With all of Trump’s madness, I’m glad you’re here because I have some great news for you today. Before we jump in, hit the ❤️ like button and restack this edition. Restacking helps us punch a hole through the MAGA propaganda machine, and it just takes a few clicks.
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Local Governments Beat The Regime’s Shakedown
On Tuesday, Court of Appeals Judge M. Margaret McKeown took the regime’s defense, summed it up in a sentence, and published an opinion on it. Their position, she wrote, was “fairly reduceable to the excuse ‘the President made us do this.’”
That excuse was covering up for a shakedown over billions in Congressionally approved money for homeless services, city buses, airports, and highways. There were 31 cities, counties, and local agencies who won that money fair and square and had already added it into their budgets. Some already had spent millions of it.
Months later, the regime told grant recipients there were new conditions they would have to agree to. The new rules said no money could be spent on “gender ideology,” abortion, or anything they decided helps immigrants. They also said they needed to run everyone receiving help through a federal immigration database. You had to sign the agreement, or lose the money.
All 31 refused to sign—they sued instead. And on Tuesday, the court left every one of those conditions blocked. It let one piece stand: cities still have to follow anti-discrimination law with the money they’re given, which they already did. The money stays where Congress put it.
Four Democrats Caught The FCC Rigging The Ad Market
Federal law gives candidates deep discounts on television ads in the weeks before an election. Congress wrote it that way on purpose, so campaigns could afford to reach voters.
Then in March, the FCC’s Media Bureau staff announced that the discount would also go to party committees and joint fundraising committees. Neither of those is a candidate.
So Democrats Sherrod Brown, Roy Cooper, Kristen McDonald Rivet, and Jon Ossoff challenged it. Before they could take the FCC to court, they had to ask them to fix it. The FCC didn’t respond for more than 100 days.
The FCC was stalling, trying to run out the clock—but the court refused to let that happen. The judges treated the agency’s silence as the answer—and that answer was no. On Tuesday, in a 2-1 ruling, Judge Robert King’s panel threw the FCC rule out. The discount is for candidates, not party committees.
Republican committees have a bigger war chest than Democratic ones do. They were only nine days from buying cheaper ad spots reserved for candidates. Now they can’t.
El-Sayed Went On Fox And Wouldn’t Take The Bait
Abdul El-Sayed—Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan—went live on Fox News Monday night to do an interview with Jesse Watters. It lasted nearly a half hour, where El-Sayed kept his poise and refused to let Watters lead the discussion.
All Watters wanted to talk about was trans athletes, Sharia law, and immigration. El-Sayed kept coming back to gas prices, groceries, and medical bills. He called out Watters, saying: “You have not asked me one time about the issues that people actually care about in Michigan.”
He didn’t dodge immigration either, and he put it in five words: “ICE is clearly not working.”
Then he went after his opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, calling him “a beta.” He also threw a barb at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying he was the unofficial sixth host of the Fox show “The Five.”
Watters continually talked over him, but El-Sayed wouldn’t back down.
Trump won Michigan in 2024, and the open seat will help decide who controls the Senate. On Monday night, an audience that rarely hears from Democrats heard one talk about the price of groceries—on a show built to make sure that never happens.
They Took A Sailor’s Father. He’s Home Now.
Joshua Aviles has been aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln since November—more than 250 days deployed, with two days ashore the whole time. The carrier’s been running short on food and basic supplies, while Aviles has been working twelve-hour days.
On Saturday, he found out that Border Patrol had taken his father, Luis Manuel Aviles, into custody. Luis left his house in Key West to drop his car off at the mechanic. He had been in the US for nearly 20 years working as a handyman for hotels in the area. His family says he had a work permit, a Social Security card, a driver’s license, and a case for asylum still open. Homeland Security says he entered the country illegally.
Luis’s youngest son told Telemundo his father “never hid, he always did things the right way.”
From the ship, Joshua wrote that he couldn’t see how he could keep working the long shifts while his father was “possibly being treated like a criminal.” Joshua posted it publicly, and by the next day it was national news.
On Monday, an immigration judge dismissed the case—only hours after Luis was booked into a Miami detention center. On Tuesday he was let go.
Luis Aviles is back with his family.
We are 68 days away from an election that decides whether this keeps going. Sixty-eight days to put a stop to this chaos and turn Trump into a lame duck.
We are full speed ahead with our exclusive investigations and organizing campaigns, but we need all hands on deck to keep going through November and beyond. So if you haven’t yet, join us as a paid subscriber today:
And before you go, hit the ❤️ like button and restack this. Restacking drops this edition in front of everyone who follows you. Somebody in there thinks nothing anyone does matters anymore. A sailor wrote one paragraph from the middle of the ocean, and three days later his father walked out of a detention center. Let them see it.
Onward!
Scott
A sailor posted one note from a ship that hadn’t seen port in months. Three days later his father was out. When have you seen pressure actually work that fast?
Thirty-one cities, counties, and local agencies refused to sign the regime’s new rules for funding and sued instead. The money is still theirs. What’s the fight in your town that’s only moving because people refuse to fold?
Let me know in the comments!
OUR MAIN FOCUS TODAY: Tell Congress: Protect our use of voting by mail and voting machines
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-protect-our-use-of-voting-by-mail-and-voting-machines/
Most of those military families never get a headline. This one did because his son refused to go quiet on that ship. Remember that when the next name doesn’t trend.