Investigative journalist. “You’re not God, my father or my boss.” Work in @GuardianUS, @RollingStone, @TheIntercept, @dropsitenews @POLITICO
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Joined October 2022
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SCOOP: The FBI informant convicted of lying to the Bureau about a fake bribery scheme involving the Bidens has been quietly released from prison just months into a six-year sentence—raising concern he could be pardoned by Donald Trump any moment.
Alexander Smirnov, who has multiple business ties to Trumpworld, was sentenced days before Trump became president. He had pleaded guilty to fabricating a story that former President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, had received millions in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, as well as to a $2 million-plus tax evasion offense.
Yet despite Smirnov being judged a flight risk, with ties to Russian intelligence and foreign assets, the U.S.-Israeli citizen has been mysteriously missing from prison for at least the past four months.
How did no one notice this bizarre filing from SoCal Strategies from May? Why were people still acting like this was a normal polling company until today? So confused
There is a real Jack Anthony Sims in Florida--and his Florida home address was used to register the LLC for SoCal Strategies LLC in March 2025--and dissolve it in May of this year with a bizarre message. His mom writes here on Facebook in 2024 that Jack was a "nonprofit volunteer" who computed SoCal's polls.
SoCal Strategies is apparently the polling company that Jack Sims from Wedgewood Polls (which just nuked itself saying it was a social experiment after being investigated as fake) told Zachary Donnini at VoteHub he worked for. FiftyPlusOne: “We were told the organization was a bipartisan team, including Republican Jack Sims and Democrat Andrew Prater, and were provided information about their funding sources and methodology. Sims had previously worked for other pollsters that met our standards, which we independently confirmed, and the methodology statement on their website appeared to be industry standard."
SoCal's X account and website were nuked today.
In May, Sims filed to dissolve SoCal Strategies' LLC, writing "ITS TIME FOR THIS TO END AND FOR US TO MOVE ON. I JUST WANT TO PUT THIS ALL BEHIND."
Sims/Szymanski, who is 30, does not seem to have gone to Boston University, but rather Pasco-Hernando State College. Pic is old but the only one I could find.
RT @weijia: Trump says @VivekGRamaswamy should KEEP UP the ad featuring @amyactonoh’s mother, who has not cared for her in over 50 years af…
As for Andrew Prater, not sure he exists. Sims seems to have used various aliases, according to someone he worked with for a long time.
xitter.cf/onpointpolitics/status…
A statement on Wedgewood Polls.
Yesterday Wedgewood Polls admitted its data was fabricated and called it a “social experiment.” It only said that after FiftyPlusOne had already caught it. That wasn’t an experiment.
I’ve worked with the person I believe is behind it since 2024. I met him as Wilson Rochford, running SoCal Research. Based on my messages and records, I believe he also went by Jack Sims, Andrew, “johan,” and a Discord account called “Michael Tracey’s Top Guy,” and presented them to all of us as different people.
What the evidence shows:
In 2024, I paid Pollfish directly for 17 SoCal surveys. I watched those responses come in live. Those polls were real.
Across 2024 and 2025 I raised $19,587 from 382 donations to fund his polling.
In June, as Andrew, he weighted a South Carolina poll and told me Mace was up 4 in the raw data when she wasn’t. On October 20, as Andrew, he said in a live interview that he’d never weighted a poll in his life.
He told me he made 3x betting on a race SoCal had polled.
I was kind to him, gave him chance after chance, and put a lot of money and trust into this. He threw it away.
This industry only works when people stay civil and honest with each other, even when they disagree. Someone who operates like this shouldn’t be in it, and I’m forwarding everything I have to the right people.
SoCal Strategies is now run by Red Eagle Politics. He has no part in it, and it’s a firm people can trust.
Every source is in the full statement: Pollfish invoices with personal info redacted, messages, the interview record, and my livestreams of real responses coming in. Judge it for yourself.
PDF RELEASE: drive.google.com/file/d/1dMQ…
And as for why, it's unclear--people have identified a Kalshi they believe was his for betting, he seems somewhat unwell, he has a political background of supporting both Democrats and Republicans according to voting registration and someone who knew him, and was fascinated with Syria when he was young.
Our investigation into allegations of data fabrication at the firm SoCal Strategies, and an alleged association with the admittedly fraudulent firm Wedgewood Polls, has resulted in the pollster wiping itself from the face of the earth.
Full story at 50+1: blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/mor…
There is a real Jack Anthony Sims in Florida--and his Florida home address was used to register the LLC for SoCal Strategies LLC in March 2025--and dissolve it in May of this year with a bizarre message. His mom writes here on Facebook in 2024 that Jack was a "nonprofit volunteer" who computed SoCal's polls.
