Friday Politics Roundup | Proud Boys convicted; SCOTUS corruption; more abortion bans; child labor; summer of right-wing conferences targeting schools; PA LGBTQ bill; AI is coming for us all

Four Proud Boys, including their leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. 

The corruption doesn’t stop when it comes to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. New reporting in the Washington Post this week exposed that Leonard Leo the architect of the right-wing legal juggernaut, the Federalist Society, instructed Kellyanne Conway to use her nonprofit organization to pay Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, tens of thousands of dollars. Leo told Conway to make sure to leave Ginni Thomas’s name off all the paperwork. 

That reporting comes on the heels of revelations by ProPublica that billionaire Harlan Crow paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s great-nephew, who Thomas was raising “as a son.” Thomas did not disclose the tuition payments as part of his legal obligations to do so. 

North Carolina becomes the latest state to try to further restrict abortion. The Republican majority in passed a new 12 week abortion ban, but the state’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, says he’ll veto the legislation. 

Bernie Sanders unveils a new bill that calls for an increase of the federal minimum wage to $17/hour.

Meanwhile, Iowa becomes the latest state to rollback labor protections for children, now allowing for children as young as 14 to work in roofing, construction, demolition, light manufacturing, and assisting customers with fireworks. 16 and 17 year olds will also be able to serve alcohol in restaurants. The bill joins similar ones passed in Arkansas and Missouri that are part of a push by conservative lobbying groups. 

Labor market is going strong as unemployment declines to 3.4%, adding 253,000 jobs. 

Republican frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters

The Freedom Foundation is holding a conference in Denver this July to train right-wing school board activists, anti-union teachers, and white-washed curriculum. 

PA House passes bill that will add LGBTQ protections to the state’s nondiscrimination law. 

Moms for Liberty is holding their conference in Philadelphia this summer ahead of this year’s school board and municipal elections. 

Criticism of  president of Thomas Jefferson Hospital Mark Tykocinski blew up following revelations that he has a habit of liking tweets that question the science behind COVID an call gender reassignment surgery “child mutilation.”

Artificial Intelligence pioneer, Geoffrey Hinton, leaves Google and warns about the potential dangers of rapidly deploying AI.