Snapshot · Up First from NPR
Madison County, part of the St. Louis metro area with roughly 250,000 residents, voted in favor of Illinois separation, giving the movement significant credibility.
Where this was said
At 11:59 · chapter starts 10:10
While G.H. Merritt provides New Illinois with its philosophical founding, Lorette Newlin provides its operational spine. Running her own parallel organization — the Illinois Separation Referendum — Newlin focuses relentlessly on mechanics: getting the question onto ballots. The advisory referendums are non-binding, but the results have been strikingly one-sided. Across 33 counties, Newlin has never lost: Fayette County (79%), Clay County (80%), Edgar County (83%). [1] — Ayesha Rascoe "33 for 33 — every referendum passed: The Illinois separation referendum has been placed on the ballot in 33 counties and passed in favor of…" 11:11 These are small counties, and they're easy to brush off. But then Madison County — 250,000 people, part of the St. Louis metro — voted yes too. After that, O'Neill reports, people started taking New Illinois more seriously. Newlin has petitioned courthouse squares, parking lots, and junkyards to gather signatures. She prefers going through county boards, and has lobbied them successfully — including Henderson County (6-2) and three southern Illinois counties that voted unanimously.
Lorette Newlin has placed a non-binding separation referendum on the ballot in 33 Illinois counties and won every single one — some with 80%+ margins. When Madison County, with 250,000 people, voted yes, even skeptics started paying attention.
Non-binding separation referendums have been placed on the ballot in 33 Illinois counties, and every single one passed in favor of leaving.
The Illinois separation referendum has been placed on the ballot in 33 counties and passed in favor of secession every single time, with some counties hitting 80–83% yes.
Edgar County voted 83% in favor of Illinois separation, one of the highest margins recorded in the New Illinois referendums.
A total of 8 states have filed lawsuits against social media platforms, including an ongoing case in Tennessee, using product liability and public nuisance theories to seek accountability.
France built 56 nuclear plants in the 1970s and now has the cheapest energy in Europe, making it independent of Russian or Middle Eastern energy geopolitics.
Estonia has a single tax form, a law preventing the government from asking citizens for the same information twice, and a flat rate of tax — enabling competitive taxation.
Portugal's Lisbon, once a city with a major heroin problem, legalised drugs and redirected enforcement spending into rehabilitation and housing, dramatically reducing crime.
The first Boland Amendment banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras passed the House unanimously — yet the Reagan administration ignored it.
Over just two years, Saudi Arabia alone donated $32 million to the Contra rebels, giving loosely affiliated factions millions they had no way to spend on arms.
The National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty raised $6.3 million for the Contras but only $3.3 million reached them — a shockingly low 52% program expense rate.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim marked up their arms shipments to the Contras by as much as 300%, making enormous personal profits from the covert operation.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, tapped to run the entire covert Contra support operation, had no prior experience in covert operations whatsoever — he was learning as he went.
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