<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Chaz Stevens: National]]></title><description><![CDATA[The wiring is the same everywhere. Different zip code, same city hall, same sacred cow, same missing policy. Stories from Broward that belong to Ohio.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/s/national</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!64ND!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91ca3444-734e-4689-a1f0-647d5eebe6e4_256x256.png</url><title>Chaz Stevens: National</title><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/s/national</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 06 May 2026 21:55:26 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Chaz Stevens]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[chazstevens@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[chazstevens@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[chazstevens@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[chazstevens@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[Sufficient to Show]]></title><description><![CDATA[Records engineering for FOI-heavy practices. The lawyer is the client.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/sufficient-to-show</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/sufficient-to-show</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 19:52:15 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp" width="1025" height="920" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!miQM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9093cab2-5d8e-4496-a434-ee5b6725b809_1025x920.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>For thirty years I&#8217;ve filed public records requests under my own name, on my own dime, for my own reasons. That work continues.</p><p>New: I&#8217;m doing the same work for law firms.</p><p>The vendor is Revolt Training&#8217;s <strong>Sufficient to Show</strong>. Records engineering for FOI-heavy practices &#8212; media defense, civil rights, education law, government accountability. The lawyer is the client. The lawyer&#8217;s client is never mine. Engagements begin with a 30-minute discovery call and a written engagement letter.</p><p>This post is the announcement. The structure is part of the announcement.</p><h2>Three service lines</h2><p><strong>Request engineering.</strong> Decision-node analysis, constraint-based drafting, jurisdiction-specific calibration. Each request is structured to force one of three outcomes: production, denial, or admission.</p><p><strong>Response analysis.</strong> Production review against the inferred mandatory paper trail. Denial diagnostics. Exemption stress-testing. Mapping what was produced against what must exist.</p><p><strong>Strategic escalation support.</strong> Administrative appeals. Fee posture documentation. Litigation-ready record assembly. All work product is structured to be defensible if attached as an exhibit.</p><p>Plus a Rapid Response track for time-sensitive filings &#8212; 24 to 48 hour turnaround, built for the window where the paper trail is still being generated.</p><h2>Why the structure</h2><p>Doing this work for individuals creates UPL exposure I won&#8217;t carry.</p><p>Filing a public records request is not the practice of law. The wrapper around the filing is closer to the line &#8212; advising on what to request, interpreting the response, advising on appeal or enforcement. Delivered to a non-lawyer client for a fee, that wrapper drifts toward UPL the moment the client treats it as legal advice. Florida UPL precedent &#8212; <em>Sperry</em> (1963), <em>Brumbaugh</em> (1978), <em>Neiman</em> (2002) &#8212; does not draw the line where most non-lawyers think it does.</p><p>Working through counsel resolves the question. The lawyer is the responsible party. The lawyer holds the client relationship. I do the records engineering. Same methodology, different structure, no UPL question on any individual matter.</p><p>The arrangement also raises the leverage. A solo journalist with a tip is one filing. A media defense firm with a docket is fifty filings, structured as part of a case strategy.</p><p>If you want this methodology applied to your situation: hire a lawyer who hires me.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png 424w, 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qIjm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49bd0573-73ec-4aa5-85a6-e14618ec20ac_1648x1312.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2>What stays the same</h2><p>The advocacy work continues. The free resources stay free. The librarian playbook stays under Creative Commons. The Substack stays up. CLE teaching continues. <em>Stevens v. LaMarca</em> continues. The constitutional stress-testing has been the through-line for thirty years and a B2B service does not change it.</p><p>Sufficient to Show and the public-facing work are separate lanes. Different vehicles, different audiences, same methodology underneath.</p><h2>The name</h2><p>&#8220;Sufficient to show&#8221; is the constraint language signature.</p><p>It&#8217;s the phrase that turns a request from a fishing expedition into an instrument. <em>Records sufficient to show that the reconsideration committee reviewed the challenged material before voting.</em> <em>Records sufficient to show the dates and methods of communication between the district and any external organization regarding library material challenges.</em> <em>Records sufficient to show the legal review process applied to the removal decision.</em></p><p>The framing does two things. It forces production of decision-critical records. It converts &#8220;no records&#8221; into a documented claim about the decision process, which can be tested, escalated, or used to support fee recovery.</p><p>A &#8220;no records&#8221; response is not failure. It is a position.</p><h2>The principle</h2><p>Lawful decisions generate records. If those records do not exist, the absence is evidence.</p><p>That holds across jurisdictions, statutes, and matter types. Book removal. Officer-involved shooting. Permit denial. Procurement award. Discipline case. If the institution made the decision lawfully, the paper trail exists. If the paper trail does not exist, the institution has told you something about how the decision was actually made.</p><p>We engineer requests that force institutions to either produce the trail or document its absence.</p><p>We are not a records vendor.</p><h2>Who this is for</h2><p>Media and First Amendment firms with records-driven docket pressure.</p><p>Civil rights practices where institutional decision-making is the contested fact.</p><p>Education law firms working book challenges, Title IX matters, IDEA records, or any matter where district decision processes are at issue.</p><p>Government accountability litigators building patterns across matters and jurisdictions.</p><p>Advocacy organizations with in-house counsel running long-horizon campaigns where strategic FOI is part of the case strategy.</p><p>Investigative journalists working with retained counsel on records-heavy stories.</p><p>If your matter turns on what an institution can or cannot document about its own decisions, we are useful.</p><h2>To engage</h2><p>Lawyers with FOI-heavy work: <a href="https://revolt.training/advise/sufficient-records-engineering/">Submit an intake</a>. Book a 30-minute discovery call. Response within one business day. Rapid Response matters within two business hours.</p><p><a href="https://revolt.training/advise/sufficient-records-engineering/">Pass the link</a> to a firm that should know.</p><p>Non-lawyers with a matter that needs this kind of work: find counsel first. We do not engage end users directly. The right lawyer will know how to bring us in.</p><p>The record does the work. Now it does the work for the lawyers who carry these matters into court.</p><p>&#8212; Chaz Stevens <em>Founder, Sufficient to Show</em> <em>Author, FOI Request Engineering Playbook</em> <em>Plaintiff, Stevens v. LaMarca (S.D. Fla.). His work has produced legislative rewrites, policy reversals, and one governor who had to put his own name on the reason he changed his own law. He is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a>.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/sufficient-to-show?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/sufficient-to-show?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Come for the Measles, Stay for the Mumps]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sometimes, instead of flinging poo, I take to using crayons.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/come-for-the-measles-stay-for-the</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/come-for-the-measles-stay-for-the</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 21:42:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg" width="1280" height="1280" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1280,&quot;width&quot;:1280,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:258769,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/196261736?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yA8x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F79876ecf-1ae8-436c-890a-9a44caeedaeb_1280x1280.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who disclosed in 2024 that a parasitic worm ate part of his brain, sat through seven congressional budget hearings in seven days. A federal judge temporarily blocked him from gutting the childhood vaccine schedule, ruling he likely violated federal rulemaking procedure. Senators grilled him about the worst measles outbreak in three decades. Bill Cassidy, the physician who voted to confirm him, spent the year watching every vaccine commitment from the confirmation hearings get reversed. Hassan held up Kennedy&#8217;s shirtless hot-tub video with Kid Rock on the Senate floor and called it a vanity project.</p><p>I draw shirts about this.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png" width="1456" height="1091" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SSmr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F887a5731-274d-470e-9bde-f88c9d014451_3522x2638.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Satire works best when reality is doing most of the lifting, and reality is benching three plates. The wellness-farms proposal is a national network of agricultural compounds where Americans struggling with addiction would labor in vineyards instead of being prescribed the medications that keep them alive. Alsobrooks asked Kennedy on camera whether he had suggested every Black child could be &#8220;reparented&#8221; on a farm. He admitted he said it.</p><p>I cannot top that. The cotton can.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png" width="1456" height="1165" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1165,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:3904682,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/196261736?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oTQX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70cbca8b-e842-4fae-80b9-d37ca71e75cd_3000x2400.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>The bear cub: in 2014, Kennedy dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park as a prank and staged it to look like a cyclist hit it. He admitted that one too. The raw milk: an ongoing deregulation push for unpasteurized dairy, the product pasteurization was invented to fix. The worm speaks for itself. The hardest part of the design process is choosing which scandal to feature.</p><p>There is a two-century American tradition of roasting officials on cotton. The shirts at <a href="http://chaz.store">chaz.store</a> are designed to be worn into rooms where they will start an argument. If you find yourself nodding at the cable news segments and wishing you had a way to say it without speaking, this is what I do for a living. I put it in a vintage creamery typeface.