Hard Pass

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Since Israel began bombarding Gaza and starving its population of more than 2 million Palestinians in October 2023, the consensus that the Israeli government is committing genocide has steadily grown to include international and Israeli human rights groups, a United Nations panel, Holocaust scholars, and nearly 40% of Jewish Americans, according to one striking recent survey.

But in 10 words, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday waved away the findings of respected groups like Amnesty International and renowned experts like Brown University professor Omer Bartov, when she commented on why young Americans are expressing support for Palestinians.

"They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok," said Clinton.

Without pointing to any evidence, the former secretary of state said young people in the US are "seeing short-form videos, some of them totally made up, some of them not at all representing what they claim to be showing, and that’s where they get their information" about Israel's attacks on Gaza.

She added that "it’s not just the usual suspects"—without naming who those pro-Palestinian "suspects" are.

"It’s a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand," she said. "A lot of the challenge is with younger people."

Hillary Clinton blames TikTok and “totally made up” videos for young people’s views on Israel and Palestine.

She says social media influenced “not just the usual suspects” but also “young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.” https://t.co/rUVXRqK2rK pic.twitter.com/hAwG7Gbhwf
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) December 2, 2025

Her remarks echoed those of former Obama White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, who spoke recently about the challenges Zionists are presented with when they try to defend Israel to young Jewish people who have seen widely available, credible images and news out of Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and is continuing to restrict humanitarian aid despite a ceasefire deal reached in October.

"Anything that we try to say to them, they’re hearing it through this wall of carnage," Hurwitz lamented last month, drawing condemnation.

Clinton was speaking at an event in New York City for Israel Hayom, the most widely read newspaper in Israel, which is run by billionaire Miriam Adelson, a megadonor to President Donald Trump. Adelson published an editorial in the Jewish Journal in November 2023 saying pro-Palestinian protesters "are dead to us," and her late husband, Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, said in 2014 that the Palestinians are "an invented people."

Jeremy Slevin, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), pointed to the irony of Clinton attending an event associated with the Adelsons and then claiming that "the kids are being radicalized by anti-Israel propaganda."

— (@)

Clinton has frequently claimed that pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly students who took part in nationwide campus protests last year as they urged the Biden administration to comply with US law and stop funding Israel's attacks on Gaza, are simply misinformed about Palestine and ignorant of history, particularly pointing to the 2000 Camp David Summit hosted by former President Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state has repeated the claim that the Palestinians were offered a "generous deal" at the meeting and "walked away"—a "myth" that Camp David negotiator Robert Malley has debunked, warning it's been used by Clinton and others to "justify Israel's genocide."

Robert Malley on the myth of “Palestinians walked away” at Camp David (July 2000):

➤ Malley says the popular story pushed since 2000 – that Arafat rejected a “generous offer” – is contradicted by the actual record. Israeli PM Barak sidelined the Palestinians for a year,… pic.twitter.com/3vlf1Rl4qj
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 28, 2025

"She’s the one getting the history wrong," including at the Israel Hayom event, said Drop Site News on Tuesday.

A number of observers took issue with Clinton's suggestion that anti-Israel sentiment in the US is being driven solely by young people, with Just Security executive editor Adil Haque issuing a "periodic reminder that the biggest shift in attitudes toward Israel and Palestine has been among older Democrats."

In 2022, 43% Democratic voters ages 50 and up had an unfavorable view of Israel. That percentage has risen sharply since Israel began its onslaught in Gaza, with 66% of those voters reporting an unfavorable view in a Pew Research Center poll this year.

Meanwhile, 71% of Democrats ages 49 and under opposed Israel in the same poll, and 62% of them had expressed opposition in 2022, denoting a less extreme shift in opinion.

"Democrats get their news from CNN more than other mainstream sources," said Haque, pointing to the network's recent investigation about Palestinian aid-seekers who were killed by Israeli forces. "If you're a 60-year-old with grandkids and you read or watch CNN's Gaza reporting, you don't need TikTok to know that what's happening is very, very wrong."

Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs at the Center for International Policy, also suggested Clinton has an inaccurate view of who opposes Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians.

"I’m nearly 50. I don’t use TikTok. I listen to NPR 'Morning Edition' and read the Financial Times daily," said Williams. "I’m a lawyer who has worked on Israel-Palestine issues for the last 20 years. The evidence I’ve seen that Israel committed atrocities including genocide in Gaza is overwhelming."

