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IMPORTANT ISSUES! THESE ARE NOT SOLICITATIONS
On Friday I showed you the two private prison companies tied to checks that went to at least nine Republicans running for Senate. Reading California’s new laws for today’s third story, I found the governor signed something else that day: a 25% tax, starting in 2028, on companies that run private immigration jails, and both of those companies run them in California. The companies ICE pays to lock people up are tied to checks for Republicans, and now a state will be sending them a bill.
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Trump Has The Government. Jack Smith Has The People.
Also: a senator’s own forms, a justice’s oil stock, and the man suing federal agents. Plus, the 22 races that could decide the House.
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Thanks so much for joining me. Trump and his friends lost a few fights they expected to win, and I enjoyed writing up every minute of it.
I need 10 seconds from you before we get to it. Hit the ❤️ like button, then hit restack—the two curved arrows next to it. That sends this edition to everyone who follows you here, like an old phone tree. Today’s first story is about a Republican senator whose lawyer wants an ad taken down. He wants it quiet. Let’s make it loud.
People who read this newsletter have sent Congress more than 880,000 letters since November 2024, and our posts about this regime get seen billions of times a month. No advertiser pays for any of it. Only paid subscribers cover the bill, including the day I spent in a senator’s old filings. Today they also get my read on the fight for the House, where we need to win 10 of the 22 toss-up seats. Join us here:
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Marshall Kept Earning From The Practice In
Congress
Meischa Zimmerman was eight months pregnant and home with her two-year-old when she was arrested for missing a court date over a C-section bill from her doctor. She later told the New York Times that she asked the officer, “Can you not handcuff me in front of my daughter?” The bill was $3,596, at 18% interest—a rate her doctor set himself, according to his own lawyer. Her third arrest came the week after that doctor won his first election to Congress.
The doctor is Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. He and his medical practice sued more than 700 patients, the Times reported, and 81 were arrested after missing court dates. His spokeswoman says “judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.” But judges sign warrants when someone asks. His lawyers asked in dozens of court filings, the Times found.
Marshall told Fox News that once a bill went to collections, he “had nothing else to do with the process.” So I pulled the forms he filed with Congress, and here’s something the Times didn’t report and I haven’t seen anywhere else. In 2015 he listed himself as the practice’s “President, Secretary, Director, Employee” and the owner of 55% of it.
The man who says he had nothing to do with it ran the business and owned most of it. His form for 2017, his first year in Congress, still shows 55% and $15,001 to $50,000 in income from it, while, according to the Times, the collection work continued. That same year he helped lead the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while still getting paid by the business collecting from his old patients.
Last week his lawyer demanded that the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Adam Hamilton, pull an ad featuring Zimmerman and her story. It’s staying up. The newest poll, from YouGov, has Hamilton ahead 48 to 45, in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. Kansas can fix that.
Marshall’s campaign did not respond to our request for comment.
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Alito Finally Steps Off The Oil Case
In August, I reported that Justice Samuel Alito owned oil stock and was set to rule on one of the biggest oil cases in years anyway. Not anymore.
In 2018, the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, sued Exxon and Suncor to make them help cover what climate change is costing local taxpayers. Colorado’s top court let the lawsuit go forward, and the oil companies ran to the Supreme Court. If they win there, towns everywhere could lose the right to send them the bill.
Alito’s disclosure lists stock in energy and mining companies. None is Exxon or Suncor, but oil companies ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 are on the list, and he took part in February when the Court took the case. Last week, the Court’s clerk announced he would not participate. It took him seven months to remember what was in his own portfolio. Alito told Bloomberg that stepping aside “was the prudent step.” You don’t say.
The other eight justices heard the case Monday and pressed both sides hard. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, told the oil companies’ lawyer one of his answers was “a little slippery.” If the Court ties 4 to 4, Colorado’s ruling stands and Boulder’s lawsuit goes on.
Whatever the eight decide, Alito’s stock gets no vote, and Big Oil just lost what I’d bet was its safest vote on that bench. Good.
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Javier Ramirez Takes Federal Agents
To Court
Last week, California handed Javier Ramirez a new way to sue the federal agents who arrested him, and he didn’t wait a day to use it.
In June 2025, Ramirez was at his family’s car lot in Montebello, California, when immigration agents came through the gate. Video shows agents wrestling him to the ground and kneeling on his back. He can be heard telling them he’s a citizen, which is true. He was released from custody after more than four days, and the charges against him were later dropped.
