UnderpantsWeevil

Over the summer months, UIUC police and Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz joined forces to send a clear and heavy-handed message about how they intend to handle pro-Palestinian student speech going forward. Rietz — who has been on the faculty of UIUC’s law school since 2009 — began issuing summonses starting in July 2024, to students who are alleged to have participated in the encampment. A great deal of effort and resources seemingly went into targeting these students: University police utilized surveillance technology, including the use of license plate readers, as well as students’ social media posts and body camera footage. And the resulting summonses were not for misdemeanors — they contained mandates to appear in court for Class Four felony mob action charges, which carry up to three years in prison. Several students were charged, including one Palestinian student.

On August 16, 2024, Rietz publicly stated during a local radio spot that these charges were pursued at the direct request of the university. However, the decision to prosecute these students for a felony under the mob action statute was ultimately a prosecutorial decision, despite Rietz’s public claims that free “speech is absolutely a protected right.” While Rietz was elected by the community to serve the best interests of Champaign County, her private affiliation with the university raises questions about the lens she is using to review the evidence of these cases. Some UIUC faculty fear that Rietz is advocating on behalf of the university first, instead of the county, and that the university is leveraging its connection with her to legitimize its mistreatment of students in the eyes of the public.

You can't do that, you can't kill children on purpose knowing that you're doing that in exchange for power, freedom or happiness whatever you think you're getting in return. You can't participate in human sacrifice without consequences

Elon Musk's pro-Trump group does not choose the winners of its $1 million-a-day giveaway to registered voters at random, but instead picks people who would be good spokespeople for its agenda, a lawyer for the billionaire said on Monday.

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"There is no prize to be won, instead recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as a spokesperson for the PAC," Gober said in the hearing before Judge Angelo Foglietta, referring to Musk's political action committee, known as America PAC.

A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID vaccinesopens in a new tab or window and Florida's surgeon generalopens in a new tab or window bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven't blocked the vaccinesopens in a new tab or window outright.

While millions will still vote for the Republican candidate, perhaps hating immigrants more than they love reproductive rights, the only certainty at this point is that many millions more will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. In the latest ABC News/Ipsos national poll, the Democrat enjoyed a 14% advantage with women over Trump; among women with a college degree, that number rose to 23%; among women voters under 40, it rocketed to 34%.

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That, in turn, is causing some MAGA commentators to break from their usual posture of feigned confidence to outright panic.

“Early vote has been disproportionately female,” Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA and helping to lead the Trump campaign’s get-out-the-vote effort, posted on social media. “If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple.”

The Biden administration has received nearly 500 reports alleging Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons for attacks that caused unnecessary harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip, but it has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims, according to people familiar with the matter.

At least some of these cases presented to the State Department over the past year probably amount to violations of U.S. and international law, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

Election workers in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, are not destroying mail-in ballots cast for former President Donald Trump. The Department of Defense did not issue a directive last month giving US soldiers unprecedented authority to use lethal force against Trump supporters who riot if the former president loses next week. And no, 180,000 Amish people did not register to vote in Pennsylvania—given there are only 92,600 Amish living in the state, including minors. Ron DeSantis never said that Florida would not use Dominion Voting machines in next week’s election. And municipalities in California are not allowing noncitizens to vote in this year’s presidential elections.

These are just a small sample of the flood of voting-related disinformation narratives that are being seeded and spread on social media platforms like X, Instagram, and Facebook in the build up to November 5.