iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

1. How has MAGA Inc. raised an unprecedented amount of money? Let’s review:

Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

1. Jay Feely, a former NFL kicker and a GOP candidate for Congress in Arizona, has made “protecting women’s sports” a centerpiece of his election campaign. So I reviewed years of Feely’s podcast appearances to see what he actually thinks about female athletes. 🧵

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

BIG FAVOR. I’m working on a new project and, to test it, I need photos of political mailers your receive in your mailbox. Physical mail from the USPS. If you have any, please take a photo of the front and back and send the photos to mail@popular.info. (We will not publish any personal info!)

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

1. California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 11 other Democratic AGs had Paramount and the Ellisons over a barrel. They had secured a restraining order against the merger with Paramount and their negotiating position was about to get even stronger. Then, Bonta threw in the towel.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

1. I need a favor. I’m working on a new project and, to test it, I need photos of political mail. If you have any political mail lying around your house, please take a photo of the front and back and send the photos to mail@popular.info.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

1. Elon Musk is blanketing the internet with digital ads falsely accusing Democratic Senate candidates of supporting “taxpayer-funded sex changes for kids.”

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

1. Trump’s super PAC is blanketing Florida’s 25th District with ads attacking Congressman Jared Moskowitz (D) for trading $1.7 million in stocks since 2023 and failing to report all his trades on time Since 2025, Trump has traded up to $2.87 BILLION in stocks and reported almost all of them late

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

1. The AI industry had bet big on Trump and the GOP, donating $42 million to MAGA Inc. this cycle. But with the political winds shifting, the industry is hedging their bets. They just hired Jay Carney, former Obama White House Press Secretary, to rebuild bridges with Democrats.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

1. The crypto industry is desperate to pass the Clarity Act, which would legitimize its business by providing it with a regulatory framework. One of the primary beneficiaries would be Trump, who is making billions from crypto projects he has launched in the last few years and promoted as president.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

1. Trump has amassed, by far, the largest midterms war chest ever. He’s finally started spending it.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

🚨 BEWARE of VoteSafe.org 🚨 While it bills itself as a “safe” way to register to vote, it is actually a digital surveillance machine created by Elon Musk’s super PAC.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

1. This week is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump is marking the occasion by describing his role in heroic terms, claiming he personally went to Ground Zero with an army of construction workers to aid recovery efforts. It is all a fantasy.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

1. Elon Musk is spending millions pushing Americans to VoteSafe, which bills itself as a voter registration site but is actually a digital surveillance machine.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

1. A Senate Republican super PAC tricked a grieving father into appearing in a political ad. A GOP operative targeted A SUPPORT GROUP FOR THE PARENTS OF MURDER VICTIMS offering an opportunity to speak about their children and gun violence. 🧵

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

1. ICE has not paid outside medical providers that treat detainees SINCE LAST OCTOBER. It is leaving hospitals and other providers with millions in unpaid bills.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

UPDATE: Still no on-the-record statement from Sonderling, but he has taken all of his photos offline.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

1. Keith Sonderling, Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, traveled to China in 2015 to pitch investments in a Florida real estate project. During these events, Chinese nationals were promised green cards and access to “America’s Comprehensive Welfare”

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

1. Senate Republicans used their super PAC to create a fake news website, The North Carolinian. It is now using that site, which is promotes as “Independent Journalism,” to launder a brazenly dishonest smear against former North Carolina Governor, and current Democratic Senate Nominee Roy Cooper.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

1. The New York Post and others have repeatedly claimed that Mayor Mamdani “doxxed” wealthy New Yorkers when he published a list of property owners to implement the new pied-a-terre tax. THIS IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE ALL OF THIS INFORMATION WAS ALREADY PUBLIC AND EASILY SEARCHABLE ONLINE

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

1. The billionaires fighting a billionaire tax in California have created an AI-slop ad that shows the tax’s supporters assaulting kids and stealing their stuff.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

1. Michael Whatley, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, launched his general election campaign with an ad emphasizing that he travels in his GMC truck. A Popular Information investigation has found that Whatley has spent over 130K reimbursing donors for the use of private jets.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

1. Mitch McConnell suffered a fall on June 14 and has not been in the Senate for two months. But he's continued to get paid his salary of 174K/year. Since he entered the Senate in 1985, McConnell has voted against creating or expanding medical leave — paid and unpaid — at least 23 times.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Polymarket, which bills its self as a “truth machine,” has been using X to promote brazen misinformation in an effort to drum up engagement. This week, for example, it claimed that babies in the US are required to get 72 shots, which is false.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The fighting in Ukraine has intensified. The peace deal in Gaza is crumbling. Meanwhile, Jared Kushner is vacationing in Iceland.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

1. A new Popular Information investigation reveals that Senate Republicans have recently launched at least six fake news sites in key states.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

1. Last week, we revealed that the New York Post published a fake cover story claiming "thousands" of 9/11 families were trying to ban Mamdani from the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero. Instead of admitting its error, the Post quietly edited the article, adding even less credible info.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is running YouTube ads featuring an AI-generated Trump assisting Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan campaign. “Don’t Help Trump’s Candidate,” the ad warns. Meanwhile, United Democracy Project’s largest donor is Paul Singer, a major Trump fundraiser.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Meta is spending $600 billion+ to build out its AI model. That model is being aggressively integrated into platforms used by 3.9 billion people. This week, Meta announced its AI will be trained on content from Newsmax, the far-right website with a history of promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

David Barton is a fake historian who wrote a book on Thomas Jefferson that was so inaccurate his publisher was forced to pull it from the shelves. Now Barton, and his son Tim, are advising Trump on his anti-Smithsonian crusade.