SoCal Strategies is apparently the polling company that Jack Sims from Wedgewood Polls (which just nuked itself saying it was a social experiment after being investigated as fake) told Zachary Donnini at VoteHub he worked for. FiftyPlusOne: “We were told the organization was a bipartisan team, including Republican Jack Sims and Democrat Andrew Prater, and were provided information about their funding sources and methodology. Sims had previously worked for other pollsters that met our standards, which we independently confirmed, and the methodology statement on their website appeared to be industry standard."
SoCal's X account and website were nuked today.
In May, Sims filed to dissolve SoCal Strategies' LLC, writing "ITS TIME FOR THIS TO END AND FOR US TO MOVE ON. I JUST WANT TO PUT THIS ALL BEHIND."
Sims/Szymanski, who is 30, does not seem to have gone to Boston University, but rather Pasco-Hernando State College. Pic is old but the only one I could find.
Full story wapo.st/4i7v2Da
Vivek may have a 4.5 million ad buy but Acton has groyper memes about her having an AI dump truck
Details are out on Vivek Ramaswamy’s statewide TV buy for his attack spot featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother:
$4,518,306 total for ads in every Ohio media market, starting Thursday and running through Election Day, per @MediumBuying.
Jacqueline Sweet retweeted
🚨Texas PAC, the Elon Musk-funded offshoot of John Thune's Senate Leadership Fund, drops another $32.35 million into ads hitting James Talarico in the #TXSen race, bringing its spending to over $180 million and total outside spending to $342 million
Two updates to this: SnailWorks is more of a middleman tracking company here so the direct mail company is still a mystery.
And an NRRC spokesperson tells me they had no involvement in the trans mailers.
This is sort of buried in here, but a USPS worker told the Tribune that the mailer ID number on the mailers belongs to SnailWorks, a Maryland company with disbursements from the NRCC in recent FEC records.
Besides Democrat Nina Turner who paid SnailWorks $825 in 2022, it's all NRRC payments for SnailWorks in FEC records: More than $166K over 67 payments between May 2020 and August 2026.
This is sort of buried in here, but a USPS worker told the Tribune that the mailer ID number on the mailers belongs to SnailWorks, a Maryland company with disbursements from the NRCC in recent FEC records.
Besides Democrat Nina Turner who paid SnailWorks $825 in 2022, it's all NRRC payments for SnailWorks in FEC records: More than $166K over 67 payments between May 2020 and August 2026.
Pamphlets purporting to come from a transgender rights organization — mailed to families across Texas and igniting criticism from conservatives — came from a company formed last month in Wyoming. The Texas Transgender Student Union listed a Houston-area post office box as the address on the mailers. texastribune.org/2026/10/20/…
Greg Kelly says Amy Acton's mother "seems like a very nice lady."
Amy Acton’s MOM says Don’t Vote for Amy for Ohio Governor. BELIEVE HER!!
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Acton has been estranged from her mother since age 12 after sexual abuse by her stepfather, whom the mother defended. The ad omits this context. Acton's childhood accounts are corroborated by court records and family.
politifact.com/article/2026/o…
usatoday.com/story/news/pol…
Yes, Amy Acton's mother had several animal neglect and bad checks/ fraud charges over the years
"Arthur, 78, was found to have kept several newborn kittens locked in a filthy vehicle with the windows rolled up on an unseasonably warm spring day. Hope’s Dream Rescue and Sanctuary founder and President Lisa King testified during trial the nonprofit received a report that the internal temperature of the vehicle was 120 degrees. Humane society police officer Harold Walstrom testified he felt 'a wave of heat release' after opening one of the vehicle’s doors.
Arthur testified on her behalf, but Centre County Judge Brian Marshall found her not credible.
Public records show Arthur was charged with animal neglect at least two other times. After appeal, she was found not guilty earlier this month by Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine."
Ohio politics blogger and Shrek penis pic texter guesses that long-time Vance advisor and former DHS Tricia's husband/ Kristi Noem $200M horseback ad-maker were the two masterminds of the Vivek Amy Acton molestation mother ad.
(I just had to write that sentence because it will never again be possible to string those words together. Let me have hobbies.)
Jacqueline Sweet retweeted
The federal government is producing a reality television show with your tax dollars featuring scientologist Grant Cardone and hosted by Dean Cain, who amplified the Vivek ad that tried to discredit Amy Acton as a survivor of child sexual abuse. Elissa Slotkin will become the moderate position.
TONIGHT at 6PM.
Five small-business owners. One million dollars.
Watch them battle to turn their dreams into reality.
The Million Dollar Pitch Competition. Don’t miss it ➡️ youtube.com/live/M_lGBxyrnio…
