align top of FedEx Shipping Label here” — Univers 67 Bold Condensed — wasn’t used by FedEx until 1994, six years after Basquiat’s death, the Times found.

The museum said in a statement it doesn’t believe it’s under investigation, but man, that sucks. The exhibition was set to close this week, so most people who wanted to go have already seen it, and they did a whole wrapped bus for what might have been a show of inauthentic work. Oof.
Luckily, the $25 tumblers they sold were based on a Basquiat piece at the Broad and not one of the works they had on display now in FBI hands.