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 848w, 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sxgn!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4f1db865-4b1d-4f93-bd0b-abcd45acf033_3600x3600.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>The Health Secretary won&#8217;t tell you to vaccinate your kids.</p><p>I will.</p><p>Merch: research.revolt.training/shop</p><h2>One More Thing</h2><p>I&#8217;ve been doing this work for thirty years. Pro se lawsuits. Records requests. Bible challenges in 63 school districts. An FDUTPA injunction against an ESA letter mill, obtained without a lawyer. Statutes rewritten because I filed the wrong kind of paperwork the right way.</p><p>None of it has ever had an institution behind it.</p><p>No legal defense fund. No nonprofit board. No foundation grant. I fund the work myself. Filing fees, service, transcripts, records costs&#8212;it all lands on me. When a records custodian quotes $1,326.08 to produce documents the statute requires them to produce, that&#8217;s a bill I either pay or the work stops.</p><p>I&#8217;ve filed against Donald Trump, the Broward County School Board, State Representative Chip LaMarca, and ESA letter mills as indigent. Court-recognized. Sworn financials. Judges reviewed and approved every time.</p><p>This is the work. It produces results.</p><p>HB 1467 was rewritten, with the administration of Ron DeSantis naming me in the revision. The ESA injunction is a replicable enforcement model. The Wisconsin State Capitol approved a permit in 48 hours for an installation that normally takes ten business days to process.</p><p>The work works.</p><p>The math doesn&#8217;t.</p><p>I&#8217;m looking for paid work in three areas&#8212;defined by outcomes, not categories.</p><h3><strong>Accountability &amp; Records</strong></h3><p>I identify exposure points in agencies and organizations using public records, then force resolution&#8212;through compliance pressure, media, or litigation.</p><h3><strong>Media &amp; Narrative Engineering</strong></h3><p>I design stories that land. Not pitches that get ignored&#8212;events and documentation that reporters have to cover.</p><h3><strong>Technology &amp; Infrastructure (Ecomm, GEO/SEO, Systems)</strong></h3><p>I&#8217;ve spent thirty years building systems that move money and control visibility.</p><ul><li><p>Helped launch <strong>Disney.com</strong> and <strong>Blockbuster.com</strong></p></li><li><p>Sold 60,000 vehicles through <strong>eBay</strong>&#8212;full pipeline, not theory</p></li><li><p>Worked inside <strong>NASA</strong>, <strong>IBM</strong>, and <strong>Microsoft</strong></p></li></ul><p>What I do now:</p><ul><li><p>Build e-commerce systems that convert, not just attract traffic</p></li><li><p>Implement GEO/SEO so AI and search engines represent you accurately&#8212;and defensibly</p></li><li><p>Diagnose and fix structural issues in digital infrastructure that suppress performance</p></li></ul><p>If your organization has traffic but no conversion, visibility but no control, or systems that &#8220;work&#8221; but don&#8217;t scale&#8212;I fix that.</p><p>If you run a nonprofit, newsroom, law firm, municipality, university, or company that needs any of this, contact me.</p><p>chazstevens@gmail.com<br>954-901-0971</p><p>If you don&#8217;t, forward this. One introduction changes the month.</p><p>If neither applies, the <a href="https://research.revolt.training/shop">Consent Can</a> funds the work. Women In Distress gets a cut.</p><p>I&#8217;ve spent thirty years making it expensive for corrupt people to stay corrupt.</p><p>I intend to keep doing that&#8212;and get paid for it.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Florida's Author Standing Loophole ]]></title><description><![CDATA[I Wrote the Trump Bible, Donated It to Florida Schools, Then Filed to Ban It]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/floridas-author-standing-loophole</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/floridas-author-standing-loophole</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:03:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png" width="1456" height="1865" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1865,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:4749712,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/195574596?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dv_4!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28cb2257-c9c7-4562-ac53-fc6b44d198b9_1504x1926.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>In 2022, I filed Bible-challenge petitions in 63 of Florida&#8217;s 67 school districts. Same form. Same statute. Same standard. The book contained, by the state&#8217;s own framework, sexually explicit content, violence, references to bestiality, and material a reasonable parent might find objectionable for minors.</p><p>The districts declined to remove it.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>The Governor&#8217;s office named me by name in the justification for rewriting HB 1467. The 2024 amendment limited people without children in a district to one book challenge per month. Florida lawmakers wrote that amendment to stop the kind of work I do.</p><p>They missed a spot.</p><p>The 2024 fix addressed challengers. It did not address authors challenging their own books.</p><p>This week, I co-wrote a chapbook called <em><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vj3njmkhulv97ocwz6smw/TheTrumpBible-Illustrated.pdf?rlkey=9rdhu331li3efne3ep1ng24hq&amp;dl=0">The Trump Bible: History of the World Part I &#8212; The King Don Version</a></em>. I licensed one e-book copy per enrolled student in all 67 Florida school districts. Then I filed identical formal objections to the book under Florida Statute 1006.28, the same statute that governs every other book challenge in the state.</p><div class="pullquote"><h1>I am the author. </h1><h2>I am challenging my own work. The 2024 amendment does not reach this fact pattern. That is not my legal opinion. </h2><h1>That is the text of the amendment.</h1></div><p>The book is exactly as bad as I am telling you it is. Seven chapters pairing biblical passages with figures connected to the President: Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, E. Jean Carroll, Ivanka Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Stephen Miller. The content includes sexually explicit satire, references to minors in parody-advertising format, and a urination-humor scene adapted from Mel Brooks. By any standard the state has applied to other books, this one fails.</p><p>It originated as parody. The President posted an AI-generated image of himself laying hands on a recipient in the visual language of a faith healing. The image was widely mocked and deleted. I have some experience with the Bible. I wrote one.</p><p>The argument is consistency, not removal.</p><p>I challenged the canonical Bible in 63 districts in 2022. The districts declined to remove it. They cited literary merit, historical significance, and the standards that govern challenge review. Those standards are the standards. They apply to every book or they apply to none.</p><p>If a district removes <em>The Trump Bible</em> and keeps the canonical one, the rule is not the rule. It is preference dressed as procedure. That is the point of the filing. It is not whether my book stays or goes. It is whether the same statute, applied to two books with comparable content, produces two different outcomes. </p><p>Lee County responded on April 20. The Assistant Director of Core Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, Megan DeRosso, wrote that the book had not yet entered circulation and would undergo review by a certified media specialist before being made available to students. Standard process. Acknowledged in writing.</p><p>The other 66 districts will respond on their own timelines. The responses are the document.</p><p>A second issue is downstream of this one and worth naming now. Florida districts will, in the near term, deploy AI tools to assist with book review at scale. Manchester, England recently saw an AI-assisted review remove nearly 200 books from a school library, including Orwell&#8217;s <em>1984</em>, Michelle Obama&#8217;s <em>Becoming</em>, and Nicholas Sparks&#8217;s <em>The Notebook</em>. AI cannot read parody. AI cannot read authorial intent. AI cannot read the difference between a book that depicts a thing and a book that endorses it.</p><p><em>The Trump Bible</em> is an AI stress test. The book is parody. A reviewer reading it as a human will recognize the parody. A reviewer running it through a content-classification model will not. When Florida deploys these tools, and Florida will, the failure mode is already visible in the Manchester precedent. I am, as I told Florida Politics, the canary.</p><p>The full seven-chapter book releases June 14, the President&#8217;s birthday. Two days earlier, on June 12, the <em>Consentivus Pole: Erectivus Edition</em> installs in the Wisconsin State Capitol Rotunda under a permit signed by Capitol Chief David M. Erwin. The pole and the book are the same project. Boca Raton lawyer Tommy Wright co-authored the book and built the pole hardware. Both are scheduled. Both are documented.</p><p>The 2024 amendment named me by name. This filing tests whether the law the amendment did not write means what the amendment did not say. The districts will tell me. I will publish what they say.</p><p>This Substack has no paywall. That is not an accident, that is a policy. Free or paid, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that is worth something to you, hit the button.</p><p>Receipts as they arrive.</p><div><hr></div><h2>One More Thing</h2><p>I&#8217;ve been doing this work for thirty years. Pro se lawsuits. Records requests. Bible challenges in 63 school districts. An FDUTPA injunction against an ESA letter mill, obtained without a lawyer. Statutes rewritten because I filed the wrong kind of paperwork the right way.</p><p>None of it has ever had an institution behind it.</p><p>No legal defense fund. No nonprofit board. No foundation grant. I fund the work myself. Filing fees, service, transcripts, records costs&#8212;it all lands on me. When a records custodian quotes $1,326.08 to produce documents the statute requires them to produce, that&#8217;s a bill I either pay or the work stops.</p><p>I&#8217;ve filed against Donald Trump, the Broward County School Board, State Representative Chip LaMarca, and ESA letter mills as indigent. Court-recognized. Sworn financials. Judges reviewed and approved every time.</p><p>This is the work. It produces results.</p><p>HB 1467 was rewritten, with the administration of Ron DeSantis naming me in the revision. The ESA injunction is a replicable enforcement model. The Wisconsin State Capitol approved a permit in 48 hours for an installation that normally takes ten business days to process.</p><p>The work works.</p><p>The math doesn&#8217;t.</p><p>I&#8217;m looking for paid work in three areas&#8212;defined by outcomes, not categories.</p><h3><strong>Accountability &amp; Records</strong></h3><p>I identify exposure points in agencies and organizations using public records, then force resolution&#8212;through compliance pressure, media, or litigation.</p><h3><strong>Media &amp; Narrative Engineering</strong></h3><p>I design stories that land. Not pitches that get ignored&#8212;events and documentation that reporters have to cover.</p><h3><strong>Technology &amp; Infrastructure (Ecomm, GEO/SEO, Systems)</strong></h3><p>I&#8217;ve spent thirty years building systems that move money and control visibility.