If a local cop did that, federal law would allow Ramirez to sue, but when it comes to federal agents, the Supreme Court has all but shut the courthouse door. The regime likes it that way.
California just built a new door. On September 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the No Kings Act. Anyone in California can now sue any officer who violated their constitutional rights, federal agents included, going back to March 1, 2025. Hours later, it was in Ramirez’s lawsuit. At least four more states passed their own laws this year.
Ramirez teaches his kids Spanish, and he doesn’t want them being targeted for speaking it. “I want justice,” he says.
Bill Essayli, the regime’s top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, told Newsom that to regulate federal agents, “you have to win a federal election.” Fine. There’s one in 27 days. Let’s go win it.
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Jack Smith Gets A Hero’s Welcome
Jack Smith is the former prosecutor who brought two criminal cases against Trump. Last week he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I myself have been threatened with jail by the President of the United States.”
At that hearing, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri said text messages put Smith at an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024—suggesting he’d met there with a Georgia prosecutor who also charged Trump. Then he called Smith a “total dirtbag.”
Smith did go to a game that month. It was in Maryland, where he went to see the Iowa Hawkeyes—not the Atlanta Hawks. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar told Schmitt to his face that he had the wrong team, but he wouldn’t take it back. Missouri deserves better.
Four days later, Smith turned up at guitarist Tom Morello’s sold-out Power to the People music festival in a Bruce Springsteen shirt that read “No Kings.” Fans posted photos with him. Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters came out in an Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt and dedicated the song “My Hero” to “my new friend Jack.”
The next morning, Trump posted, “Deranged Jack Smith is a Crooked Prosecutor!” All Smith had to do was show up at a concert. Trump wants people afraid to be seen with Smith, but there they were, putting up pictures with him anyway. Like Smith told the senators at the hearing last week, “while fear may be contagious, courage is as well.”
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The 22 Seats That Could Decide The House
It takes 218 seats to win the House. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan ratings group, has us favored in 208 and Republicans in 205. That leaves 22 toss-ups. We need 10 of them and Republicans need 13.
Republicans Are Spending Money On Seats They Considered Safe. Since September 1, big GOP groups and donors have started spending in at least 39 House races they’d skipped this cycle, Reuters found. They’ve put about $2 million into Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s South Texas seat, which Trump carried by 18 points. Cook now calls it a toss-up.
GOP strategist Ron Bonjean admits it: “Republicans are playing defense in some of the strongholds that they’re used to not having to worry about.” A party doesn’t spend there unless internal polling scares it. That’s a party standing in front of a big blue tsunami.
They Started A Map Fight And They’re Behind. Republicans redrew districts in Texas, Florida, and other states to hand themselves more seats, and Democrats answered in California. Cook says we most likely gain five to 15 seats anyway. They redrew the lines to save themselves, and they’re still behind.
Four Of Their Seats Already Lean Ours. Republicans had $13.2 million in TV ads booked for Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, Punchbowl News reported. Cook moved his seat our way regardless. Three more seats where the Republicans aren’t running again—Arizona, California, and Nebraska—lean ours too.
Most Toss-Ups Are Theirs To Lose. By Cook’s count, Republicans hold 16 of the 22. Three of theirs are in Pennsylvania, where Reps. Scott Perry, Ryan Mackenzie, and Rob Bresnahan are each rated a toss-up. The numbers don’t look good for them.
Not Every Reach Will Land. House Democrats just added eight deep-red districts to their target list. Another ratings group, Inside Elections, calls seven of them Solid Republican. The majority runs through the toss-ups, so these would be a bonus.
The Voting Has Started. As of Wednesday morning, nearly 1.8 million people had voted, the University of Florida’s Election Lab reports. In the 19 states reporting party registration so far, about 58% of the ballots came from registered Democrats and 26% from Republicans. Democrats have voted by mail more than Republicans in recent elections, so that’s no scoreboard. If you’re a US voter with a ballot on the kitchen table, send it in.
The Bottom Line: We’re favored in 208 seats and need 218. Republicans are defending 16 of the 22 toss-ups, and their big groups are spending in at least 39 districts they’d skipped this cycle until now. Win those 208 we’re favored in—along with 10 of the 22 toss-ups—and we take the House.
There are only 27 days until the midterms, and I like our chances to flip Congress more now than I ever have. But we aren’t slowing down for anything.
