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censorship
Meet Mary Miller: The New Face of GOP Censorship
Do you want this bigoted Republican telling you what books you and your children can read?
Apr 15, 2026
When it comes to protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation, Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller is an odd choice for the job. The downstate Republican was first elected in 2020. During her 2022 reelection campaign, one of her employees was a man named Bradley Graven. The conservative Washington Examiner reported that Graven “was convicted of soliciting sex with a minor,” but this conviction did not stop him from fundraising for Miller, collecting signatures on her behalf, and chauffeuring the candidate around.
Shortly into her first term, Miller gave a shout out to Adolf Hitler in a speech before right-wing group Moms for America. Miller told the group “Hitler was right on one thing: he said, 'Whoever has the youth has the future.'” Miller later apologized for her compliment to der Fuhrer, saying she was referring to the efforts of “left wing radicals” to “re-educate young people.” Miller, unsurprisingly, does not see anything wrong with the efforts of right wing radicals like herself to re-educate young people.
And Miller is, to be clear, a right-wing radical. Often described as a “Christian nationalist,” she proclaimed that the United States was “founded as a Christian nation” when she opposed a Sikh leading a prayer at the capitol after misidentifying him as Muslim. She is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, and in return that caucuses political action committee is her largest campaign donor.
These seeming handicaps aside, Miller introduced House Resolution 7661, the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” on February 24th of this year, a misleadingly titled bill that restricts federal funding for schools unless they take action to ban “sexually oriented” books from classrooms and school libraries. For the purposes of the legislation, “gender dysphoria” as well as "transgenderism" [sic] considered sexually oriented. Schools could lose federal funding merely for having a title that features a trans person or fictional transgender character. On March 17th, the bill advanced from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to the House floor.
Miller and the gang are operating under the simplistic notion that children will become gay or trans simply from reading a story with a gay or trans person in it.
Congressional supporters of HR 7661 are notable for their anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Miller claimed the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act “attacks the traditional family.” Committee Chair Tim Walberg, who released a statement saying the bill will “safeguard children from inappropriate content in the classroom” went on a jaunt to Uganda in 2023 to urge their government to “stand firm” on maintaining their “Kill the Gays” law. Randy Fine, one of the most notorious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigots in the House, has also made statements calling for the eradication of the LGBTQ+ community. One could continue down the list but the point is made.
Miller and the gang are operating under the simplistic notion that children will become gay or trans simply from reading a story with a gay or trans person in it. Children, though, are complex beings with a variety of influences acting on them, social, biological, and familial. If educators were capable of influencing children to such a degree that Miller believes, they would focus on ensuring students complete schoolwork on time, study for tests, and bring classroom materials, not on changing their gender identity or sexual orientation. As gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk said during the campaign to defeat the homophobic Briggs Initiative: “If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you’d sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.”
One is reminded of the US Senate testimony of comic book publisher William Gaines (Tales from the Crypt, Mad Magazine).In the 1950s, a moral panic asserted that crime and horror comics were making criminals out of helpless children, who, like automatons, followed the examples of comic book characters.“What are we afraid of?” Gaines asked. “Are we afraid of our own children? Do we forget that they are citizens, too, and entitled to select what to read or do?” The anti-comics crusade was popularized by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who worried about the “homosexual” influence Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman were having on their young readers in his sloppily researched tract Seduction of the Innocent. The current censorship efforts are an unfortunate repetition of Wertham’s pseudoscientific arguments.
As expected, HR 7661 has been opposed by the American Library Association, the National Education Association, Authors Against Book Bans, PEN America, among many others. The advocacy group 5 Calls has created a simple script for contacting Members of Congress and Senators to ask them to oppose this bill.
This horrific bill, HR 7661, represents the first attack on children’s freedom to read at the federal level seen in the United States. It creates a national censor deciding what every child in the United States can read. Under the guise of protecting children, Mary Miller—a woman who hired a convicted sexual predator and who once praised the Nazi dictator—has set herself up as the face of censorship and thought control in the United States. Would you let this woman decide for you what to read?
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Iran Says YouTube Is Trying to ‘Suppress the Truth’ By Banning AI Lego-Style Videos Mocking US-Israeli War
One expert said the videos have gone viral by "hitting on points of disaffection in the United States."
Apr 14, 2026
Iran's foreign ministry is accusing YouTube of trying to "suppress the truth" by banning the account responsible for a series of viral Lego-style animations mocking the US-Israeli war.
The small team known as Explosive Media has racked up tens of millions of views across several platforms, with slickly produced music videos mercilessly lampooning the Trump administration and glorifying Iran's struggle against the US and Israel's attacks that began at the end of February.
Last week, Explosive Media had its channel suspended from YouTube for "violent content," which its owners disputed. "Are our LEGO-style animations actually violent?” the group asked on social media.
On Monday, Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joined the criticism of the ban.
