Happy Sunday, and thanks for spending part of it with me.
Five days ago, we beat Trump and took back both houses of Congress. In Alaska and Mississippi, they’re still counting votes that could cost him two more Senate seats.
Until the new majority is sworn in, Republicans still run Congress, and our Lame Duck Watch is on them every day. We are going to track everything they try to do and organize our massive social media army against it.
Paid subscribers fund that work, nobody else. We have no advertisers or billionaire bosses, and we never will, because being independent of corporate interests is what makes us so powerful. I’d be honored if you joined our movement—become a paid subscriber here:
Before you keep reading, would you tap the ❤️ like button, then restack? The restack button is the circle of two arrows next to the heart. It sends this edition to everyone who follows you on Substack. Somebody you know needs to hear that a former mayor just beat a man who spent more than $204 million to run as Trump.
The Mayor Who Beat Trump’s Billionaire
Georgia hadn’t elected a Democratic governor since Roy Barnes in 1998. In June, billionaire Rick Jackson won the Republican runoff, and Trump posted that Jackson “very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP.’” In July, Trump gave him his “Complete and Total Endorsement,” promising Georgia, “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”
We analyzed Jackson’s campaign filings, and this year alone he gave his own campaign more than $204 million—including a single $38 million contribution on October 5. On October 20, he still had around $22 million in the bank.
Former mayor of Atlanta Keisha Lance Bottoms had roughly $2.2 million at the same point, but she didn’t blink: “They may have the money, but they will never overturn our movement.”
On Tuesday, she beat him 54 percent to 46. Democrats also won every statewide office in Georgia, and results so far show they may have flipped the state House for the first time since 2004.
In January, Lance Bottoms becomes Georgia’s first woman governor, and the first Black woman to ever serve as governor in US history. She says her priority is the cost of living, starting with letting local governments end the tax on groceries.
Next year, the state where Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election gets its first Democratic governor in more than two decades.
Scott Colom Put Mississippi Up For Grabs
Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since John Stennis in 1982. Trump won the state by more than 20 points two years ago. Eight days before the election, Trump went to Corinth to rally for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith—and it looks like it backfired.
Scott Colom is a district attorney from Columbus. As of Saturday night, he was ahead of Hyde-Smith by 2,574 votes, and his lead has grown with almost every new batch. Affidavit ballots are still being counted, and absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive through Tuesday.
On election night, Hyde-Smith told her own supporters: “The Democrats got out and worked, they really got out and worked, and a lot of them showed up today. But not enough of them.” On Friday, Colom was asked about her path to victory. “She doesn’t have one,” he said.
Win or lose, a state Trump carried by more than 20 points is now too close to call. If Colom holds on, and his lead keeps growing, he’ll be the first Black senator to represent Mississippi since 1881.
California Kept Every Ballot. Trump Gave Up.
On October 13, the regime hand-delivered a thumb drive to the Los Angeles County elections office. On it was a list of more than 20,000 California voters, people the regime called “likely noncitizens.” It demanded their ballots be set aside, not counted until it said so, and gave the county 48 hours. A few minutes after the deadline passed, the Justice Department sued the state.
The county had its staff pull 200 names with Los Angeles addresses. More than half were canceled or inactive registrations, so those people were never even mailed a ballot. Of the records that listed a birthplace, nearly 4 in 10 said they were born in the US. The regime told the court the county was “well-equipped” to pull those ballots. One of the county’s top election officials, Monica Flores, answered under oath: “It is not.”
On October 28, Judge David Carter turned the regime down. He wrote that the Justice Department had filed at least 31 lawsuits over voter rolls, and “Out of the twenty-six decided cases, the DOJ has prevailed in precisely zero.” A federal appeals court said no. So did the Supreme Court.
On Friday, the regime dropped its own case, a week before the court was set to take a hard look at its list. Not one of those ballots was set aside. They’re being counted right along with everyone else’s.
The Judge Who Stopped Trump’s Arch
Trump wants a 250-foot arch on Memorial Circle, at the end of the bridge that connects the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. In September, he posted that it would hold “large numbers of drones, plus Snipers,” but the plans his own government submitted for approval don’t mention any military purpose at all.
Earlier this year, a group of Vietnam War veterans sued to stop it. One of them, former US ambassador Michael Lemmon, called the arch “frankly blasphemous.” DC and Virginia filed their own lawsuit the weekend before the National Capital Planning Commission was set to vote on it. The commission received more than 1,300 public comments, most of them against the arch.
On Thursday night, the commission met to vote. Its chair, Mark Paoletta, also happens to be one of the top lawyers in Trump’s budget office, and he came out for the arch right at the start. Then the commission approved it.
That approval lasted less than two hours. That’s how long it took US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to block all construction for the next 14 days. The judge wasn’t buying the regime’s last-minute national security excuse either, calling it a “belated and unsupported assertion.”
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia already has a bill ready to kill this grotesque arch for good. On top of that, Democrats say they’ll investigate it once they take over the House in January. For now, Memorial Circle stays the way it is.
The arch is just one fight. Before Democrats even take over, we’re ramping up our pressure campaign to stop any lame duck power moves. That’s why we launched our Lame Duck Watch, and I want you to be a part of it.
On top of our reporting and investigations into the regime, we’re pushing back against everything they are going to try to slide through over the holidays. Could be judicial appointments, rules changes, or horrendous bills like the SAVE Act.
Our readers are the only ones who fund this work, and the next few weeks are when it matters most. Join our movement as a paid subscriber today:
Before you go, hit the ❤️ like button and restack this, so someone who’s wondering what comes next can find out.
Onward!
Scott
Should Congress kill Trump’s arch for good?
How are you feeling this week? Let me know!
The new Congress is less than two months away, and the House votes on Pete Hegseth this week. Three of these are close to their next goal. Each takes about 30 seconds and goes straight to your members of Congress.
Impeach Pete Hegseth (41 away from 16,000): https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-impeach-pete-hegseth/
Put Trump’s pardons under oath (19 away from 450): https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-put-trumps-pardons-under-oath
Subpoena the unredacted Epstein files on day one (27 away from 800): https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-the-new-congress-subpoena-the-unredacted-epstein-files-on-day-one
No lame-duck power grabs (27 away from 750): https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-no-lame-duck-power-grabs
Tell me below which ones you sent.
I’m sitting here thinking about every person who kept going when it felt pointless. This is what that looks like. Not perfect. Not finished. But real. And we’re still here for the next part.