We have no ads and no billionaires here. Everything we do is funded by our readers, including our investigations and our organizing. On Tuesday, November 3, paid subscribers and I will watch the results together, live on Substack, starting at 8:30 PM Eastern. I’d be honored if you became one here:
Before you go, hit the ❤️ like button and restack this edition. Jack Smith walked into a crowd of strangers on Saturday and got a hero’s welcome. Trump would rather nobody saw that, so let’s make sure everybody does.
Onward!
Scott
Marshall says that once a bill went to collections, he had nothing else to do with it. Do you buy that?
Should Supreme Court justices be allowed to own stock in companies at all?
If you bumped into Jack Smith, what would you say to him?
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JUST A FEW OF MANY COMMENTS:
Eight months pregnant, a two-year-old in the house, and they put her in handcuffs over a bill from her own doctor. I cannot stop seeing that. And then he got elected and the arrests kept coming. Kansas, do not let him walk away from this.
I charge much less than anyone else in south Florida. And I tell patients "if [they] can afford it." If they can't, I tell them to pay me whatever is easy. If they can't afford anything, I don't charge them. I don't always remember if a patient paid. I'm not here for that. I'm here to help them with their problems. I just need enough to pay my bills and support myself. I don't live high. If I wanted to be rich, I would have done something else. Turn an unpaid bill over to collections? No possibility on earth. They would at most get a call from me to ask how things are going, and if finances are a problem. If they are, I fix the problem. One of Hippocrates' reminders is that we're there for the patients' benefit. They're not there for ours.
i love you for this life as you’ve lived it.
when our eldest was an infant our pediatrician discovered the hospital my husband worked at was closing. when i brought the baby in with a fever he told me to sit by him at his desk and told me to never to hesitate bringing the baby to him because of money issues. i still think of Dr. Evan’s with nothing but love and gratitude.
Dr Evans was exactly right. I have been a psychiatrist for over 48 years. I have never ever, not once, refused to see a patient for money reasons, and I never would.
I always say we have the American medical industry. It is not "health care." It commonly has little or nothing to do with anyone's health. Its purpose is to move money from wherever it is to providers, other vendors, and insurance companies. The two most central things to remember are 1) that we spend far more on the American medical industry than real countries spend on actual health care, and 2) that our results are worse than in almost all developed countries. The latter is complicated, and has a number of causes. It is also true that 3) we do not provide whatever we provide for everyone, and 4) the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country is now, and has always been, an inability to pay medical bills. Dr Marshall might be about exhibit A.
Medicine is now a money machine. For men and women with a calling (as you have) it must be excruciating…
Little more than a money machine, although I've heard some people say it's better outside FL, or south FL. All of my experience has been in MA and FL. I have not seen evidence that's better other than where I am.
Beyond excruciating. And the problems are much bigger than I am. So I gave up trying to fight them. I just practice my own way.
Although I've come to know a few Substackers, and two were running for federal office. One came in second in a 7-person primary, so he's not involved in what he hoped was his House race any more. Close, but... Another is running for Senate as an independent, and I doubt he'll lose to the R incumbent. I told both of them that if they win, I would take myself to DC, and talk to as a large a group of electeds as possible, to explain the problem. Maybe a government heavy enough with Ds and Is will do something about it. That will depend on a government/legislature that refuses to be bought off by the industry. My Senate candidate friend won't be bought off, and maybe a large enough number of others won't, either. I'll see if I get a phone call inviting me to DC.
My dad, a family physician, only ever sent one patient to collections. That farmer leased a new Cadillac every year to drive around town. My mother in exasperation, finally talked him into using a collection agency. He never took even that person to court.
The United States is the only western 'democracy' where medical bankruptcy is a phenomenon. We need Medicare for all!
Yes! And finally, a strong majority of Americans agree.
The MAGA MAGGOTS drove Americans to support MEDICARE FOR ALL by destroying HEALTH CARE!
Send support to Abdul El Sayed MD PHD. He is running on a platform of Medicare for All. He is a public health doctor, here in Michigan!
Scott, little by little, democracy is winning!
If I bumped into Jack Smith I would say thank you, then get out of the way.
lol. He along with Letitia James would make great attorney generals.
Ditto
Perfect response! That needs to be on one of my sign's on Nov. 3Rd. 🎉💙🇱🇷
Sam, how about a fist bump to show STRONG!!!
Eric “Schmitthead” Schmitt is one champion rake-stepper! He should write a book on how to be your own worst enemy. That was prime time tv at its best!
I get to go to the Speakers Series in Denver tomorrow night and hear Jack Smith! I can't wait. He's a hero!
Roger Marshall sounds disgusting. Read about him on Wikipedia and it made my stomach turn. Hope he gets beaten badly.
