Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The Pentagon used Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot to fire more than 2,000 munitions at Iran within 96 hours. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a victory lap about a foiled UFC terror plot before all the suspects were even arrested. ICE agents in Texas and North Carolina are demanding the voting files of individual Americans. And a conservative nonprofit spent $3.5 million beating Trump’s tariffs at the Supreme Court, then lost 30% of its donors for the trouble.
Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.
Now, let’s get into it.
The Pentagon Used Grok to Bomb Iran
Grok will roast your ex, name your dog, and apparently also decide which buildings in Iran stop existing.
In a court filing defending Elon Musk’s xAI, the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, Cameron Stanley, said Grok’s continued operation is “a matter of paramount national security” and was used to fire more than 2,000 munitions at 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours.
It is the first explicit admission from an administration official that the government is using AI to bomb Iran.
This matters because the bombing has not been precise. U.S. military investigators believe American forces were likely responsible for a strike on an Iranian girl’s school in Minab that killed at least 175 people, mostly children. Outside analysts have suggested AI-driven targeting, plus human error over outdated maps, may have played a role.
The filing came in a lawsuit by the NAACP, which alleges xAI is running at least 57 gas-burning turbines without Clean Air Act permits, polluting Black communities in Mississippi. The administration wants the case tossed because the data centers are “well positioned” to provide a “critical surge” of energy in an armed conflict.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has proposed a bill to keep human commanders in charge of life-and-death decisions and ban AI from nuclear weapons entirely. “Don’t let the chatbot have nukes” is now a political position.
FBI Agents Furious at Kash Patel Over Investigation Leak
The Secret Service spent months building a case. Kash Patel spent five minutes posting about it.
On Tuesday morning, Secret Service officials woke up to find Patel had already posted on X boasting about a thwarted plot against Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event, thanking the DOJ and “law enforcement partners.”
The problem: not all the suspects had been arrested, and the case was still sealed in court.
The Secret Service had led the investigation from the beginning and chose not to leak it, because they wanted to preserve its integrity. Federal law enforcement had five people in custody but had identified 23 others in an alleged “network of plotters” who planned to use an explosive-laden drone, force a mass evacuation, and steer crowds toward a sniper team.
Sources say the two agencies had agreed to make more arrests and unseal the case by late Tuesday afternoon before going public. Patel went at dawn instead.
This is a habit. Last year, Patel announced a suspect in the Charlie Kirk shooting was in custody, then had to explain two hours later the person had been cleared and released. He tweeted crime-scene evidence from an ICE facility shooting in Texas. He claimed a “person of interest” was in custody for a shooting at Brown University, before they were quietly released without charges.
We don’t need sources. He tweets it. All we do is remember what he tweeted last time, and the time before that, and notice the pattern. Apparently that’s a niche service now. If you still think that’s important, become a paid subscriber today.
ICE Is Now in Charge of Investigating Supposed Voter Fraud
The Trump administration has decided that the agency built to deport people is also, somehow, the right agency to audit who you voted for in 2008.
Months before the midterms, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm has begun directly requesting files for specific voters in battleground states like Texas and North Carolina.
In Webb County, Texas, an HSI special agent asked the county election administrator for the registration documents and voting records of seven voters. He gave no reason why.
In North Carolina, an ICE legal adviser requested information on two voters in Forsyth County, a county that voted heavily for Biden and Harris. One was a woman who registered in November 2016, cast an early ballot, and was later removed from the rolls. The other was a man who registered in December 1995 and voted in 2008.
Electoral fraud in the United States is statistically rare and not enough to change federal outcomes. When the RNC was asked for proof of Trump’s fraud claims, a spokesperson replied, “How can you fact check something that hasn’t happened yet?”
They’re not looking for fraud. They’re looking for Democrats.
A Conservative Group Beat Trump in Court and Lost 30% of Its Donors
She sued unions for the right. She sued universities for the right. She sued a Republican president and found out the right was never about principles — it was about the president.
Sara Albrecht’s nonprofit, the Liberty Justice Center, spent $3.5 million challenging the legality of Trump’s global tariffs. It worked. Three months after the group’s argument, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs, paving the way for businesses to seek the return of billions in collected fees.
The Liberty Justice Center previously won a landmark 2018 Supreme Court ruling against forced union fees and recently sued a Penn State division over its DEI policy. None of that mattered. Its most conservative donors started fleeing before the Supreme Court even took the case.
The group spent its entire typical annual budget on the litigation and lost a little over 30% of its donors.
Albrecht reached out to companies that filed for refunds, including Costco, asking them to chip in. Costco’s general counsel replied that its donations were “focused on education and health efforts.”
Albrecht says she has received “not one dollar from any corporation.” The invisible hand of the free market finally showed up. It was empty.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
The Trump Administration Just Gave Up Its War on Wind Power. After a year of trying to freeze federal permitting and leasing for wind projects, the White House has quietly walked away. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit dismissed the administration’s appeal after the Justice Department voluntarily withdrew it. That affirms a December ruling by Judge Patti Saris, who found Trump’s January 2025 executive order “arbitrary and capricious” and beyond his authority. A record 79.7 GW of clean power is projected to come online in the U.S. in 2026.
A Court Rejects the DOJ’s Bid to Defend Ohio’s Anti-Voting Law. The Trump DOJ tried to barge into an Ohio voting rights case to defend a law requiring proof of citizenship to register at the DMV, and a federal judge told them their filing was redundant, irrelevant, and late. The judge pointed out that the DOJ mostly just repeated what Ohio’s own lawyers had already said, argued against claims the plaintiffs never made, and filed the whole thing on the last day of briefing. This the legal equivalent of showing up to a potluck 45 minutes after everyone left with a dish someone else already brought and being told to go home.
Beshear Posthumously Pardons 43 Kentuckians Who Helped Enslaved People Escape. Ahead of Juneteenth, Governor Andy Beshear signed an executive order clearing the names of 43 people who were wrongfully imprisoned for helping enslaved individuals reach freedom. Among them are Elijah Anderson, a free Black man who helped roughly 1,000 people escape before dying in the Kentucky State Penitentiary, and Julett Miles, a Black woman who crossed the Ohio River to free her children from sale and died in prison for it. Beshear also proclaimed June 19 as Juneteenth National Freedom Day and an executive branch holiday.
The American Doctor Who Caught Ebola in Congo Has Come Home. Dr. Peter Stafford, who tested positive for Ebola while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, arrived safely back in the United States on Monday with his wife, Dr. Rebekah Stafford, and their four children. He was evacuated to Charité University Hospital in Berlin for specialty care; his family followed as high-risk contacts and were housed separately. He has remained Ebola-free since May 30, and U.S. health authorities are in regular contact. The outbreak has recorded 808 confirmed cases and 192 deaths, with 19 more cases and two deaths in neighboring Uganda.