Author Jason Overstreet wondered how Clinton would explain the findings of human rights groups like Amnesty International and Israel-based B'Tselem, which pointed to testimonies by Israeli soldiers and the documented destruction of Gaza's food system when it concluded in a report in July that Israel is committing genocide in the exclave.

"I guess Hillary Clinton also thinks that Amnesty International called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide because they saw some videos on TikTok and just 'did not know history,'" said Overstreet. "Young people’s views on Israel are based on young people knowing that Israel has committed genocide."

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Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warned that the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas redistricting case will lead to a "violation of the Constitution" of voter rights.

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned decision in favor of freezing the initial 2-1 U.S. federal court ruling against Texas Governor Greg Abbott's proposed redistricting map, a stay that could help Republicans pick up five additional U.S. House seats in next year's midterms.

"This Court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race," Kagan wrote in her dissent. "And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution."

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House Speaker Mike Johnson is imploring his fellow Republicans to stop venting their frustrations in public and bring their complaints to him directly.

“They’re going to get upset about things. That’s part of the process,” Johnson told reporters Thursday. “It doesn’t bother me. But when there is a conflict or concern, I always ask all members to come to me, don’t go to social media.”

Increasingly, they’re ignoring him.

Cracks inside the GOP conference were stark this week as a member of Johnson’s own leadership team openly accused him of lying, rank-and-file Republicans acted unilaterally to force votes and a leadership-backed bill faltered. It’s all underscored by growing worries that the party is on a path towards losing the majority next year.

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But the FBI isn’t sure what motivated the suspect, Brian Cole Jr., to allegedly plant bombs outside GOP and Democratic party headquarters on the evening before the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks.

The man charged with planting pipe bombs outside Republican and Democratic national party headquarters before the Jan. 6 Capitol riots told the FBI he supported Donald Trump and leaned toward anarchist ideologies, according to two people familiar with his interview.

Brian Cole Jr., 30, who was arrested Thursday at his family home in a Northern Virginia exurb of Washington and criminally charged, confessed to the FBI that he planted the bombs near the Capitol on Jan. 5, 2021, according to two sources familiar with Cole’s interview who requested anonymity to speak about a sensitive ongoing investigation.

Investigators said that Cole expressed support for anarchist ideologies in the past but they found no evidence that he colluded with militant organizations or with any Trump supporters who organized the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the sources told MS NOW’s investigative reporters Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig.

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Windows 11’s Notepad continues to get Copilot-powered AI features – a handy addition to a tool whose main appeal has always been simplicity and minimalism. Not all users are happy, however, with some saying AI features are overkill.

sauce

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Donald Trump’s tiredness, recent MRI and hand bruise suggest he may be taking medication to treat Alzheimer’s disease, according to a “curious” California Democrat.

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., tweeted that Trump is showing signs he’s taking the Alzheimer’s disease drug Leqembi.

“The Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi:- Is administered through an infusion (for example, through the hand)- Can cause swelling, bleeding, or fluid leakage in the brain, requiring regular MRIs- Can cause tiredness,” Kamlager-Dove tweeted along with a picture of Trump’s hand bruise. “Curious.”

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Nicholas Merrill received a hand delivered National Security Letter from the FBI in 2004, ordering him to give up data on one of his ISP customers.

Merrill opened it and read the letter while the agent waited. The first and second paragraphs told him he was hereby ordered to hand over virtually all information he possessed for one of his customers, identified by their email address, explaining that this demand was authorized by a law he’d later learn was part of the Patriot Act.

The third paragraph informed him he couldn’t tell anyone he’d even received this letter—a gag order.

He then fought a landmark, decade-plus legal battle against the FBI and the Department of Justice. As the owner of an internet service provider in the post-9/11 era, Merrill had received a secret order from the bureau to hand over data on a particular user — and he refused... and won.

After that, he spent another 15 years building and managing the Calyx Institute, a nonprofit that offers privacy tools like a snooping-resistant version of Android and a free VPN that collects no logs of its users’ activities.

Now the completely anonymous phone service. The full article is worth the read.

EDIT: Sorry I should have cross-posted. I forgot where I first saw the story: the Privacy community.

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I just noticed multiple websites show this error. This isn't just me, right?

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