Musk PAC offers $100 to WI voters who sign petition against ‘activist judges’
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(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk’s political action committee is offering Wisconsin voters $100 who sign a petition opposing “activist judges” ahead of the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, echoing the billionaire’s controversial cash giveaways during President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The petition, promoted online and at in-person events by Musk’s America PAC, asks voters in the state to reject “activist judges who impose their own views.” Wisconsin voters who sign up are eligible to receive the $100, according to the PAC.
The petition’s language mirrors recent attacks by Musk and Trump on federal judges who have ruled against the administration. It reads: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”
The petition also allows Musk’s team to collect voter data for get-out-the-vote efforts ahead of next month’s election.
The world’s richest man has used cash giveaways in past elections, including a controversial $1 million sweepstakes to voters in swing states who signed a second amendment petition in efforts to boost Trump’s chances.
So far, two political groups aligned with Musk — America PAC and Building America’s Future — have poured nearly $20 million into supporting Republican candidate Brad Schimel.
In a memo obtained by ABC News, Building America’s Future said that internal polling showed Schimel was “within striking distance” of Democratic candidate Susan Crawford. To pull ahead, Schimel needed to “consolidate the base and present Schimel as a pro-Trump conservative,” according to the memo.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism calls on institutions of higher education to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff” concerning “antisemitism” on college campuses.
Some legal scholars say they’re concerned about what this could mean for free speech on college campuses following more than a year of tension between students, faculty and administrators, while other experts noted that past McCarthy-era cases on communist activity could foreshadow the action’s legal standing.
The main thrust of the executive order’s purpose: “Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault,” the order reads.
The fact sheet released by the White House on the new executive action threatens to “deport” college students in the United States on student visas and other “resident aliens” who expressed “pro-Hamas” or “pro-jihadist” views to “combat antisemitism on college campuses and in communities across the nation.” It calls for immediate action to be taken by the Department of Justice to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”
“It provides like a signaling mechanism and an alibi for university administrators who … want to crack down on Palestinian activism, and now they can point to this executive order and use the government as a further pretext for their actions, even though they’re under no legal obligation to do what the executive order says,” said Darryl Li, a legal scholar at the University of Chicago, in an interview with ABC News.
He added that in his legal opinion, “They’re not under a legal obligation to spy on their students and to report their students to the government. They need not, and they should not, cooperate with this executive order.”
However, past Supreme Court cases — particularly during the McCarthy era and the Cold War — found it is within Congress’ power to deport a legal noncitizen resident for their views, advocacy or membership in a political group if it’s in the interest of national security, Nadine Strossen, a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told ABC News.
These limitations also impact noncitizens attempting to enter the country, Strossen noted.
“There was this distinction; it’s one thing to say, government may not prosecute you, you may not be subject to civil penalties, but you may still be subject to deportation because of this doctrine that Congress has what’s called plenary power, pretty much unchecked power, with respect to matters concerning who is able to be present in this country and not present in this country,” said Strossen.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people, and around 250 others were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.
Israel then began its monthslong retaliation on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The United States and the United Nations have not officially declared Israeli action to be a genocide. However, a UN Special Committee report found that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza were consistent with genocidal tactics.
Protests and around-the-clock encampments concerning the war erupted at colleges and universities around the country.
Pro-Palestinian protesters called for an end to what they called an Israeli “genocide” against Palestinians and criticized the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian territories. Pro-Israel protesters called for a return of the hostages or were in support of the Israeli effort against Hamas.
Colleges were thrust into the spotlight as they reckoned with charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and anti-Israeli, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian sentiment amid the campus clashes.
Title IV, a law that bans discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any institution or program that receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education, became the center of dozens of investigations across the country.
Students and professors, many of whom were advocating for a ceasefire or pushing for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, were subsequently arrested at universities and protests across the country. Some were suspended or expelled from their universities, others were arrested for trespassing or disturbing the peace, though many charges were later dropped.
Student protesters critical of the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza continue to face accusations of antisemitism. But many of the student groups behind the protests – including Jewish activists – have said that individuals making inflammatory remarks do not represent their groups or their values concerning the war in Gaza.
Other Jewish or pro-Israel students around the country have spoken out about the pressures they too have faced, including renewed concerns about safety and acts of hate as law enforcement noted a spike in antisemitic incidents.
Trump’s executive order calls on higher education institutions to familiarize themselves with 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) — which defines “inadmissible” non-citizens for their relationship to alleged “terrorist activities.”
