Thanks so much for joining me on this wonderful Sunday. I’m glad to have some great news for you in this edition, especially as Trump’s propaganda firehose keeps blasting. Before we jump in, like and restack this piece. It helps push through the algorithms that are meant to bury stories about people beating him.
And if you haven’t yet, join us as a paid subscriber today. We need all hands on deck for our effort to flip Congress. On top of our reporting and investigations, we run one of the largest social media campaigns against the regime that generates billions of monthly impressions. And our pressure campaign on the House and Senate has delivered more than 845,000 letters to Congress on dozens of issues since November of 2024. Millions over the last decade.
Help us win. Become a paid subscriber today:
California Just Made Social Media Safer For Kids
On Thursday, at a children’s museum in Sausalito, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of child safety laws—some of the hardest hitting in the country.
Three things stood out to me. If a large social media company is found negligent in harming a child, it now faces a fine of up to $1 million per child. Companies can’t offer anyone under 16 the addictive features on social media platforms that keep them scrolling for hours. And if they run an AI chatbot they have to first test it for any risks to children before releasing it to them.
Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan wrote part of the package. She put it in clear terms: “We have designed cribs to be safe, chairs to be safe, car seats.” Nobody ever asked that of the thing in their pocket.
Meta pushed back. Spokesman Jim Cullinan defended the social media feeds the new laws target: “Personalization is also how we deliver age-appropriate content for teens.”
This is the same Meta that settled last month for up to $18 billion over claims it designed Instagram to addict children—and hid what it knew.
California is showing other states how to protect children from these apps. 49 other governors could sign the same bills if their legislatures sent them.
Somebody Finally Opened The Forms
In 2025, White House staffers couldn’t legally be paid more than $195,200.
Four of those White House staffers ended the year $200 under that.
Natalie Harp, Trump’s Exec. Asst. Salary $150,000, gift $45,000. Total $195,000.
Margo Martin, comms adviser. Salary $150,000, gift $45,000. Total $195,000.
Chamberlain Harris, Oval Office ops. Salary $150,000, gift $45,000. Total $195,000.
Walt Nauta. Salary $175,000, gift $20,000. Total $195,000.
All four of these staffers included this “gift” in their most recent financial disclosure forms. Harp listed the source as Donald J. Trump, Palm Beach, Florida. While Harris called hers a cash gift for the holidays. The forms were released this month.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog, matched staffer salaries against the federal pay chart. What they saw was a clear pattern. Three days later, they filed an ethics complaint naming all four staffers, citing a law that bars government employees from taking outside money as pay for their government work. The Center asked for an investigation by the Office of Government Ethics, and if the facts hold, to send it to the Justice Department. A willful violation carries up to five years in prison, plus a civil penalty of up to $50,000.
Nobody expects an investigation—yet. But if we flip Congress, we can get answers sooner. Democrats with subpoena power could put them all under oath and find out if any of this was legal.
November is coming.
A County Just Told The Data Centers No. Permanently.
Americans are getting the same data center pitch across the country right now. A tech company wants to build a warehouse of computers that runs around the clock and sucks staggering amounts of power and water from communities. They promise jobs and money.
Woodford County, Kentucky’s fiscal court passed a permanent data center ban unanimously on Tuesday.
They’d been building toward it. In June the court unanimously directed the county attorney to draft a ban outright. In July, with their own resolution citing a recent uptick in demand, they blocked anyone from even filing a data center application—the freeze existed to buy time, “in support of its current position that they should be banned.” Every incorporated city in the county adopted identical language.
Woodford is one of the smallest counties in Kentucky, and it holds some of the most valuable horse farms in the world. “This isn’t about closing doors,” Judge-Executive James Kay said. “It’s about holding the line for the community we treasure.” He added: “We will not allow data centers to compromise our future.”
No company had formally proposed anything there. The county had gone on offense—to protect itself before Big Tech even showed up. Kay watched the fighting over a proposed data center tear apart nearby Burgin, where a council member walked out this week just to stop a vote.
The developers’ trade group said that communities should work with the industry instead of shutting it out.
About a dozen local governments in the country have gone this far. Woodford is the first in Kentucky.
The Government Had No Evidence. It Kept Going Anyway.
Just ten weeks before Election Day, Trump tried to hand the Postal Service control of mail voting. A new barcode on every envelope, every mail voter logged in a federal website, every batch of ballots hauled to a counter for inspection.
Judge Indira Talwani took a look at it all, and asked the regime to show her the fraud. The regime brought her absolutely nothing. Not one piece of evidence. So Talwani blocked the rule, and the appeals court refused to lift it.
On Wednesday, 38 election officials from 10 states told the Supreme Court they couldn’t do it in time—many of them Republicans.
But let’s not hand them a medal. They took no position on whether the rule is legal or whether it’s good policy. They didn’t even criticize Trump. They just said they physically couldn’t pull it off. That’s the bare minimum.
The math doesn’t add up in the regime’s favor either. Only 40 postal employees across the country are cleared to approve ballot envelopes for around 8,000 election offices. And the regime didn’t follow its own rule. It includes a 90-day planning notice—for a November 3 election, that deadline was August 3. The rule didn’t take effect until August 21—eighteen days after the planning window had already closed.
The same Supreme Court that bailed them out in August is deciding this one now. But North Carolina started mailing ballots September 4, and every state has to mail military and overseas ballots by September 19. Mail ballots are already going out—thanks to people who decided to stand up for our democracy.
That’s exactly what we’ve been doing for more than a decade now. We helped uncover the Russia scandal, ran the first impeachment campaign against Trump, and put together the biggest operation against MAGA propaganda on social media. Plus a congressional pressure campaign that’s delivered millions of letters and countless phone calls into the House and Senate since 2016.
We do all of this on top of our daily reports and exclusive investigations, and we couldn’t do any of it without our amazing community here. We have no corporate owner and no billionaires. None of them would let us run a news organization that also organizes the resistance.
So if you haven’t yet, help us sprint through Election Day and beyond by becoming a paid subscriber today:
Be sure to like and restack this post before you go. It’s what helps us break through the MAGA propaganda machine. Thanks so much for all of your help.
Onward!
Scott
If Democrats flip Congress what’s the first thing they should subpoena people over?
What’s the one rule you’d put on social media companies if you could write it yourself?
They want to carve up Yosemite. They want to bury the Epstein files. And they want to deploy rogue AI with zero oversight. Do not let them run the table on a Sunday. Hit all three desks in under two minutes. Go:
Ban Rogue AI: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-pass-the-ban-on-ai-we-cant-control/
Save Yosemite: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-stop-trumps-yosemite-giveaway
Epstein Files: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-demand-acting-ag-blanche-release-all-of-the-epstein-files-now/
Four “holiday gifts.” Same total. Two hundred dollars under the cap. Flip the House and somebody with a subpoena asks the question out loud. We’re 51 days out. Let’s go get it.