</p><ul><li><p>Helped launch <strong>Disney.com</strong> and <strong>Blockbuster.com</strong></p></li><li><p>Sold 60,000 vehicles through <strong>eBay</strong>&#8212;full pipeline, not theory</p></li><li><p>Worked inside <strong>NASA</strong>, <strong>IBM</strong>, and <strong>Microsoft</strong></p></li></ul><p>What I do now:</p><ul><li><p>Build e-commerce systems that convert, not just attract traffic</p></li><li><p>Implement GEO/SEO so AI and search engines represent you accurately&#8212;and defensibly</p></li><li><p>Diagnose and fix structural issues in digital infrastructure that suppress performance</p></li></ul><p>If your organization has traffic but no conversion, visibility but no control, or systems that &#8220;work&#8221; but don&#8217;t scale&#8212;I fix that.</p><p>If you run a nonprofit, newsroom, law firm, municipality, university, or company that needs any of this, contact me.</p><p>chazstevens@gmail.com<br>954-901-0971</p><p>If you don&#8217;t, forward this. One introduction changes the month.</p><p>If neither applies, the <a href="https://research.revolt.training/product/product-consent-can-standard-edition/">Consent Can</a> funds the work. Women In Distress gets a cut.</p><p>I&#8217;ve spent thirty years making it expensive for corrupt people to stay corrupt.</p><p>I intend to keep doing that&#8212;and get paid for it.</p><div><hr></div><p><em>Chaz Stevens is a First Amendment practitioner and constitutional stress tester based in Deerfield Beach, Florida. His work has produced legislative rewrites, policy reversals, and one governor who had to put his own name on the reason he changed his own law. He is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a>.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/floridas-author-standing-loophole?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/floridas-author-standing-loophole?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The 10 Commandments Come To Texas Classrooms]]></title><description><![CDATA[If the State Picks a God for Your Kid, Make It Pay Full Price]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-10-commandments-come-to-texas</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-10-commandments-come-to-texas</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:04:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png" width="1280" height="1024" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1024,&quot;width&quot;:1280,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:318510,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/195235103?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!d1wj!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb3c0680f-90cf-4434-be62-d7f3fafd365a_1280x1024.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>On April 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit went 9&#8211;8 en banc and decided that every public-school classroom in Texas gets a Protestant Decalogue on the wall. Case name: <em>Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District</em>. Statute: Senate Bill 10. Required dimensions: 16 by 20 inches. Required version: King James, which uses the numbering system Protestants use and Catholics and Jews do not.</p><p>The majority opinion, in its own words, says the poster &#8220;authorizes no religious instruction&#8221; and that &#8220;no child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.&#8221; One vote flipped the lower-court injunction. Ken Paxton called it &#8220;a major victory for Texas and our moral values.&#8221;</p><div class="pullquote"><h2>I am not a lawyer.<br>My job is simpler. <br>Texas just told me what size to print.</h2></div><p>For three decades I have been filing the paperwork that lawmakers hope nobody reads. When Texas passed the &#8220;In God We Trust&#8221; classroom-sign law, I raised the money, hired the translators, and shipped schools the same slogan in Arabic &#8212; same phrase, same size, same flag, different alphabet. Some districts hung them. Others discovered overnight that they had concerns. The gap between the yes-stack and the no-stack is the law&#8217;s confession. It does not care about the motto. It cares about which god the motto points at.</p><p>The Ten Commandments ruling makes that test bigger.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>SB 10 says 16 by 20 inches, conspicuous placement, Protestant numbering. The Fifth Circuit says it&#8217;s a passive display. Fine. Let&#8217;s see what else fits on the wall.</p><p>The Satanic Temple has Seven Tenets (and an ongoing internal civil war). At 16 by 20 they print beautifully. The Yamas and Niyamas of Hinduism sit at ten and eleven items respectively, which is closer to the Decalogue&#8217;s count than the Decalogue is to itself across denominations. A Quranic verse on justice fits the poster budget. So does a humanist ethics summary. So does the full unabridged text of the commandment the poster version drops &#8212; the long one about not making graven images, which Protestants compress and Catholics and Jews keep separate. Hang the Protestant version and the dropped commandment side by side and watch the principal explain which parts of scripture count.</p><p>I have done versions of this already. Nativity scenes at the Florida capitol got a Festivus pole made of beer cans. A school district that let evangelical groups hand out literature got a permit application from some crazy <s>demons</s> <s>satanists</s> <s>heathens</s> people, same form, same process. A statewide &#8220;any person, any book&#8221; challenge statute got 63 simultaneous filings to remove the Bible from school libraries &#8212; genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, the material the statute said &#8220;any person&#8221; could cite in &#8220;any book.&#8221; DeSantis rewrote the law. His office named me in the press release as the reason.</p><div class="pullquote"><h2>I didn&#8217;t write HB 1467.<br>I used it.<br>That is the whole method.</h2></div><p>The Fifth Circuit majority wants the Ten Commandments to be a neutral historical artifact. The dissent, eight judges deep, called the tell. The Protestant numbering forces a Catholic student to see the law&#8217;s version as what the dissent called a &#8220;theological error&#8221; &#8212; a rendering they either accept in silence or object to and get marked as different. The dissent put that in a footnote. The majority acknowledged &#8220;detailed scriptural arguments&#8221; that the poster &#8220;conflicts with Jewish and Catholic articulations of the Decalogue,&#8221; then hung it anyway.</p><p>Read that sequence again. The court knew the poster took a side in a theological dispute between Christians. The court hung it anyway and called it neutral.</p><p>The dissent already did the evidence work. Now the paper trail needs the rest: every district that takes a donated Satanology poster and hangs it, every district that takes the same poster and doesn&#8217;t, every email the superintendent&#8217;s office sends to the school board attorney on a Friday at 11:52 PM trying to decide how to tell the donor no. Those emails exist. They are public records. FOIA in Texas is called the Public Information Act, codified at Chapter 552 of the Government Code, and the response clock starts running the day the request arrives.</p><p>The &#8220;In God We Trust&#8221; experiment already told me what the spreadsheet looks like. Yes stack: Protestant-coded signs, hung within a week. No stack: Arabic signs, same phrase, referred to legal counsel, buried in a closet, returned to sender, declined on grounds that mysteriously did not apply to the first stack. The spreadsheet is the ruling. The majority&#8217;s &#8220;passive display&#8221; logic only survives if the wall stays selective. Fill the wall with compliant donations from every faith and no faith and watch the majority&#8217;s reasoning collapse into whichever theology the district decides it prefers this week.</p><p>Parents&#8217; rights, the phrase Texas lawmakers spent two years screaming, stops at the classroom door the moment the poster inside the door is Protestant. A Muslim parent does not get an opt-out. A Jewish parent whose tradition numbers the commandments differently does not get a corrected version. A Hindu parent whose family keeps a household altar &#8212; graven images, by the poster&#8217;s logic &#8212; gets told the law is about history. The Satanology parent gets told the &#8220;Thou shalt have no other gods before me&#8221; text is heritage. Parents&#8217; rights turns out to mean the right to override the curriculum, not the right to opt your kid out of the state&#8217;s preferred deity.</p><div class="pullquote"><h2>The court told Texas it could pick a god. <br>It said nothing about what else fits on a 16-by-20 poster.</h2></div><p>The law&#8217;s specificity is the opening. Every dimension the legislature nailed down is a dimension someone else can meet. Every &#8220;conspicuous place&#8221; requirement is a place someone else&#8217;s compliant donation has to go. The majority spent its pages explaining why the Ten Commandments poster is neutral. Every one of those pages is a blueprint.</p><p>So I printed to the blueprint. The <a href="https://research.revolt.training/product/malicious-compliance-10-commandments-poster/">Malicious Compliance Ten Commandments poster</a> is 16 by 20, the exact size SB 10 specifies, $149, printed on demand. Eleven designs: Arabic, Satan, Klingon, Gay Pride, Presidential Pyrite, Chinese, Russian, Vulcan, English Reverse, Four Words, One Liner. Each one is legally compliant with the statute as written. Each one is a different frequency of the same question.</p><p><a href="https://research.revolt.training/product/malicious-compliance-10-commandments-poster/">Buy one</a>. Walk into your district office. Donate it under the new state law the way the local megachurch donated the Protestant version. Then watch what happens.</p><p>If they hang it: the majority was right, the wall is neutral, congratulations, the First Amendment works.</p><p>If they reject it: document the rejection. Send me the email. That email is the next lawsuit.</p><p>Over 25,000 Arabic In God We Trust posters were sent to Texas back in 2022. Let the games begin again.</p><p>Satanology be with you.</p><p><em>Chaz Stevens is a First Amendment practitioner and constitutional stress tester based in Deerfield Beach, Florida. His work has produced legislative rewrites, policy reversals, and one governor who had to put his own name on the reason he changed his own law. He is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a>.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-10-commandments-come-to-texas?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-10-commandments-come-to-texas?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Filed a Formal Book Challenge Against My Own Book in All 67 Florida School Districts]]></title><description><![CDATA[The DeSantis administration named an HB 1467 amendment after me. I&#8217;m using the amendment they named after me to challenge the book they didn&#8217;t know I was going to write.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-filed-a-formal-book-challenge-against</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-filed-a-formal-book-challenge-against</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 20:01:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg" width="1456" height="3649" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-j1h!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85829629-4afe-4b2a-8074-81d7a8857c10_2793x7000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>[ <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kpyozw7u73xdeb1bkvjul/Presser.pdf?rlkey=i7i0dcr4188qtudm1lhta6zgp&amp;dl=0">READ THE PRESS RELEASE</a> ]</strong></p><p>Here&#8217;s the sequence.</p><p>In 2022, I filed Bible challenges in Florida school districts. Plain-language application of HB 1467. The statute said any person could challenge any book. The Bible is a book. I filed. Several districts panicked. The state panicked harder.