Exclusive: An Oil Leak. Then $50,000 To Help Mike Rogers.
On September 18, someone at a gas station in Sterling Heights, Michigan—just north of Detroit—saw crude oil coming up out of the ground. It was leaking from a 59-year-old pipeline buried under the lot.
It’s owned by Energy Transfer, the Texas company behind the Dakota Access pipeline. The company’s leak detection missed it. By Energy Transfer’s own count, about 630 gallons got out. The company couldn’t find the original records for the old patch—welded onto the line in 2010—that broke.
Three days later, the federal government ordered Energy Transfer to check the repairs on every oil and fuel line it runs, warning of “a system-wide risk of additional similar failures.” The company requested a hearing to fight it.
I figured there might be some political contributions linked to the company, so I looked into it. Nine days after that order from the federal government, the committee raising money for Mike Rogers—who is running for Senate in Michigan—took in a $50,000 check from Energy Transfer’s billionaire chairman, Kelcy Warren.
That same month, Warren and 11 of his company’s employees sent Rogers’s campaign more through a second committee, including Warren’s own $3,500 five days after the order.
This is no small donor. In February 2025, the same month regulators went after another leaking Energy Transfer pipeline in Pennsylvania, Warren and his company sent $25 million to Trump’s super PAC.
Rogers hasn’t said anything about the spill. Michigan voters get their say on Tuesday. The latest Detroit News poll had Rogers down six to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. The check is on the record, and so is the spill. Now the voters get to decide.
For 23 years I’ve worked on and around campaigns. The last weekend always feels like this. Every race tightens up, you can’t trust the polls, Republican propaganda and nonsense flood our phones and TVs, and everything feels a whole lot better or worse than it actually is. But we have something they can’t buy—each other—and that’s all we need.
I’ve got more big news for you, but before we continue, can you do me one favor? Hit the ❤️ like button, then hit restack. Restacking puts this story in front of everyone who follows you on Substack. Every voter in Michigan needs to see that check before Tuesday, and you can help make it happen.
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Brazil Beat Trump’s Candidate. Now He’s In Miami.
On Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat Flávio Bolsonaro by about 4.4 million votes in Brazil’s presidential election. Flávio’s father, Jair, is already serving 27 years for plotting a coup after he lost in 2022. Trump, of course, had Flávio in the Oval Office in May.
Flávio has his own issues, which have quickly bubbled to the surface. Brazil’s Supreme Court is investigating if Flávio used a sports betting company to launder money taken from seniors’ pensions. He denies it.
Minutes after the results came in, a justice ordered his passports taken.
On Monday, Flávio swore: “I never had any intention of leaving the country.” That same day, the regime said it would grant visas to him and his family. On Tuesday, he crossed into Argentina by land. By Wednesday, he was stepping off a private plane outside Miami using an Italian passport. Trump called the family “fine people.”
Lula didn’t hold back: “This act of leaving Brazil is shameful.”
Trump rolled out the welcome mat for someone who skipped out on his own country’s court order. Brazil’s voters were smart enough to say no to Trump’s buddy, and on Tuesday, it’s our turn.
Alaska Fights Trump’s Attacks
Trump is so scared of losing Alaska that he’s trying to throw out the votes before anyone counts them. On October 22, the DOJ sued the state’s elections office. It wants a judge to block Alaska from certifying its Senate results if GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan narrowly loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. Trump bragged that it was his idea: “I’m the one that said, ‘do it.’”
His excuse is a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot—a retired teacher from Petersburg who got 2.5% in the primary. Alaska’s Supreme Court already ruled on the matter on June 29, saying he belonged on the ballot.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that people on Peltola’s campaign had texted about recruiting a candidate with the senator’s name. Peltola denies it, and Elisa Rios, the fired campaign manager who talked to the Times, has since taken back what she said. That same day, Trump went further. He said Peltola “should be removed from the Ballot and prosecuted.”
Even if true, none of this gives Trump the power to cancel an election. Alaska’s Department of Law says “the United States has no legal authority over how candidates secure their place on the ballot in state elections.” Peltola’s lawyers called Trump’s case “wholly baseless.”
Judge Sharon Gleason fast tracked the case, noting the regime waited “nearly four months” after the state’s top court ruled. A ruling on whether the case will be thrown out could come at any moment.
Trump’s interference here might ironically seal Sullivan’s fate.
The Poll Workers Who Saw Right Through Them
Phony voter fraud stories have been pushed for years by right-wing instigators like James O’Keefe. In 2024, his old group admitted that it had zero evidence behind one of its stories. On August 11, O’Keefe and fellow activist Cam Higby went to four Minneapolis polling places donning costumes, with hidden cameras and disguised voices.
At each stop, they gave election judges the name of a real voter. O’Keefe said he dressed in “Muslim garb” to “expose the sheer lunacy” of the state’s vouching law, which lets a voter vouch for a neighbor who’s signing up to vote at the polls.
So I read the criminal complaint. In his own video, Higby bragged: “I walked into this polling station with a random name of a random person who is registered to vote in this precinct. I am not that person.” One of the voters whose name O’Keefe used told investigators he never gave permission.
But the poll workers didn’t play along. One election judge called Higby’s visit “quite peculiar” after he asked about 10 times if he needed an ID. He left after a worker asked to see one, promising to come back with eight more people, the most one voter is allowed to vouch for.
On Wednesday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged both men with felony identity theft and unlawful voting, with each count carrying up to five years in prison.
O’Keefe and Higby are due in court November 16. The poll workers who saw right through them deserve our thanks.
In 2006, I worked on the Christine Jennings for Congress race in Sarasota, Florida. She lost by only 369 votes. Twenty years later, I still think about that number. Some race on Tuesday will come down to a few hundred people who almost stayed home.
That’s why we are pushing people to vote and spreading the truth about Trump’s Republicans to millions of people every day. Our independence allows us to do that organizing work on top of our reporting—and no boss or sponsor can tell us to slow down. This whole operation is paid for by the people who read it, and that’s the only reason I can go after these kinds of stories four days before an election.
So if you haven’t yet, please join us as a paid subscriber. We’re trying to bring 52 new people in by Sunday night. Join today, and let’s finish this:
Before you go, hit the ❤️ like button and restack so this edition breaks through the noise. Thank you for everything you do.
Onward!
Scott
What is the top reason you are voting?
If you could scream ten words or less at Trump, what would you say?
Four days left. Spend two minutes on these before the weekend:
Stand with Ukraine against Putin:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-stand-with-ukraine-over-russia
Impeach Pete Hegseth:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-impeach-pete-hegseth/
Open the Epstein files:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-demand-acting-ag-blanche-release-all-of-the-epstein-files-now/
Impeach John Roberts:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-impeach-supreme-court-chief-justice-john-roberts/
Tell me below which ones you sent.
Every one of these fights started with someone who refused to stay quiet. That’s the whole fight. It always has been.