Good morning. I’m Corrine Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
A Republican congressman asked a second staffer for nude photos while already under investigation for an affair. Trump threatened to jail a journalist for reporting on the airman trapped in Iran while bragging about rescuing him. Ron DeSantis signed a law giving himself the personal power to label any group in Florida a terrorist organization. And the TSA has been quietly handing travelers’ records to ICE, resulting in more than 800 arrests.
Before we get into it: We don’t have a billionaire. We don’t have advertisers. We don’t have a broadcast license the FCC can yank the moment we say something inconvenient. What we have is readers. And right now, that’s the most defensible position in American media. The Washington Post and the LA Times have already been consumed. 60 Minutes, sources say, is next. A paid subscription to AlterNet America is a bet on the kind of journalism that can’t be bought. Please consider making it today.
Now. Let’s go.
The Congressman Who Couldn’t Take No for an Answer (Or 47 of Them)
In March, Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas admitted to an affair with a staffer named Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide in September 2025. The House Ethics Committee launched an investigation. Gonzales announced he wouldn’t seek reelection. He called it a “lapse in judgment.” God, he said, had forgiven him.
Apparently God hadn’t finished reading.
New reporting reveals that Gonzales pursued his campaign’s political director in 2020, requesting nude photos and pushing for a sexual relationship despite her repeated refusals. He asked for explicit photos so many times that at one point he replied to her refusal with “47 nos is about my limit.”
In texts, he told the staffer “I know what I want and I won’t stop until I get it.” He is a married father of six. This is what Republicans mean when they talk about family values.
Gonzales has not publicly responded to the latest allegations. He will finish out his term in January. The Ethics Committee investigation is ongoing. The staffer said there were more texts too salacious to share with the press. We are left to imagine.
Trump Threatens to Jail Reporters For Covering Iran Rescue Mission
A man spent two days hiding in an Iranian mountain crevice, treating his own wounds and evading the military, while Iran offered cash rewards to anyone who turned him in. He made it home. It is one of the most dramatic rescue stories in recent American military history.
Trump celebrated it by threatening to put the journalist who covered it in jail.
On April 3rd, an F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran. Both crew members ejected and were stranded behind enemy lines. The second spent nearly two days in the mountains while Iran offered roughly $60,000 to anyone who could deliver him. Delta Force and SEAL Team Six went in to get him.
A news outlet reported that a second airman was still missing after the first was recovered. Trump argued that by publishing this, the outlet tipped off the Iranians and made the rescue significantly more dangerous. He called the leaker “a sick person” and threatened to jail the journalists responsible.
The press conference where he said this was organized specifically to celebrate the rescue.
Trump said of Iran at the same podium: “The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” This was Easter Monday. The Easter Bunny had been present at the earlier event.
We are six weeks into a war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The journalists remain unjailed, for now. The airman is home. The First Amendment is in the mountain crevice now, bleeding, waiting for someone to come get it.
The TSA Has Been Feeding Your Flight Records to ICE
Your boarding pass is doing a lot more traveling than you are.
The TSA’s Secure Flight Program was created in 2007 to screen passengers against government watchlists. The goal was to catch terrorists before they boarded planes. It was not designed to catch people who have been living quietly in Florida for twenty years.
And yet. Internal ICE data reviewed by Reuters show the TSA shared records on more than 31,000 travelers with ICE between the start of Trump’s term and February 2026, resulting in more than 800 arrests. That number is far higher than anything previously disclosed publicly.
Among the cases immigration attorneys described: an Irish couple who had lived in the United States for more than two decades were detained in front of their children at a Florida airport while trying to fly home from vacation. They had pending applications for permanent residency.
A college student was detained flying from Boston to Texas for Thanksgiving. A mother was arrested at San Francisco International Airport the day before Trump deployed ICE officers to airports to help TSA officers.
The TSA isn’t just checking if you’re a terrorist. They’re checking if you’re a terrorist, and if not, forwarding your information to someone who might disagree.
Ron DeSantis Can Now Personally Decide Your Student Group Is a Terrorist Organization
Florida has a new law. It allows a top official at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to designate any group as a terrorist organization. Then, the governor and three other members of the Florida Cabinet can approve or reject the designation.
The governor is Ron DeSantis. The Cabinet members are also Republicans. The system of checks and balances here is Ron DeSantis and three of his friends.
Once a group is designated, it can be forcibly dissolved and frozen out of state funding. Students who are found to have “promoted” a designated organization can be expelled from their university. Universities are also required to report expelled students on visas to federal immigration authorities.
DeSantis had already tried this approach via executive order last December, designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization. A federal judge blocked it. His response to a federal judge blocking his executive order was to pass a law. The law will be challenged.
But the challenge will go to courts that are increasingly populated by people who think Ron DeSantis has good ideas.
A Note From AlterNet America
A congressman who texted a woman “47 nos is about my limit” is finishing out a term. A governor just handed himself the power to decide who counts as a terrorist. A president is threatening journalists from a podium decorated for Easter. And a counter-terrorism database has become a deportation dragnet.
None of these stories will get the treatment they deserve from outlets that need White House access to survive, or advertisers who’d rather you look away. We don’t have advertisers. We don’t have access to protect.
We can’t be bought because we don’t answer to anyone who would want to buy us. We answer to readers. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, there has never been a better time, or a more urgent one. Your subscription is the only thing that keeps this work free from the people we’re writing about.
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tonight.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
House Democrat moves to impeach Hegseth over Iran war. A Democratic congresswoman announced she’s introducing articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth for his handling of the Iran war. Republicans control both chambers of Congress and need a two-thirds Senate majority to convict, so this will go exactly as far as you’d expect. But it is nice to know someone is filing the paperwork.
Artemis 2 astronauts fly around the moon in record-breaking lunar loop by NASA. Four astronauts quietly flew around the moon yesterday, watched a 53-minute solar eclipse from the far side of it, and broke the all-time human distance record. They traveled farther from Earth than anyone ever has, and their first order of business upon returning to radio contact was to ask NASA if they could name a crater after the mission commander’s late wife.
KY Supreme Court terminates impeachment of Fayette Judge Julie Goodman. The Kentucky Supreme Court just ruled 5-1 that Republicans cannot impeach a judge simply because they didn’t like six of her rulings, which the court described, with admirable restraint, as “tyrannical.” The GOP Senate spokesperson declined to comment on whether they planned to follow the court order, which is itself a pretty telling answer.
Scientists are developing a daily pill that extends your dog’s lifespan by years. A biotech company has developed a beef-flavored daily pill for senior dogs that has now cleared two of three FDA regulatory hurdles. Scientists are also running the largest clinical trial in veterinary history to test a second anti-aging drug on 1,300 dogs, which is either the most hopeful news you’ve heard or a reminder that dogs are getting better healthcare than Americans.
