Twenty trucks of food, water, and medicine crossed from Egypt into Gaza after a night of Israeli bombing. No fuel was included, and the aid was three percent of what formerly went to Gaza, an open-air prison because Gazans have not been permitted to freely travel into Egypt and Israel. UN officials stated that the area needs at least 100 trucks every day; before the conflict an average of 450 aid trucks arrived daily. Israel increased its airstrikes, declaring it will annihilate the Palestinians. Israeli strikes have killed at least 4,385 Palestinians, including hundreds of children.
Representatives from several Arab and Western countries, including Russia, attended a “peace” summit in Egypt, but Israel and the U.S. were absent. The summit was considered a failure because it ended with no resolution.
Disinformation dominates X “news” about the Israel-Hamas war, outpacing credible mainstream news outlets, according to an analysis. The highest-performing accounts on X, the “new elites,” include Visegrád 24, run by a right-wing Polish social media marketing agency; Mario Nawfal, focus of an NBC News investigation; @spectatorindex operated by Australian-Muslim medical doctor; @CollinRugg, a co-founder of the conservative site Trending Politics; and @CensoredMen, formerly posting in support of the misogynist internet influencer Andrew Tate. All the high-performing “new elites” have blue verified badges provided to anyone who pays $8 per month.
A flaw in X allowed people to impersonate the CIA. A security researcher discovered the information by hijacking a Telegram link meant to securely direct information in contacting the CIA. The researcher stated that the bugs came from X, not the CIA.
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was voted out of his leadership position 19 days ago, but the sign over his former office, where he has stayed, still lists him as “Speaker of the House.” Many of his effects have been moved out, but he’s working in the suite with two large conference rooms, a kitchenette, a fireplace, and a balcony overlooking the National Mall. It is a few steps away from the House chamber. No one has seen McCarthy in his new office on the fourth floor of the Rayburn building, a long way from the House floor even with an underground tram. In a vindictive move, acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC) immediately exiled former Democratic House leaders Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Steny Hoyer (MD). No one has yet moved into Pelosi’s former office.
Because of conspiracy theories, red states have increasingly rejected using a verified cross-state partnership, Electronic Registration Information States (ERIC), to monitor voting lists and are now creating their own system. ERIC searches for voters who move, die, or illegally vote in two different states in the same election. The latest home-grown system, Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID), lacks the detail of ERIC which cost millions of dollars and used a decade of experience from a partnership between Democratic- and Republican-led states.
Missing from AVID is a driver’s license number, considered necessary for unique identifiable information and available in ERIC. Non-ERIC software is similar to the unsuccessful Kansas Crosscheck which provided a large number of false positives and security concerns. The GOP replacement for ERIC appears to recreate a verification system aligning with their political interests.
Individuals are also creating unreliable verification software such as EagleAI Network, comparing state voter lists to newspaper obituaries, property records, and rooftop and street pictures. Yet far-right influencers are pushing GOP-led states to use the program. Another program, Fractal, was started by a frequent contributor to the fringe conservative website The Gateway Pundit, instrumental in spreading false narratives about ERIC. Texas Republicans, believing in the myth of the “stolen” election, are interested in Fractal which received funding from MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
Lindell’s pillow company lost tens of millions while he gave tens of millions of dollars to elect DDT. Now he’s trying to sell Wi-Fi monitoring devices for about $500 after he claimed that signals at the polls tamper with voting results. Northern Kentucky election officials have declared these devices illegal, probably a felony, and told poll workers not to allow them. The devices, however, are small enough to sneak into polls and illegally identify voters. Lindell is already banned from X—difficult for far-right influencers—for his election fraud conspiracies.
While House Republicans slogged through the mire to find a Speaker, its Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education met to examine the banning of “explicit” content from school libraries. Technically, a hearing is to examine issues, but in this case, the Republicans already have their conclusion. Subcommittee chair Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL) made that clear with his opening statement:
“Today, the Committee will set the record straight for the American people: inappropriate books are in school libraries, and local communities are within their rights to remove them.”
The hour-long session, called “Protecting Kids: Combatting Graphic, Explicit Content in School Libraries,” paraded conservative witnesses trying to deny that removal of “inappropriate” material from school library is “book-banning.” They argued that books are available elsewhere online and in stores, which cost money, and in public libraries, which also remove these books. Another false denial was that LGBTQ+ books aren’t being purged: libraries are banning books by an author whose name is “Gay” but whose works don’t fit the “explicit” content.
One witness complained that the Bible was removed from schools in 1963. Abington School District v. Schempp, however, rules that school-sponsored Bible readings were unconstitutional under the First Amendment but did not ban the Bible from schools, a book with far more “explicit” content than the censored books. Ranking committee member Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) was able to refute some of the lies, including her explanation that 41 percent of banned content focuses on LGBTQ+ themes and characters while 40 percent focuses on characters of color. Pen America’s Dr. Jonathan Friedman testified that removal of books from shelves, often by only one parent, “restrict[s] access to information and ideas, implicating students’ First Amendment rights.”
Iowa may be the king of book banning with a new law excluding any book that contains a “sex act.” Hundreds of removed books include 1984 (George Orwell), Brave New World (Aldous Huxley), Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut), and Forrest Gump (Winston Groom). The vague law has no guidelines but permits the Bible filled with lusting, defiling, prostitution, nakedness, promiscuity, breast caressing, and genitals like donkeys. And that’s just in Ezekiel 23:16-21.
Montana had the first law in the nation to ban drag queens from reading to children in libraries, and a federal judge now upheld a temporarily injunction on the law saying that it is likely unconstitutional. According to his ruling, the law infringes on free speech and expression plus showing “anti-LGBTQ+ animus.”
Scholastic, long known as a premier publisher of books for youth, is enabling the book banning in conservative areas, supporting schools and parents barring young people from reading and learning about topics such as race and gender. For its renowned annual book fairs, a fundraiser for many schools where students and parents can purchase books, Scholastic pulled out 64 titles for an optional collection, “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice,” books including race, gender, and sexuality that have been banned in some conservative towns, counties, and states. Two books listed are The ABCs of Black History, a biography of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to be a Supreme Court Justice, and one of a series by JoJo Siwa, a celebrity who came out to the public about her LGBTQ+ identity. Books fairs can easily exclude (censor) these books.
To answer the backlash, Scholastic explained that the new collection focuses only on targeted books, “mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country.” Pen America, a nonprofit supporting free expression protection, stated that Scholastic’s optional collection is “an accessory to government censorship.” A progressive “mom’s” political group, Red Wine and Blue, is circulating a petition stating that the separation of these books “is sending a message that the books are problematic and should be avoided. They’re taking the most extreme policies from the most extreme state legislatures and applying them to everyone.”
United Auto Workers union members have ended a nearly month-long walkout at Mercedes-supplier ZF’s plant in Alabama after the 190-worker union ratified a tentative agreement. Another 34,000 UAW members are still on strike at the Detroit Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler parent Stellantis which has put 1,520 on furlough. Ford has another 2,730 furloughed workers and GM, 2,300. UAW president Shawn Fain said that the union will no longer give advance warnings for future walkouts.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams calls himself a Democrat, but many of his actions since his election in 2021 have been questionable. For at least 18 months, he has been making audio deepfakes of himself to use different languages when robocalling New Yorkers without notifying anyone they use artificial intelligence. A state bill would mandate AI disclosure in political ads but doesn’t mention government communication. QAnon members on 4chan have been generating voices of Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Emma Watson making racist and transphobic comments. Adams has pushed the “ethical” use of AI and described himself as embracing exciting new technologies.
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