Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
A Florida congresswoman who helped pass a six-week abortion ban nearly couldn’t get treatment for her own ectopic pregnancy under it. A MAGA congresswoman filed a national defense amendment description that still contained the words “Claude responded.” Public records show the FBI used Israeli Cellebrite software to secretly extract data from the phones of Spokane ICE protesters, 12 of whom were never charged with anything. And the Postmaster General told senators the USPS would stop delivering mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand over their voter rolls.
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 go.
MAGA Rep. Denied Abortion After She Helped Ban It
Rules for thee, hemorrhage for me.
Florida Republican Representative Kat Cammack helped pass her state’s six-week abortion ban. In May 2025, shortly after it took effect, she woke up bleeding heavily at five weeks pregnant with a nonviable, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.
She went to the ER and requested methotrexate, the standard medication for ectopic pregnancies. Hospital staff hesitated. They feared violating the very restrictions Cammack championed and facing professional or criminal consequences.
Cammack pulled up the state law on her phone for the medical staff to read and tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Governor Ron DeSantis’s office. She got the medication several hours later.
The law does technically permit treatment for ectopic pregnancies. The problem is that “technically permitted” does not feel reassuring to a nurse weighing prison time.
Cammack said she asked her husband about 30 times, “What about the women who don’t have a doctor? What about the women who don’t have a car to get to the ER?” Still, she didn’t use the moment to reflect — she blamed abortion-rights advocates. She called their protests against the ban “fearmongering at its worst” and said what she went through “wasn’t an abortion.”
Most people who survive something like that have a change of heart. She didn’t even have a change of talking point.
GOP Congresswoman Used AI to Write National Security Bill
High schoolers get failed for this. She gets a committee seat.
A description of Representative Anna Paulina Luna’s National Defense Authorization Act amendment appeared on the House Rules Committee website on Wednesday with a tell-tale line wedged into the middle of the text: “11:25 AM????Claude responded.” The language has since been quietly revised.
Luna said her staff used AI only to “spell/grammar check the amendment SUMMARY, not the actual amendment text itself.” Then she asked, “What dork planted this story?”
She added that she loves Claude, but that Elon Musk’s Grok is “way more savage.” Grok’s savagery has included generating nude images of underage girls and espousing Nazi beliefs, which is a curious endorsement for a sitting member of Congress.
In a separate post, she clarified that “NO legislation is ever drafted with AI,” noting House bill text comes from the House Legislative Council, which is prohibited from using it.
Federal judges were accused of using AI to write court orders last October, producing serious factual errors. An Arizona Republican used AI to draft deepfake legislation that got signed into law. At this rate, AI will be writing the bill that bans AI from writing bills.
AI can draft a defense bill, but it takes a human journalist to notice and report on it. Become a paid subscriber today and help keep that human employed.
The FBI Quietly Copied ICE Protesters’ Phones
A teacher spent ten minutes at a protest. The FBI spent two months with her phone.
On June 11, 2025, Shailynn Bray-Waters joined hundreds outside an ICE field office in Spokane, Washington, after learning two of her former ESL students had been detained at a routine check-in. She did not sit in front of the transport van. Spokane police arrested her anyway on a misdemeanor “failure to disperse,” confiscated her phone, and handed it to the FBI.
A Mother Jones investigation confirms the FBI used software from the Israeli firm Cellebrite to secretly extract data from at least a dozen protesters’ phones. She was one of 23 people arrested that night. She didn’t see her device again until mid-August.
The evidence jacket includes instructions for officers fielding calls about the missing phones: “Do not send them to the FBI or inform them the phone is with the FBI.”
Another owner, Thalia Ramirez, was later indicted in the “Spokane 9” conspiracy case. The other twelve had their charges promptly dismissed and got their digital lives copied for nothing.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that searching a cellphone requires a warrant, even after a lawful arrest. The FBI declined to say whether it obtained warrants here, which should tell you everything.
USPS Head Refuses to Deliver Mail-In Ballots
The Postal Service has finally found a package it refuses to deliver: your ballot.
Postmaster General David Steiner testified Wednesday in the first public defense of the agency’s plan to carry out Trump’s anti-mail-voting executive order. It was not reassuring.
Under a proposed rule the Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand their voter rolls over to the federal government. States would have to send USPS a list of voters requesting mail ballots at least 30 days before ballots go out. Voters not on the list don’t get one.
There was also the small matter of approval. Sen. Gary Peters indicated the Postal Service’s Board of Governors never signed off on the proposal. A committee aide confirmed the board did not formally approve it.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon noted the timing. The country is 132 days from a general election, and Minnesota law sets no deadline for requesting a mail ballot, which makes the 30-day rule impossible to follow.
Senate Democrats called it an unconstitutional attempt to build a centralized national voter database with individual barcodes under the President’s control.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Court Rules Against Trump Administration in Michigan Voter Data Fight. The Trump administration demanded Michigan hand over every voter’s birth date, Social Security number, and driver’s license number, citing a 1960 civil rights law that was written to protect Black voters from discrimination. A federal appeals court said no, making it ten losses out of ten attempts across the country. The court noted the administration was trying to use a civil rights law for the opposite of its intended purpose, which is a bit like citing the Geneva Convention to justify a war crime. The DOJ has sued 30 states and lost every single case that’s been decided.
Mike Lindell’s Lawsuit With Dominion Is Finally Dead, With Prejudice. The yearslong legal saga between MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems has ended. In a four-page motion filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., Lindell and the company agreed to dismiss all claims “with prejudice,” meaning they can never be refiled. The original case began in February 2021 when the voting company sued Lindell for $1.3 billion over his repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged; the complaint argued he kept selling the lie because “the lie sells pillows.”
Republican Behind the Nation’s First School Pride Flag Ban Loses Primary. Utah state Rep. Trevor Lee, who made the state the first in the nation to ban Pride flags from schools and government buildings, just lost his primary by over 30 points. Lee also once threatened to pull public funding from the Utah NHL team for posting a rainbow logo, and was caught running a secret social media account attacking women and LGBTQ+ people. His opponent Bob Stevenson does not mention culture war issues on his campaign site. He talks about housing and property taxes, like someone who has met a constituent.
Louisiana Man Becomes First in His Region Functionally Cured of Sickle Cell. Daniel Cressy, a 23-year-old from Metairie, Louisiana, became the first person on the U.S. Gulf coast to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, completing curative gene therapy at Manning Family Children’s Hospital in New Orleans on Monday. Cressy had dreamed of flying commercial jets, but the FAA would not license him because of his diagnosis. He is now planning a book, a nonprofit for aspiring pilots facing medical barriers, and what he calls “life two.” Cressy’s treatment signals hope for communities in Louisiana, which has more sickle cell cases per capita than any other state.