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Reposted by Judd Legum

Lisa Tozzi @lisatozzi.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Hope everyone who picked up this story now corrects it. popular.info/p/the-truth-...

“We don’t have a list”

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

If you appreciate journalism by humans who are willing to make phone calls I have one request: please sign up for my newsletter. There are no paywalls. popular.info

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

1. This New York Post cover: “Thousands of 9/11 families demand Mamdani be banned from 25th-Anniversary” is a brazen lie. How do I know? I interviewed the organizer of the petition.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

1. American taxpayers are spending $2 BILLION every year providing Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands of employees of Amazon and Walmart, a new analysis by Popular Information reveals.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

News outlets that covered the US-Saudi nuclear deal without mentioning that Jared Kushner, Trump’s top foreign policy advisor, is getting paid by the Saudi government: WSJ NYT AP Reuters CNN NBC ABC CBS The Guardian Semafor Washington Post Fox News New York Post BBC Newsweek MS NOW

On Wednesday, the Trump administration signed a 30-year nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that paves the way for the kingdom to enrich its own uranium.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

1. Trump just signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, paving the way for the Saudis to enrich their own uranium. Meanwhile, Trump's top foreign policy advisor, Jared Kushner, is being paid tens of millions of dollars anually by the Saudis That fact was IGNORED in almost all the coverage

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

On May 26, a healthcare executive received a letter from the FDA that created an existential legal crisis for his company — and his career. Days later, he sent $1 million to MAGA Inc. (1/2)

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

1. ICE is lying about body cams and I have the documents that prove it. On July 14, Tom Homan, who oversees ICE's immigration crackdown at the White House, said that ICE purchased body cams as soon as Democrats approved funding for DHS in April. That is a lie.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I took a hard look at the financial donors to ICE’s biggest supporters in Congress. These are people who want to significantly expand ICE’s power and have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to do so. Here are the top 25 consumer brands bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress:

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

"Federal agents around the country were told in recent days that the F.B.I. would no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents — cases that sometimes yield evidence that could be used to prosecute Department of Homeland Security agents implicated in violent encounters"

nytimes.com

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/19/us/politics/fbi-ice-agents-investigations-shootings.html

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Consumer brands bankrolling the biggest ICE supporters in Congress (2025-2026): SpaceX — $589,000 Home Depot — $536,500 Charter (Spectrum) — $407,000 UPS — $353,500 Chevron — $352,500 Walmart — $308,000 Valero — $297,500 New York Life — $295,500 Altria (Marlboro) — $279,000 Aflac — $278,000 (1/3)

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

"Citizens Bank said it plans to wind down its financial relationship with two private prison companies that have been government contractors under the Trump administration to help run immigration detention centers, bowing to public pressure from advocates and left-leaning city governments."

washingtonpost.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/17/citizens-bank-ice-immigration/7dcfd87e-8213-11f1-8a16-393bd03340b0_story.html

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Trump's border czar says there will be "more bloodshed" until Democrats "shut their mouth"

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

"Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on that speech and more than a dozen others on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found" abcnews.com/US/white-hou...

abcnews.com

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

1. On at least two dozen occasions since the outset of the war Trump has declared that the Strait of Hormuz was “open” or controlled by the United States. The Strait of Hormuz is not open. The U.S. does not control the Strait of Hormuz.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Trump on Monday called on the Senate to advance industry-friendly cryptocurrency legislation “in honor of” Lindsey Graham, calling him a “big supporter” of it. Graham was not a sponsor of the legislation.

washingtonpost.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/13/trump-urges-senate-pass-industry-friendly-crypto-bill-honor-graham/

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

1. Last week, the Trump administration published its "Unified Agenda" a massive document (4000 rules!) that details its regulatory plan for the next year. Buried inside was a massive concession to some of Trump's largest donors: Big Chicken.

The administration quietly delivers a huge win to corporate poultry processors, who have donated tens of millions to Trump and his allies, at the expense of family farmers.

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

"Trump’s sons Donald Jr & Eric Trump have amassed a portfolio of defense technology start-ups that are benefiting from new Pentagon priorities and spending, further entangling the United States’ interests and the Trump family’s financial fortunes in an area with immense stakes for national security"

washingtonpost.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2026/07/13/trumps-sons-invest-heavily-defense-fathers-administration-pours-money/

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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

1. RFK Jr. has engaged in an aggressive campaign to discourage the use of antidepressants. He also has an ongoing financial relationship with a Scientology-linked law firm that has spent decades suing antidepressant manufacturers.

Kennedy has an ongoing financial connection to a Scientology-linked law firm that spent decades suing antidepressant manufacturers.

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