FIRE released a statement against Trump’s executive order, arguing that college campuses are intended to be places of learning and debate over a wide range of issues: “Advocates of ideological deportation today should not be surprised to see it used against ideas they support in the future.”
“This openness, albeit unpleasant or controversial at times, is a defining strength of American higher education,” an online statement read. “It’s one of the features attractive to students traveling from abroad who may hope to take part in the speech protections Americans have worked so hard to preserve. These are protections that they may very well be denied in their home countries.”
International students, or staff members with visas, are in a vulnerable situation because of their status, legal experts say.
“The potential loss of the visa is something that, of course, is devastating to international students. And if your visa is revoked on sort of security or terrorism grounds, it’s kind of like a lifelong — you’re basically banned from the United States for life, even if you have family who are U.S. citizens who live in the United States,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, who has advised hundreds of free speech or censorship cases concerning pro-Palestinian supporters.
Legal experts argue the order’s vague language is strategic to smear pro-Palestinian support — though the order doesn’t explicitly state concerns over support for “Palestinians” — which has long been painted as inherently antisemitic or terroristic.
“This is McCarthyist. It’s authoritarian,” said Sainath. “Students are really feeling the breadth already. Before Trump came in — from their own universities — students have been evicted from student housing and been homeless for minor, minor rule violations. They’ve been suspended, they’ve been expelled, they’ve lost scholarships, they’ve lost financial aid. The harm is really, really great, and many of these students are first-generation students. They are low-income students, and it can be quite harmful to be punished again for speaking out against a genocide.”
(WASHINGTON) — A Massachusetts man was found to be carrying a gun after attending a tour of the U.S. Capitol as he left the nearby Library of Congress on Tuesday, police officials told ABC News on Thursday.
Authorities in Washington were alerted by police in Carlisle, Massachusetts, on Monday that a man with a gun who had expressed suicidal ideations on social media was headed to Washington.
The U.S. Secret Service and Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police found the man in a Washington hotel early Tuesday morning and interviewed him, sources said. They searched for a gun and found no weapon and no further action was taken at that time, they said.
Later that day, the man went through a Capitol Police magnetometer screening and entered the Capitol Visitor Center. The magnetometer sounded an alarm and “an officer performed a secondary hand search, and the man was let into the building,” according to a statement from U.S. Capitol Police.
After getting past security, Capitol Police were alerted to his presence and issued a bulletin to be on the lookout for the man. They located him after he had completed the full tour of Congress outside the Library of Congress a short time later and found that he had a 9mm handgun in his waistband, law enforcement sources said.
Authorities said the suspect was arrested for “Unlawful Activities, Carrying a Pistol Without a License, Possession of an Unregistered Firearm, Unlawful Possession of Ammunition, and Resisting Arrest.” The case is currently with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Capitol Police statement said.
The officer who performed the screening at the magnetometer at the Capitol Visitor Center “is suspended while the USCP’s Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting an administrative investigation into the officer’s performance of that search.”
There is no indication he intended to cause any harm to harm the Congress, according to Capitol police. But sources told ABC News that a man who was possibly suicidal was able to take a full tour of Congress with a gun with members of the public and Congress nearby.
“A full review of this incident has already been ordered, as well as mandatory refresher training on security screening, so this never happens again,” Capitol Police said in their statement.
Members of Congress were briefed on the situation on Thursday.
Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the Supreme Court to significantly narrow nationwide injunctions issued by three different federal judges blocking his executive order redefining birthright citizenship in the U.S.
The emergency applications ask the justices to take a “modest” step and roll back the judges’ restrictions on Trump’s Day 1 order, allowing federal agencies to move forward with developing guidance and preparing for implementation if, at the end of litigation, the president prevails.
“At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the application.
Trump’s executive order would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to unlawful immigrants or those on a temporary immigrant status. The administration’s claimed in court proceedings birthright citizenship creates a strong incentive for illegal immigration.
Federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state, in their rulings, have said such a move would appear plainly contrary to the text of the 14th Amendment and legal precedent.
The 14th Amendment states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration, in its appeals to the Supreme Court, railed against the use of nationwide injunctions and said they should be limited to the plaintiffs involved in the legal challenges.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” the acting solicitor general wrote. “The Court should stay the district courts’ preliminary injunctions except as to the individual plaintiffs and the identified members of the organizational plaintiffs (and, if the Court concludes that States are proper litigants, as to individuals who are born or reside in those States).”
“At a minimum, the Court should stay the injunctions to the extent they prohibit agencies from developing and issuing public guidance regarding the implementation of the Order. Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable.”