"In a land that proudly hosts Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and The Walt Disney Company, an independent animated YouTube channel—which had organically grown by depicting US aggression and warmongering, and garnered millions of viewers—was abruptly shut down!!" he wrote on social media.
"Why?!" Baghaei said. “Simply to suppress the truth about their ‘illegal war’ on Iran and shield the American administration’s false narrative from any competing voice.”
While Explosive Media's content can no longer be viewed on YouTube—which is owned by Google—it appears unaffected on other major platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok, where it has garnered millions of views.
The videos appear aimed at a US audience, often leaning into jokes and memes about the personal foibles of those leading the war.
They frequently reference the familiar accusation that President Donald Trump launched the war to distract from the growing scrutiny of his connections to the late multimillionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Another video takes aim at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's history of alcoholism and accusations of serial adultery and sexual misconduct.
The videos also portray a strident pro-Iran message. Following the announcement of a ceasefire last week, a video declared that “Iran won” the war. Others have shown Iranian missiles hitting the White House or heading toward Tel Aviv.
The videos also seize on growing domestic outrage over the US government's devotion to Israel, which it implies is controlling Trump and dragging the US into a war against its interests. One video, uploaded last week, portrays Trump being literally walked like a dog by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Your government is run by pedophiles. They ordered you to die for Israel," repeats one video's chorus.
A spokesperson for the team, who identified himself as "Mr. Explosive" in an interview with the BBC, has described his group as "totally independent." But he did say that the Iranian government is a “customer,” implying possible collaboration.
Explosive Media has denied any links with the Iranian government. Responding to a journalist at The Associated Press who said the sophistication of the videos suggests government involvement, the group's official X account replied, "We’ve told you—and other journalists—multiple times that we are independent. Yet you keep repeating the same false claim, insisting that we are connected to the government."
It added: "Western media shows no real commitment to truth—they simply repeat their own baseless claims until they start to sound like facts."
While the Trump administration often portrays the war as a clash of civilizations, the videos posted by Explosive show the American people in a sympathetic light.
Though the videos pull no punches toward their leaders, ordinary Americans are portrayed protesting the Trump administration or fearful about being sent to fight in a foreign war by an administration that promised to end such conflicts.
Polls show that the majority of Americans disapprove of the war and fear it escalating. Moustafa Ayad, a researcher with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, told WIRED that the videos have likely gotten so much attention because they tap into this discontent.
"People are disengaging from some of the real conflict content and looking for something that can distill what's happening quickly and in a language and tone that they understand, and that's what those Lego videos are doing,” he said. "They're making it easily accessible to understand the conflict from Iran's point of view, and it's hitting on points of disaffection in the United States at the same time. It's working on two fronts.”
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Trump White House Pushes Satellite Firm to Withhold All Images of Iran War
The decision "will make it much more difficult to monitor US-Israeli bombing there, which seems to be the point," said one human rights campaigner.
Apr 05, 2026
The satellite firm Planet Labs told customers, including major news outlets, that it was acting on the Trump administration's request as it announced it was implementing "an indefinite withhold of imagery" in Iran and across the Middle Eastern countries where the widening conflict started by the US and Israel is unfolding.
The Saturday announcement, said UK rights campaigner Sarah Wilkinson, was a sign that images of the war will be censored "to hide the truth."
Planet Labs sent an email to journalists who have regularly used the company's satellite images to report on the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and Iran's retaliatory actions on Saturday, saying that after receiving a request from the US government, it was "moving to a managed access model... and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest."
Washington Post reporter Evan Hill suggested the announcement would limit reporters' access to information from "one of the most important US-based commercial satellite imagery providers on whom most media outlets rely."
The announcement comes as Iran's military capabilities have reportedly exceeded US expectations, with US intelligence reporting Iran has retained many of its missile and mobile launchers and casting doubt on the Pentagon's claims that the US is severely diminishing Iran's missile stockpile.
The White House's request for a suspension of satellite imagery was the latest sign that "Trump’s war is going swimmingly," said podcast host Mark Ames sardonically.
It also coincided with multiple threats over the weekend from President Donald Trump, who said this coming Tuesday would be "Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one"—with increased attacks on Iran's civilian infrastructure unless Iran agrees to a deal on Monday.
A major bridge was destroyed by the US on Saturday, while Israeli forces bombed a significant petrochemical complex, reportedly sending pollution into the surrounding city. At least 13 people were killed in the two attacks combined. A projectile that struck the vicinity of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant also killed at least one person and raised concerns about a larger attack, which "could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations," as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the Trump administration's demand for satellite images to be withheld "will make it much more difficult to monitor US-Israeli bombing there, which seems to be the point."
Data and imagery collected starting on March 9 will be withheld by Planet Labs. The company previously instituted a 14-day delay on the release of satellite images to ensure they would not be "leveraged" by "adversarial actors."
Also on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli soldiers had "destroyed all of the CCTV cameras" around the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a mission in the southern part of the country where three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast on Friday and several others have been killed since early March, including some by Israeli fire.
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