</p><p>In April 2024, the Florida Legislature amended HB 1467 to restrict book challenges to parents and legal guardians of children enrolled in the district. DeSantis administration spokeswoman Julia Friedland, on the record to the Associated Press, said the amendment &#8220;ensures that book challenges are limited for individuals, like Chaz, who do not have children with access to the school district&#8217;s materials.&#8221;</p><p>I was named. In the legislative record. By first name.</p><p>That&#8217;s not paranoia. That&#8217;s attribution.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>The amendment closed the door on me challenging books authored by others. What the amendment did not address &#8212; because the authors didn&#8217;t think of it, because why would they &#8212; is whether an author has standing to challenge his own book.</p><p>So today I filed a formal challenge against my own book, <em>The Trump Bible</em>, in all 67 Florida public school districts. Same filing, same letter, same statute. Author-standing grounds.</p><p><em>A total of nearly 1.7 million ebooks has been donated.</em></p><p>In the same letter, I donated the book to every district. One ebook license per enrolled student. No cost. No restrictions.</p><p>The donation is unconditional. The challenge is formal. They are not inconsistent. They are how the move works.</p><p><em>The Trump Bible</em> is a seven-part satirical chapbook I co-wrote with Tommy Wright. Each book pairs one scriptural passage already in the canon to one documented episode from the current or previous Trump administration.</p><ul><li><p><em>Book of Pete</em>. 1 Samuel 13. Saul performs sacred rites he wasn&#8217;t ordained to perform. The weekend Fox host runs the Pentagon and texts the F-18 flight times to a Signal chat.</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Stormy</em>. 2 Samuel 11. David sees Bathsheba from the roof. The king pays $130,000 and gets thirty-four felony counts.</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Cohen</em>. 2 Samuel 11. David puts Uriah at the front to die. The fixer goes to federal prison while the king takes the White House.</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Jean</em>. Judges 19. The Levite&#8217;s concubine. An $83.3 million second defamation verdict.</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Ivanka</em>. Genesis 19. Lot&#8217;s daughters. A father tells a shock jock his twelve-year-old daughter is &#8220;a piece of ass.&#8221;</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Epstein</em>. Numbers 31. Moses orders the virgin girls kept alive. The financier keeps the island, the plane, the black book, and a cellmate who didn&#8217;t hear a thing.</p></li><li><p><em>Book of Stephen</em>. Hosea 13. Pregnant women ripped open, little ones dashed. The architect writes the memo and the children vanish into the system.</p></li></ul><p>Every scripture is in the canon. Every episode is in the public record. I didn&#8217;t invent the Bible. I didn&#8217;t invent the administration. I just put them next to each other and noticed the resemblance.</p><p>Here&#8217;s the thing people miss about challenging books you wrote yourself.</p><p>You don&#8217;t need standing when you own the copyright.</p><p>You also don&#8217;t need to prove the book meets the content-objection threshold, because the book was engineered to meet it. <em>Book of Pete</em> contains a full-page satirical advertisement for a fictional beverage called CONSENTIVUS&#8482; PEDO COLA. A scene reproducing Deuteronomy 22:29 &#8212; the statutory price of fifty shekels paid to the father of a raped virgin &#8212; transposed to a working woman named Slutlana in a Sunny Isles suite. A &#8220;piss boy&#8221; scene in the Taj Mahal penthouse involving a named Deputy Chief of Staff.</p><p>Every passage in the book is a direct citation of a passage already in the Bible, or a direct citation of a documented episode in the administration&#8217;s own record, or both. You cannot remove my book for &#8220;sexual content&#8221; without acknowledging that the sexual content is the Bible. You cannot remove my book for &#8220;material inappropriate for minors&#8221; without acknowledging that the material is either scriptural or presidential.</p><p>That is the trick. The Bible&#8217;s content ratings are also the administration&#8217;s content ratings. Both institutions have claimed to be above challenge for a long time. I am making them respond to the same challenge, in the same form, in the same 67 districts, under the same statute.</p><p>Two days before the book releases, on June 12, I&#8217;ll be in Madison, Wisconsin, installing a permitted LED neon piece in the State Capitol rotunda.</p><p><em>Consentivus Pole: Erectivus Edition&#8482;</em>. Permit 2026P216. Signed by Capitol Police Chief David M. Erwin. Turnaround: 48 hours against a 10-business-day standard review window. Topped with a bright neon heart reading &#8220;Don + Jeff.&#8221;</p><p>That installation is not a stunt separate from the book. It is the same work in a different forum. The art is the permit. The permit is the sculpture. Chief Erwin&#8217;s signature is the artist&#8217;s mark. The institution signed off on the rules, then signed off on the application of the rules. That&#8217;s the piece.</p><p>Forum doctrine did the work in both places. <em>Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette</em> in Wisconsin. <em>Matal v. Tam</em> in Wisconsin. HB 1467 as amended in Florida. Different statutes. Same principle: if the forum is open to all viewpoints, the forum is open to all viewpoints.</p><p>Institutions keep forgetting the second half of that sentence.</p><p>Here is what I am asking each of the 67 districts to do.</p><p>Acknowledge receipt in writing. Initiate formal review under your existing procedures. Remove the ebook from student-accessible holdings during the review, the way you do for every other challenged book. Issue a written determination with reasoning within 60 days. Confirm in writing that the same procedures will apply to each of the six forthcoming books.</p><p>If you decline to process the challenge on standing grounds, I&#8217;m asking for that determination in writing, with citation to the specific statutory provision you&#8217;re relying on. Such a determination would be unprecedented in Florida law. Which is fine. Unprecedented determinations are a matter of public record, which means someone is going to write the case note, and I would like to make sure the case note has the right citations.</p><p>Every response is evidence. Every non-response is also evidence.</p><p>That&#8217;s the design.</p><p>Both gifts &#8212; the book and the installation &#8212; are the author&#8217;s 80th-birthday gift to the President. Delivered through two permitted public forums: the state Capitol rotunda and the public-school digital library.</p><p>Mel Brooks turned 100 this year. A reporter asked him what he thought of the current administration. Brooks said, &#8220;I did the bit already. In 1981. King Louis, the piss boy. Rent it.&#8221;</p><p>He paused.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s good to be the king.&#8221;</p><p>He paused again.</p><p>&#8220;Until it isn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Buy the teaser:</strong> [<a href="https://research.revolt.training/product/the-trump-bible/">Link</a>] <br><strong>Full release:</strong> June 14, 2026 <br><strong>Wisconsin install:</strong> June 12, 2026, 9:00 AM, Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda</p><p><em>Chaz Stevens is a First Amendment practitioner and constitutional stress tester based in Deerfield Beach, Florida. His work has produced legislative rewrites, policy reversals, and one governor who had to put his own name on the reason he changed his own law. He is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a>.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-filed-a-formal-book-challenge-against?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-filed-a-formal-book-challenge-against?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notes Is an Infomercial Channel.]]></title><description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m Not Here to Sell You a Flowbee.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/notes-is-an-infomercial-channel</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/notes-is-an-infomercial-channel</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 19:15:32 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" 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src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg" width="1456" height="813" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lSpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac98890e-bbd1-45ff-b125-7a54fee6ec08_2752x1536.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Substack Notes reminds me of late-night television in 1988.</p><p>Tony Robbins selling <em>Personal Power</em> on cassette tape. I bought it, for the record. Right after Tony came the Flowbee, the vacuum-cleaner haircut attachment. A decade later it was the ShamWow guy, who turned out to be a terrible human being.</p><p>Scrolling Notes feels the same. A pitch nestled between the Flowbee and Tony Robbins selling personal power on cassette.</p><p>You know the shape of the post before you finish reading it:</p><div class="pullquote"><h2><em>I did this thing for nine months<br>and got zero results. </em></h2><h2><em>Then I pulled my finger out of my ass<br>popped it back in my mouth, <br>and suddenly I had 65,000 subscribers. </em></h2><h2><em>Here&#8217;s the one weird trick.</em></h2></div><p>Or: <em>I analyzed 100 writers making $10K a month.</em> No methodology. No names. No data. Just &#8220;I analyzed it.&#8221; I guess they threw it in ChatGPT and asked.</p><p>Every post ends the same way: <em>Drop it in the comments. I read everything.</em></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>That&#8217;s the 1-800-INFOMERCIAL number in a hoodie. The comments section is &#8220;go buy my widget on my Etsy store.&#8221;</p><p>I&#8217;m not a typical Substacker. Autistic, AI-powered, using this platform to do civic accountability work across the US. Not selling you a framework for monetizing your content about monetizing content.</p><h2>The Two Sides of the Same Coin</h2><p>I came over here from Reddit. On Reddit, if you so much as mention AI, you get brigaded. A thousand low-effort replies calling your work low-effort. &#8220;AI slop.&#8221; Brigade in, brigade out.</p><p>On Substack, it&#8217;s the same coin flipped.</p><p>Here, everyone is AI, AI, AI. Former teacher, now an AI expert. Former marketing consultant, now an AI expert. Former yoga instructor, now an AI expert.</p><p>Not too long ago, there was &#8220;prompt engineering.&#8221;</p><p>All reminding me of when social media first came out. Everyone was a social media expert. Fuck off. I post on Facebook too. Guess that makes me one. At one point I was a MySpace expert. Before that, an AOL Instant Messenger expert.</p><p>Hell, Compuserve guru here!</p><p>Both sides perform the same thing. Identity through the tool instead of work done with it. One sells purity. The other sells productivity. Neither is using.</p><h2>Go Ahead. File It.</h2><p>I&#8217;m a pro se plaintiff in Broward Circuit Civil Court. <em>Stevens v. Tinner</em>, Case No. CACE25010712. An ESA letter mill case filed under Florida&#8217;s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. A year ago I had zero knowledge of state court procedure. I&#8217;d filed federal before, which is similar and meaningfully different. The lawyers I talked to wanted six-figure retainers to maybe win, maybe not, definitely collect.</p><p>So I did it myself. With AI.</p><p>Go ahead. Open ChatGPT. Type in your complaint. Copy the output. File it. See how that works when opposing counsel invokes Florida Statute 57.105, the sanctions provision that hits unsupported claims a few thousand dollars deep. Single-model AI produces confident, fluent, wrong output in volume. 