You are so lucky! Have a great time. I just checked and it's sold out!
Marshall=Liar, liar pants on fire!
No to Supremes owning stocks. How else could they be impartial?
Jack, you are my hero! Keep fighting that awful orange man....
Sorry Scott, Jack Smith is my new hero for today!!
If you watched the video, Klobuchar should be your new heroine. Smith contributed essentially nothing. Klobuchar did every bit of the heavy lifting.
However lookout for Shivon and Elon with AI, tricky distancing, self-deciding non-human or humans with chips in their brains oversight of military weapons, and takeover of farming...no humans is their ultimate game - more $$$ for them with fewer humans...greedy bunch of self-serving autocrats - see Drey Dossier live post from yesterday who tracks the story with receipts
I hope that when we get a democratic president (and hopefully, Trump will be impeach ed - along with JD Vance, or die in office) the new president will appoint Jack Smith as the head of the Justice Department. That would give back true meaning to "justice".
Gin, let us know how the Speakers Series in Denver with Jack Smith is tomorrow!!! So looking forward to hearing about it!
My nephew voted yesterday in Ohio 🤞 turning Ohio Blue The voter sticker was the prettiest one I've ever seen. We are voting on October 22nd in Delaware. Everyone please vote first day of early voting in your State. 🇺🇸💙💙💙🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
I've already voted straight Blue up and down my ballot here in Michigan and my ballot is listed as accepted for counting by the Secretary of State's Office. Ballots went out on September 23rd. The SOS released a statement this morning that ballots cast are up 30% over this time in 2022.
👍👍👍👍👍 I'm so happy to hear your news.
To Jack Smith, I would say, Thank you for your service!
To the Rethuglicans in the House, MOVE THE F over and get lost. We don't want corrupt pedophiles, thieves, and con artists representing us.
To SCOTUS, to those of you who have been bribed, I hope you are all impeached, thrown off the court, and never allowed to practice law.
Jack Smith is a hero to us all. He speaks truth and rule of law, stands up for the Constitution, and I thank him for all of this!
That doctor should be shamed for such callous actions, people can barely afford basics these days. Throw the MAGAT out.
SCOTUS should be smart enough to recuse in any cases that they have a vested interest in; that said, they should know BETTER!
My ballot is being sent, I should have it by the weekend! Another vote in the millions of votes to bring decency back and restraint on the mis-leader in the WH! 10/17 will be crucial in making the resistance stronger!
Let's get in some good trouble, Scott!
No surprise that a justice thought one of the oil company attorneys gave an answer that was "a little slippery." C'mon -- he's an oil company attorney!
Everywhere you look Corruption far and wide. The solution? VOTE!!! VOTE IN candidates who will get to work FOR the people of America and FIX this Corruption!!! VOTE OUT any politician anywhere in America that is part of this MASSIVE WIDE SPREAD Corruption........
I don't particularly have a problem with anyone owning stocks, including judges, government officials and legislators at any level. BUT, none of those people should be allowed to make any decision of any kind that would benefit a corporation they have a financial interest in... EVER! That being said, dishonesty in government seems to be the norm, especially by trump, MAGA politicians, and some judges, including Supreme Court Justices. The swamp is thriving! So, ugh!
Are Republicans seriously going to win over 200 seats in the House? It looks like the majority will come down to the swing seats you listed .
I can't fathom the idea of Mike Johnson retaining his Speaker position and rubber stamping everything Trump wants, and just sending everyone home when it looks like he might have to actually do some governing
What is wrong with our country that over 200 districts would send their Trump supporting Representatives back to continue doing damage to the people? People are absolutely horrible to assist Trump. Do they really believe they're going to get a $5,000 check?
I was really hoping for a blue tsunami, a win too big for Fascist Trump, Johnson, Miller and that whole rotten group to legitimately be able to contest.
You're worrying me that it's going to be close. That's not a wave, that's a ripple, a thrown pebble in the lake.
We need a huge Democrat win, or our country will be in even more danger than it is now.
The numbers of MAIL-IN BALLOTS are staggering!
It also adds up to COST SAVINGS!
More than 900,000 mail-in ballots being sent to Massachusetts voters. Here's how and when to return them.
By Neal Riley
October 7, 2026
excerpt:
Voting by mail in Massachusetts? With about a month to go until the general election, more than 900,000 mail-in ballots are on their way to voters who requested them, Secretary of State Bill Galvin's office says.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/vote-by-mail-in-ballots-massachusetts-deadlines-application/