iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

These are the kinds of emails Mothership is excited to push past Gmail's spam filter: "Trump slashes $460/month from your Social Security check?!" or a $1,400 "stimulus check" the recipient is missing. Click through and you end up at an ActBlue page with recurring payments pre-checked.

ActBlue donation page for Stop Republicans PAC, reached from the petition email. The left side repeats the email's message: "TERRIBLE NEWS FOR SENIORS ON SOCIAL SECURITY," a claim that seniors could face cuts of over $400 per month, and a request to "give at least $50 to Stop Republicans PAC now." The right side shows a checkout form with a $50 amount pre-selected, a "Make it monthly!" checkbox already checked, and payment buttons for card, PayPal, and Google Pay.

Worth noting for whatever post accompanies this: the pre-checked monthly recurring box is the detail that matters most here. The petition email said nothing about donating — "sign the petition" was the ask — and the landing page converts that into a $50/month recurring charge unless the donor notices and unchecks the box. Pre-checked recurring boxes are the specific practice the FTC has gone after in commercial contexts and one of the things ActBlue's reforms were supposed to address. If you're posting this as the follow-through of the petition funnel, that's the one-line caption: the "petition" resolves to a pre-filled $50 monthly donation.

Also — the number moved again. Email said $460; landing page says "over $400." Between this and the $500 version in your published piece, you've now got the same fake statistic at three different values across the same network's materials, which is about as clean a demonstration as you'll get that the figure is copy, not fact.

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social

Mothership Strategies is pitching Google's new policy allowing PACs to bypass Gmail spam filters as a "HUGE opportunity." They are promising qualifying clients "guaranteed placement in Gmail inboxes" and predicting "massive spikes in email fundraising."

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ummmdude.bsky.social @ummmdude.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Donald Trump thanks you for your work

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Adam Wight -- he/him @zapafaz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I don't think scamming seniors is necessary to defeat Trumpism

"Freedom of Speech" 1943, by Norman Rockwell

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