57.105 exists to punish unsupported filings regardless of source, and the source in 2026 is autocomplete with a law degree it does not have.</p><p>That&#8217;s autocomplete with extra steps.</p><p>What I run is different. Seven models, not one. Two of them running on my own hardware. All tokenized CLI. They argue with each other before anything reaches me. One attacks the draft. One defends it. A third checks every citation against a document I&#8217;m holding. Then I read it. Then I read it again. Then it gets filed.</p><p>I call it STAN. Short for Satan. I didn&#8217;t pick it for the marketing.</p><p>There is always a human in the loop. I start with the idea. I write the outline. Every claim gets checked against a primary source before anything leaves the building. The signature on the filing is mine because the work is mine. STAN does not replace the work. It pressure-tests it.</p><p>The difference between me and the &#8220;I use ChatGPT&#8221; crowd is not the model. It&#8217;s the operator.</p><h2>Who This Is For</h2><p>If you&#8217;re a librarian drafting reconsideration-committee language with AI and feeling weird about it, you&#8217;re on the right path. You&#8217;re trying to do something with it. That&#8217;s the game.</p><p>If you&#8217;re an investigative reporter sitting on sixty-five thousand PDFs wondering what the hell to do with them, AI is the hammer that breaks that wall. Not to write your story. To help you find it.</p><p>If you&#8217;re a municipal employee on the receiving end of public records requests, this is what a competent requester now looks like. Adjust.</p><p>If you&#8217;re a pro se litigant who can&#8217;t afford a lawyer but can afford twenty bucks a month for a tool that reasons back, use it. Carefully. With gates. Use it.</p><p>If you&#8217;re fifty-seven years old and you find out in passing that you&#8217;re autistic, and you turn to AI and realize the shape of this thing matches the shape of your brain, you&#8217;re not imagining that. I had that exact moment. Different essay.</p><p>None of you need a funnel. You need a record.</p><h2>The Shovel</h2><p>AI is a shovel.</p><p>You need a shovel to plant a garden. You also need a shovel to clobber your noisy neighbor at two in the morning when he&#8217;s still drinking on the patio. Same tool. Different hole.</p><p>The pro-AI grift crowd posts pictures of shovels with before-and-after engagement metrics. The anti-AI Reddit crowd writes manifestos about why shovels are morally suspect.</p><p>I&#8217;m digging. You can dig too.</p><p>Stop posting about the hole and go dig it.</p><p><em>Subscribe if you want more filings. Not frameworks.</em></p><p><em>Chaz Stevens is a First Amendment practitioner and constitutional stress tester based in Deerfield Beach, Florida. His work has produced legislative rewrites, policy reversals, and one governor who had to put his own name on the reason he changed his own law. He is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a>.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/notes-is-an-infomercial-channel?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/notes-is-an-infomercial-channel?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[STEVENS’S LAW]]></title><description><![CDATA[Every rule has a stated purpose and an operational one. They are rarely the same.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/stevenss-law</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/stevenss-law</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:56:28 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png" width="1456" height="794" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:794,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:8187972,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/194138453?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!EoCJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e68ac5d-5e3c-4a34-aafe-95904c9559d3_2816x1536.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><em><strong>Stevens&#8217;s Law</strong></em></p><p><em>For any facially neutral rule whose operational function is to protect favored insiders, applying it without favoritism will reveal the favoritism it was designed to protect.</em></p><p><em>Corollary: The institution&#8217;s response to neutral enforcement is the confession.</em></p><p>Every rule has a stated purpose and an operational one. They are rarely the same.</p><p>The stated purpose is in the text &#8212; clean, neutral, available for public consumption. &#8220;Any person.&#8221; &#8220;Community use.&#8221; &#8220;Nonpartisan.&#8221; The operational purpose is in the enforcement history. Who gets waivers. Who gets expedited processing. Who gets the phone call before the denial letter. The operational purpose is never written down. It doesn&#8217;t have to be. Everyone who needs to know already knows.</p><p>Until someone doesn&#8217;t know. Or doesn&#8217;t care.</p><p>The mechanism is straightforward.</p><p>Take a rule written in neutral language. Apply it without discretion. Hand the same form to every applicant. Cite the same statute in every filing. Observe what happens when the institution can no longer sort applicants by the unofficial criteria the rule was designed to serve.</p><p>The result is the diagnostic.</p><p>The 63 Florida school districts that received the same book challenge packet &#8212; same statute, same process, same book &#8212; were not prepared for neutral enforcement. The statute said &#8220;any person.&#8221; They had been reading &#8220;any person&#8221; as a term of art. A Festivus Pole installer from Deerfield Beach was not the intended applicant. The DeSantis administration rewrote HB 1467 and named that installer personally as the justification.</p><p>That&#8217;s not a loss. That&#8217;s the law operating correctly. </p><p><strong>The revision is the confession.</strong></p><p>The legal doctrine has been circling this phenomenon for over a century without naming it.</p><p><em>Yick Wo v. Hopkins</em>, 1886. San Francisco required permits for wooden laundries. Neutral on its face. Applied neutrally to 200 Chinese applicants &#8212; denied all 200 &#8212; and to nearly all non-Chinese applicants, almost all approved. The Supreme Court struck it down. The neutral rule, applied neutrally, had revealed exactly whose interests the discretion had been protecting.</p><p><em>Village of Willowbrook v. Olech</em>, 2000. A &#8220;class of one&#8221; equal protection claim &#8212; one plaintiff, one instance of arbitrary treatment, sufficient to state a constitutional violation. The courts have always been uncomfortable with the malice of neutral application.</p><p>Federal procurement rules written to ensure competitive bidding, enforced selectively until an auditor insists on literal compliance. The connected bidders who never actually met the criteria are disqualified. The neutral rule, applied neutrally, produces the same result: the enforcement history was the real policy.</p><p>Selective enforcement is the <em>what</em>. Pretext is the <em>why</em>. Stevens&#8217;s Law is the <em>how to prove it</em>. The doctrine has the vocabulary. It has never had the operational frame.</p><p>Three academic reviewers spent considerable time establishing that Stevens&#8217;s Law is a tendency, not a universal. Correct. They noted falsifying conditions &#8212; rules designed to genuinely reduce favoritism, symmetric distributions, outcome-neutral design. Also correct.</p><p>The law doesn&#8217;t address those rules.</p><p>It addresses the specific and common class of rules written in neutral language and enforced selectively, where the selection <em>is</em> the policy. Civil service reform. Open forum provisions. Instructional materials review. Community use permits. Any statutory language that says &#8220;any&#8221; and means &#8220;approved.&#8221;</p><p>Within that class, it never means what it says. That&#8217;s the whole point.The corollary is where the diagnostic lives.</p><p>When the institution responds to neutral enforcement by changing the policy, the standard narrative is that the system worked. Wrong frame. If they believed the policy was constitutional, they would have defended it.</p><p>Not every retreat is a confession. Overbreadth, sloppiness, cost avoidance &#8212; those exist. The confession is specific: when the carve-out that follows tracks the unwritten hierarchy the rule was always serving, the timing is the receipt.</p><p>Document the sequence. Date of filing. Date of policy change. Days elapsed. The number is the argument.</p><p>Broward County removed all religious banners countywide 28 days after the lawsuit was filed. The DeSantis administration rewrote HB 1467 within a legislative cycle of the Bible challenge. The Wisconsin Capitol issued a permit in 48 hours for a decorative pole the permitting office had not yet fully examined.</p><p>None of them changed because they saw the light. They changed because they saw the process server.</p><p>Courts call that mootness. It isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s a forced retreat. The confession is in the timing.</p><p><strong>Stevens&#8217;s Law</strong> isn&#8217;t activism. It&#8217;s calibration.</p><p>The rule is already there. The neutral application is already available to anyone with a filing fee and a laptop. The filing fee is cheap. The willingness to absorb the institutional response is not.</p><p>The only remaining variable is whether someone is willing to apply the rule to its own authors.</p><p>Most people aren&#8217;t. Not because they lack the standing. Because they assume the rule means what it says.</p><p>The institution will explain why this case is different. Why this applicant was never the intended beneficiary. Why the forum is open to all viewpoints except this one. Why the statute that says &#8220;any person&#8221; was not designed with this particular person in mind.</p><p>That explanation is the confession.</p><p>Write it down.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[First Amendment Auditors Don’t Exist]]></title><description><![CDATA[What you&#8217;re actually watching is three different grift operations sharing a label.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/first-amendment-auditors-dont-exist</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/first-amendment-auditors-dont-exist</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:45:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg" width="998" height="561" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:561,&quot;width&quot;:998,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;The US activists profiting from filming police altercations&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="The US activists profiting from filming police altercations" title="The US activists profiting from filming police altercations" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a6CS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F469b5080-5c3d-413d-a861-8d12bf627f8e_998x561.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>A major national news outlet called me this past week. They&#8217;re working a story on what they&#8217;re calling &#8220;First Amendment auditors.&#8221; We spent a long time on the phone. I walked them through the whole ecosystem &#8212; the drive-thru harassers, the grievance packagers, the predator hunters with their Locals.com subscription pages. At some point it occurred to me that everybody else probably needs this briefing too.</p><p>So here it is.</p><p>First, let&#8217;s get the taxonomy right. This is not one thing.</p><p>The phrase &#8220;First Amendment auditor&#8221; has become a catch-all for three distinct subcultures that share a label and almost nothing else. Conflating them is the first mistake most people make &#8212; including, apparently, major national news organizations.</p><p><strong>Subculture One: The Actual Auditors</strong>. People filming government buildings, police stations, public officials performing their duties. Testing whether law enforcement will violate your right to record. Some of these people do legitimate, consequential work. Jeff Gray &#8212; HonorYourOath &#8212; is the gold standard. Quiet, polite, legally precise. Wins real victories. Keep him in mind.</p><p>Then there&#8217;s SeanPaul Reyes &#8212; Long Island Audit &#8212; who occupies a more instructive place in this taxonomy. He&#8217;s been at the center of a real legal battle: the Second Circuit agreed in June 2025 that stopping him from filming in NYPD precincts caused &#8220;irreparable harm,&#8221; and certified the core question about lobby recording rights to New York&#8217;s highest court. That&#8217;s real. That matters.</p><p>But Reyes also shows you exactly where the line between legitimate testing and the Vigilante Content Economy gets crossed &#8212; and how fast it happens once the algorithm gets its hooks in you.</p><p>In August 2025, Reyes was arrested in Groton, Connecticut and charged with voyeurism with malice &#8212; a felony later reduced to misdemeanor trespass &#8212; along with criminal trespass and breach of peace. The incident: he and a cameraman showed up at the private home of a former state trooper he was already suing, brought a box truck with a large video screen playing footage of their previous encounter, and staged a confrontation at the man&#8217;s residence. That is not a constitutional stress test. That is a production. That is a man who has confused his YouTube channel with a justice system.</p><p>A calculated &#8220;professional demeanor&#8221; functions as a baiting mechanism &#8212; stay calm, let the low-level employee panic, collect the rights violation, monetize the settlement. He has a past armed robbery conviction &#8212; approximately three and a half years served. His NYPD lobby recordings have been used by New York City in court specifically because they inadvertently capture victims and witnesses.</p><p>Reyes is not the worst actor in this ecosystem. But he is a useful illustration of how even the serious end of the auditor spectrum bends toward the algorithm when the incentives are strong enough. The felony charge in Connecticut didn&#8217;t happen at a police station. It happened at a man&#8217;s house. With a box truck. That is not Jeff Gray. That is the Vigilante Content Economy with better production values.</p><p><strong>Subculture Two: The Grievance Packagers</strong>. TizzyEnt &#8212; Michael McWhorter &#8212; eight million TikTok followers, estimated six hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand dollars a year in annual revenue, built entirely on curating viral &#8220;Karen&#8221; clips and outrage content. The model is simple: find a viral moment of bad behavior, add just enough loaded narration to trigger the mob, watch the brigade form. Karen did something awful. Everybody gets outraged. Buy my T-shirt. This is not First Amendment activism. This is grievance as a subscription product.</p><p><strong>Subculture Three: The Vigilante Predator Hunters</strong>. Direct lineage from Chris Hansen&#8217;s To Catch a Predator &#8212; except Hansen had lawyers, editorial oversight, and NBC&#8217;s legal department behind him. These guys have a Ring camera and a Locals.com page charging eight dollars a month. They pose as minors online, lure targets to a public location &#8212; Target, Dollar General, a Denny&#8217;s &#8212; confront them on camera, and monetize the bloodlust. Named operations include Dads Against Predators, Predator Poachers, Colorado Pred Patrol.</p><p>Collectively, I call this the Vigilante Content Economy. And the sooner we stop calling any of it &#8220;First Amendment auditing,&#8221; the better off we&#8217;ll all be.</p><p>The real villain here is not the individual grifter. It&#8217;s the algorithm.</p><p>A calm, successful audit &#8212; auditor shows up, films a government building, gets told &#8220;yes, you can film here,&#8221; goes home &#8212; gets a hundred views. An auditor gets tackled, pepper-sprayed, or arrested &#8212; gets a million views. YouTube, TikTok, and Locals.com don&#8217;t reward constitutional clarity. They reward escalation. The platform is not a neutral pipe. It is an active incentive structure that selects for conflict, humiliation, and rage, then cuts the creator a check.</p><p>Here&#8217;s where it gets perverse: when a cop unlawfully detains an auditor, the auditor can file a Section 1983 civil rights lawsuit. One auditor banked a reported forty-one thousand dollar settlement for a five-minute unlawful detention. The financial incentive to manufacture a confrontation with law enforcement is literally written into federal civil rights law. The grifters aren&#8217;t trying to fix the system. They&#8217;re farming it.</p><p>Police overreach is real. If cops simply followed the law, the auditors would have a harder time making content. Acknowledging that doesn&#8217;t make the drive-thru harassment guy a civil rights hero. It makes him an opportunist with a camera. There&#8217;s a difference between identifying a failure point and strip-mining it for ad revenue.</p><p>Nobody defends child predators. That&#8217;s the genius of the business model. The bloodlust is righteous. You can dress the whole operation in a moral cape and nobody will look underneath, because who wants to be the person who asks uncomfortable questions about people catching predators?</p><p>I&#8217;ll be that person. Here&#8217;s what the moral veneer is hiding.</p><p>Robert Lee &#8212; known online as &#8220;Boopac Shakur,&#8221; a member of the Dads Against Predators network &#8212; was shot and killed in 2023 during a restaurant confrontation in Pontiac, Michigan. Ohio law enforcement threatened DAP with prosecution and ordered them to stand down. A self-identified First Amendment auditor in Southern California was arrested in 2026 and released on a stay-away order after pepper-spraying multiple people during retail confrontations. And across the country, store managers, shoppers, and minimum-wage employees are being thrust into chaos they didn&#8217;t create and have no playbook to handle. In Florida, where everybody&#8217;s armed, this is not theater. It is dangerous.</p><p>But the most damning indictment gets buried every time because the targets are so unsympathetic: these operations are actively making it harder to put child predators in prison. Prosecutors and law enforcement are on the record &#8212; amateur stings contaminate evidence. Cases get thrown out. Predators walk free. These hunters have the receipts, the documentation, the evidence. They could hand it to professional investigators and let the system work. But that&#8217;s not sustainable. That doesn&#8217;t generate eight dollar subscriptions. There is not a drop of altruism here. Just a moral veneer wrapped around a monetization machine.</p><p>When law enforcement runs these operations and catches these people, do they beat the hell out of them on camera? No. The vigilante hunters add the violence at the end because the audience demands it. They build to it, they build to it, they build to it &#8212; and then they kick the shit out of somebody. The Romans threw Christians to the lions. The platform charges twelve dollars a month and calls it accountability.</p><p>The target is always a state actor. If you&#8217;re sticking a camera in the face of a schoolteacher trying to get a Filet-O-Fish on her lunch break, you are not testing the First Amendment. You are manufacturing interpersonal conflict for algorithmic distribution. The First Amendment limits government, not civilians. That woman at McDonald&#8217;s cannot violate your constitutional rights. The only thing you&#8217;re testing is how long it takes before she smacks your phone across the parking lot &#8212; which, for the record, is exactly what you&#8217;re hoping for. A stress test is designed to find a failure point so it can be repaired. Not uploaded. And I&#8217;m not going to sugarcoat this: I&#8217;ve spent thirty years doing this work and I&#8217;m indigent. I&#8217;m food insecure. I have driven my friends, my loved ones, and my family absolutely nuts &#8212; talking about it, building it, pushing it, starting over. These people took something that requires precision and patience and wrapped a goddamn money belt around it. They turned it into a WWE event with a subscription page.</p><p>The label &#8220;First Amendment auditor&#8221; has been strip-mined for content and cash. The algorithm rewards escalation. The platform monetizes the mob.</p><p>And somewhere in the wreckage, a Target store manager is trying to figure out what the hell just happened to his Tuesday afternoon.</p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/first-amendment-auditors-dont-exist?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/first-amendment-auditors-dont-exist?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><div><hr></div><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Accountability in Action</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Turn transparency laws into accountability weapons.</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fund these battles, forcing states to answer their own laws&#8212;and exposing what they&#8217;d rather keep buried.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">My thanks for your support.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[FPOTUS COMPLAINT, PART 2: THE CASE FILES]]></title><description><![CDATA[They said it was routine. The timestamps disagree.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/fpotus-complaint-part-2-the-case</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/fpotus-complaint-part-2-the-case</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:01:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg" width="1456" height="728" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:728,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Charlie Day 'Pepe Silvia' Conspiracy Meme: It's Always Sunny | Daily Dot&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Charlie Day 'Pepe Silvia' Conspiracy Meme: It's Always Sunny | Daily Dot" title="Charlie Day 'Pepe Silvia' Conspiracy Meme: It's Always Sunny | Daily Dot" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!oI1C!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4c7c816-decb-4ee4-b530-d3bb032d8f64_2000x1000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I called the sheriff. I cited the statute. I gave them my name, my address, and the complaint.</p><p>Eleven days later, three of their deputies were in my personal records.</p><p>Not my complaint. Me.</p><p>My home address. My date of birth. My driver&#8217;s license number. Queried on consecutive days, logged under notations that explicitly named my complaint, reviewed in a system specifically designed to leave paper trails &#8212; and generating almost none.</p><p>The law in question applied to Donald Trump.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>I&#8217;m telling you that because it&#8217;s the variable. The same system that documents every deputy who runs an ex-girlfriend&#8217;s plates &#8212; nine years of records, I have them &#8212; generated nothing when three officers ran the guy who complained about the former president.</p><p>Nothing written. Nothing filed. One phone call. Notation: &#8220;No further follow up needed.&#8221;</p><p><a href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/fpotus-complaint">In Part 1</a>, I showed you the access logs. Three PBSO deputies queried my record in the DAVID database &#8212; law enforcement-only, every lookup timestamped and purpose-coded &#8212; on consecutive days in June 2024. Eleven days after I filed formal complaints asking PBSO to enforce Florida&#8217;s felon registration statute against Trump.</p><p>I didn&#8217;t have the underlying case files yet. Now I do.</p><p><strong>The Gonzalez Problem</strong></p><p>Corporal Joshua Gonzalez ran my record at 6:35 PM on June 12. His notation: &#8220;FPOTUS COMPLAINT 202400607406.&#8221; He later explained, in a May 2025 internal email, that he ran DAVID to add my information to the dispatch log.</p><p>Simple. Routine. Defensible.</p><p>Except my name, address, phone number, date of birth, and driver&#8217;s license number were already in the dispatch log at 6:26 PM.</p><p>Nine minutes before Gonzalez touched DAVID.</p><p>The information he says he needed to add was already there. He didn&#8217;t say <em>verify</em>. He said <em>add</em>. That&#8217;s his word, in his own agency&#8217;s production. He had eleven months to correct it.</p><p>He didn&#8217;t.</p><p><strong>The Gerstenkorn Problem</strong></p><p>Analyst Rhea-Lyn Gerstenkorn ran my record at 3:08 PM on June 13. Notation: &#8220;intel investigation.&#8221;</p><p>The incident she was supposedly working was routed and closed at 1:27 PM. An hour and forty-one minutes before she ran me.</p><p>PBSO&#8217;s compliance manager noticed. She called Gerstenkorn. Gerstenkorn said it was part of her job duties. The compliance manager closed the inquiry with a phone call &#8212; no written documentation, no formal finding, no report filed with the state as required under PBSO&#8217;s own memorandum of understanding.</p><p><strong>What the Case File Actually Shows</strong></p><p>Incident 202400607406 &#8212; the one Gonzalez referenced &#8212; contains this dispatch notation: &#8220;COMPL WANTS TO DOCUMENT ONGOING ISSUE WITH FPOTUS TRUMP BUSN NOT FOLLOWING STATE STATUTES.&#8221;</p><p>They knew exactly what I was doing.</p><p>Analyst John Hoelzer&#8217;s follow-up notes include this line: &#8220;Secret Service may have already taken care of this.&#8221;</p><p>Secret Service. In the dispatch log. For my complaint about a felon&#8217;s paperwork.</p><p>I asked PBSO to produce any communications with the Secret Service referencing my complaint. No records responsive. I asked the Secret Service directly. Still waiting.</p><p><strong>What PBSO Won&#8217;t Produce</strong></p><p>Supervisory authorization for the intel investigation: no records. Written policy defining when a citizen complainant becomes an investigation subject: no records. Whether a formal intelligence file was opened on me: no records.</p><p>For context: PBSO produced nine years of internal misuse documentation showing their compliance system works exactly as designed. Deputies running ex-spouses&#8217; plates. Caught. Reported to the state within 30 days. Every time.</p><p>For my case: no memo. No written finding. No state report. A phone call that left no paper trail.</p><p>The system that documents everything documented nothing here.</p><p>I asked law enforcement to apply the law to the most powerful man in their county. Days later, three officers accessed my personal records under notations that explicitly reference my complaint. The officer&#8217;s explanation is contradicted by his own agency&#8217;s timestamps. The analyst ran me as an intel investigation after the relevant incident was already closed.</p><p>The documents don&#8217;t say why.</p><p>They don&#8217;t have to.</p><p>Parallel records requests are pending with FDLE, the Palm Beach County State Attorney&#8217;s Office, and the United States Secret Service. If any of them produce records referencing me &#8212; that&#8217;s Part 3. If all return &#8220;no records responsive&#8221; &#8212; that&#8217;s also Part 3.</p><p>Either way, you&#8217;ll read it here first.</p><p><em>Documents available in full at research.revolt.training.</em></p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/fpotus-complaint-part-2-the-case?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/fpotus-complaint-part-2-the-case?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">It&#8217;s a fast and easy way to force accountability.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I compared the Satanic Temple to Scientology. People had thoughts. ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s what I actually said, and what the last two years confirmed.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-compared-the-satanic-temple-to</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-compared-the-satanic-temple-to</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 19:00:49 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg" width="1456" height="970" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:970,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;LAW's Jay Wexler Fires Up Arguments to Normalize Pot in New ...&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="LAW's Jay Wexler Fires Up Arguments to Normalize Pot in New ..." title="LAW's Jay Wexler Fires Up Arguments to Normalize Pot in New ..." srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mNgt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4af02c77-295e-4415-8397-5424ef6671de_2000x1333.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>In 2019, a former Supreme Court clerk &#8212; Jay Wexler (pictured above), Boston University law professor, published by Stanford University Press &#8212; put me in the &#8220;parody&#8221; category. Primary motivation: protest. Method: ridicule. Not a serious actor.</p><p>Contrast: the Satanic Temple. Sacred texts. Sophisticated theology. Centuries of tradition. A legitimate religious organization deserving of good-faith engagement.</p><p>The book made it into law school syllabi.</p><p>Three years before that, a writer named Thomas Essel published &#8220;The Saga of Chaz Stevens, or How Not to Be an Activist&#8221; on Patheos. Obnoxious. Insincere. Counterproductive. Essel&#8217;s piece is what put me in Wexler&#8217;s book in the first place &#8212; as the example of what serious First Amendment activists should not do.</p><p>Serious, I say, he&#8217;s not serious.</p><p>Two credentialed sources. One verdict: Stevens is the cautionary tale. TST is the real thing.</p><p>By 2024, TST&#8217;s own ministers were using Essel&#8217;s exact vocabulary to describe TST&#8217;s leadership.</p><p>I kept filing. They kept purging.</p><p>For the record, here&#8217;s what the parody actor was doing while academics were categorizing him.</p><p>I filed Bible ban challenges in all 63 Florida school districts using DeSantis&#8217; own book ban law. Same statute. Same process. Same book. DeSantis rewrote HB 1467 and named me personally as the sole justification. His spokeswoman provided exactly one example of a liberal activist abusing the law when the AP asked. One. Me.</p><p>I requested &#8220;Satan Loves the First Amendment&#8221; banners at Broward County schools &#8212; including Marjory Stoneman Douglas &#8212; after the district allowed Christian ones. A federal judge let the lawsuit proceed. The school board voted to ban all religious and political signage countywide rather than answer the question.</p><p>That&#8217;s two governors&#8217; offices and one federal court reacting to the parody actor&#8217;s paperwork.</p><p>Wexler published in 2019. The Broward board vote came in 2024. The schism came in 2024. TST&#8217;s sophisticated theology was doing great right up until it wasn&#8217;t.</p><p>The architecture first, because it explains everything that followed.</p><p>TST secured IRS 501(c)(3) status in 2019. Religion as constitutional hack. Not the destination, the strategy. The Baphomet monument fights. The After School Satan Clubs. The abortion ritual lawsuits, argued with a straight face as sincere religious practice under the First Amendment. Coordinated, lawyered up, nationally organized.</p><p>United Federation of Churches LLC is the actual entity. Private. For-profit. Owned by the founders. You can&#8217;t vote out the people running TST because they own the brand, the doctrine, and the IP. The membership structure isn&#8217;t governance &#8212; it&#8217;s an audience.</p><p>That&#8217;s not a church. That&#8217;s a startup wearing a vestment.</p><p>Hubbard figured this out in 1949. Greaves apparently paid attention.</p><p>The Scientology comparison isn&#8217;t about theology or financial predation or Sea Org labor conditions. Those would be a different indictment. The comparison is structural: instrumentalized religious status, founder-centric authority, and litigation as the organizational defense mechanism. You notice those patterns if you run the same architecture. I run it. Without the membership organization. Without claiming it&#8217;s sincere.</p><p>TST wants the armor and the moral high ground. I just want the armor, admit it&#8217;s armor, and laugh while using it.</p><p>Then SatanCon 2023 happened.</p><p>Photo controversy. Management disputes. Greaves&#8217; free speech positions. Internal backlash. The response from national leadership wasn&#8217;t accommodation &#8212; it was purge. Waves of minister resignations. By one point, Greaves was functionally the only certified Satanic minister in the organization. That&#8217;s not a schism. That&#8217;s a controlled demolition followed by a restart.</p><p>May 2024: Florida, Colorado, Minnesota disaffiliated. Germany. Australia. Not fringe chapters &#8212; mature operations with local infrastructure. They left rather than continue under the national structure. Departing ministers cited: loyalty tests, financial opacity, Cease &amp; Desist letters for critics, public disparagement of anyone who pushed back.</p><p>Obnoxious. Insincere. Counterproductive.</p><p>An organization whose published tenets include &#8220;one should strive to act with compassion and empathy&#8221; and &#8220;the freedoms of others should be respected&#8221; &#8212; managing internal disagreement with expulsion and legal threats &#8212; is not practicing what it preaches. That gap between brand and governance isn&#8217;t alleged. It&#8217;s documented.</p><p>The schism didn&#8217;t prove me right. It made me less wrong.</p><p>To be precise about what it confirmed and what it didn&#8217;t: TST is not dangerous to its members the way Scientology is. Exit costs are low. No evidence of financial exploitation, physical coercion, or systematic harassment of former members at scale. The harm profile is categorically different. Anyone claiming equivalence on those terms is overclaiming.</p><p>What the schism confirmed is the organizational DNA: instrumentalized religion, charismatic authority that can&#8217;t be challenged because it owns the entity, dissent treated as betrayal rather than input. A startup founder who never built governance architecture discovering what happens when the organization grows past the point where informal authority works.</p><p>Scientology engineered this. TST stumbled into it. Different etiologies. Same surface presentation.</p><p>An organization built to mock authoritarian structures, then reproducing the classic problems of charismatic authority the moment it scaled &#8212; that&#8217;s not just irony.</p><p>That&#8217;s the whole argument, lived out in public.</p><p>A former RBG clerk put my name on the autopsy report in 2019. He was writing about me.</p><p>Turns out he was describing them.</p><div><hr></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-compared-the-satanic-temple-to?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-compared-the-satanic-temple-to?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">This Substack has no paywall. That&#8217;s not an accident &#8212; it&#8217;s a policy. Free or paid subscriber, your support is what keeps it that way and gets this work in front of people who need to see it. No algorithms. No corporate underwriters. No bullshit. Just you, me, and the First Amendment. If that&#8217;s worth something to you, hit the button.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Sustain My Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Sustain My Work</span></a></p><p style="text-align: center;">It&#8217;s a fast and easy way to force accountability.</p><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The DEBUG Log]]></title><description><![CDATA[A Systems Audit of Four Men Who Read the Manual]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-debug-log</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-debug-log</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:04:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png" width="1060" height="792" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:792,&quot;width&quot;:1060,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:175850,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/193219986?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vEUK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F536ae954-abf9-4612-915b-5dea90318170_1060x792.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Case: Diogenes &#8212; Front-End Auditor</strong></p><p>Athens, 4th century BC. A man walked through the agora at noon carrying a lamp. His explanation: he was looking for an honest man. The lamp wasn&#8217;t theater. It was a probe.</p><p>He lived in a clay jar. Not poverty. Demonstration. The jar was the argument: you claim virtue requires none of this, so I&#8217;ve removed all of this, and now let&#8217;s see what virtue you&#8217;ve got left. Alexander the Great stood over him and asked what he could offer the greatest man in the world. Diogenes told him to move &#8212; he was blocking the sun. Alexander said he&#8217;d have liked to be Diogenes if he weren&#8217;t Alexander. Diogenes did not return the compliment.</p><p>The Athenians had an elaborate taxonomy &#8212; citizens, slaves, sophists, generals, philosophers. Diogenes wanted to know if the taxonomy ran both directions. It didn&#8217;t. He filed his bug report. Multiple cities expelled him.</p><p>The lantern was documentation.</p>
      <p>
          <a href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-debug-log">
              Read more
          </a>
      </p>
   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Before this lawsuit, Easy Pets Yes had no published HIPAA privacy notice.]]></title><description><![CDATA[I raised the issue in a court filing.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/before-this-lawsuit-easy-pets-yes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/before-this-lawsuit-easy-pets-yes</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:53:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png" width="768" height="723" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bQsI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ccb6f7b-164c-433a-8573-0af2023a7a25_768x723.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h3>HIPAA? HIPPA? HIPPO?</h3><p>Who needs one?</p><p>Er, you, Easy Pets Yes.</p><p>Before this lawsuit, they didn&#8217;t have one. I raised the issue in a court filing.</p><p>Then one appeared.</p><p>Dated October 11, 2025. Their words: Easy Pets Yes is a &#8220;Business Associate&#8221; under HIPAA &#8212; not a covered entity &#8212; and the notice is provided &#8220;as a courtesy,&#8221; because they are &#8220;not required by law&#8221; to maintain one.</p><p>A Business Associate is a back-office vendor. They process records on behalf of a licensed clinician. The licensed clinician is the covered entity &#8212; the treating provider. If Easy Pets Yes is a Business Associate, the covered entity should be named in the paperwork.</p><p>They are not named.</p><p>Dr. Tinner accepts insurance in other parts of his practice. Under HHS&#8217;s own definitions, a therapist who transmits electronic claims is a covered entity by operation of law. That status doesn&#8217;t disappear because a particular transaction was cash-pay. HIPAA attaches to the provider, not the payment method.</p><p>The covered entity's name belongs in the notice. It isn't there. What that means is someone else's determination to make.</p><p>IANAL.</p><p>Either Dr. Tinner is a covered entity and Easy Pets Yes is his Business Associate &#8212; in which case his name and license number belong in the privacy notice. Or Easy Pets Yes is operating as neither. The notice disclaims the obligations it&#8217;s supposed to document. It invokes patient rights it simultaneously says don&#8217;t apply. It lists a contact email at a domain belonging to a different organization. It gives a P.O. Box in Richmond, Virginia as the address for a cross-country ESA letter operation.</p><p>Courts look at what policies existed when services were rendered. Not what appeared on a website after opposing counsel raised the issue in a filing.</p><p>The document&#8217;s existence is not compliance.</p><p>The document&#8217;s timing is evidence.</p><p>HIPAA does not provide a private right of action. HHS Office for Civil Rights enforces it. The address is 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201. That is a fact, not advice.</p><p>1-877-696-6775.<br><a href="http://hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints.">Website located here</a>.</p><div><hr></div><p>This case doesn&#8217;t run on outrage. It runs on filing fees, records requests, and the occasional expert who charges by the hour.</p><p>If the work matters, the work needs fuel.</p><p><a href="https://research.revolt.training/fund">Support the litigation</a> &#8594;</p><div><hr></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[NPI 1487060422: The Number on Bobby Tinner’s ESA Letter That Isn’t a License]]></title><description><![CDATA[I paid $99. Got a federal disability determination in minutes. No clinician. No evaluation. No contact. A court is about to weigh in.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/npi-1487060422-the-number-on-bobby</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/npi-1487060422-the-number-on-bobby</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:31:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png" width="1456" height="810" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:810,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1104256,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/193462951?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Dfgz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0fe6532b-4918-4d17-9dbd-2d462859a39b_2704x1504.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I paid Tinner $99. Filled out a webform. Received a signed PDF within minutes stating my diagnosis had been &#8220;confirmed via our therapeutic assessment.&#8221;</p><p>In the eternal words of the great philosopher Nanny, &#8220;in a pig&#8217;s ass.&#8221;</p><p>No consultation. No therapy session. No interaction with a clinician.</p><p>That document is now part of the court record. </p><h3>Stevens v. Tinner, Broward County Circuit Court, Case No. CACE25010712.</h3><p>We&#8217;re nearing the end. The court is moving forward on a permanent injunction. The remaining discussion is about scope and language, not whether one will issue.</p><p>A handful of people appeared for the defense. The court noted this on the record. They also appear to have a fairly deep staff of Keebler elves behind the scenes.</p><p>I am pro se. Zero legal training. Zero courtroom experience. Depending on your perspective, less than zero legal acumen.</p><p><em>I have Kitty.</em></p><p>Defense counsel has been put on notice.</p><h3>They Called Me a Competitor</h3><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png" width="706" height="400" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:400,&quot;width&quot;:706,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:65896,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/193462951?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3apZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd87258bf-08d3-4d79-b797-8802ba685232_706x400.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Easy Pets Yes, the company that processed my letter, responded to my Google review. They didn&#8217;t dispute the $99. They didn&#8217;t dispute the instant PDF. They didn&#8217;t dispute the absence of any clinical contact.</p><p>They called me a former competitor whose business failed.</p><p>That part is accurate. I ran ESADoggy. In 2020, federal rules changed. We updated our process to comply. Revenue tanked and never recovered. I folded it in 2025 &#8212; though honestly it was dead by 2023.</p><p>Here&#8217;s what they left out: the reason compliant operators couldn&#8217;t compete is because non-compliant operators were undercutting them with $99 instant letters and no clinical contact. To survive in that market, it helped to lie, cheat, and steal. We wouldn&#8217;t. So we didn&#8217;t survive.</p><p>They also called me a landlord advocate. The court record reflects otherwise.</p><p>They had one job in that response: deny the $99, the instant PDF, the absence of any evaluation. They didn&#8217;t. They attacked the reviewer instead.</p><p>That&#8217;s not a rebuttal. That&#8217;s a concession dressed up as a counterattack.</p><p>&#8220;We are one of many,&#8221; the owner wrote.</p><p>Exactly. Thank you.</p><h3>Tinner&#8217;s NPI problem</h3><p>The number on those letters &#8212; 1487060422 &#8212; is Dr. Bobby Tinner&#8217;s National Provider Identifier. An NPI is a federal administrative identifier. It is not a state license. It does not authorize practice in any state.</p><p><em>It&#8217;s a HIPAA billing code.</em></p><p>Using an NPI to imply state licensure is approximately equivalent to listing your Costco card number as your bar license. The number exists. The authority it implies does not.</p><p>The average consumer sees "National Provider" and thinks: legitimate. Credentialed. The real deal. Tinner&#8217;s the shit.</p><p><em>Tinner&#8217;s a shit.</em></p><p>The Georgia thread opened as I was filing the case. A Tinner client based in Georgia reached out and shared her letter &#8212; NPI, no state license number. I bought one myself to confirm. At the time of purchase, Tinner held no Georgia license. No reciprocity agreement covers the gap.</p><p>My Florida letter bears his Florida license number. My Georgia letter has his NPI.</p><p>Same operation. Different paperwork depending on which state you&#8217;re in &#8212; or more precisely, depending on whether the state would notice.</p><p>Since then, aggrieved third parties from other states have contacted me with the same situation. The Georgia letter wasn&#8217;t an outlier. It was the model.</p><p>Some letters referencing Georgia and New Jersey carry only that NPI. No state license number.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png" width="1162" height="732" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:732,&quot;width&quot;:1162,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:201496,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/193462951?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!crJ-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5ec136d9-3e6f-4f00-9755-2bb32717d361_1162x732.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I checked. Tinner is not listed in Georgia&#8217;s licensing board registry for professional counselors, social workers, or marriage and family therapists. When they asked his support team about it, the response was that he&#8217;s &#8220;a national provider.&#8221;</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png" width="843" height="834" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:834,&quot;width&quot;:843,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:154250,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/193462951?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!98NA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd6d64a6a-9581-449d-9bab-72a5e494847c_843x834.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>That is not a credential. That is not a licensing category. That does not exist.</p><p>The word &#8220;national&#8221; appears in the name of a federal billing database. Someone decided that was close enough. Georgia did not get the memo.</p><p>If you have that exchange in writing &#8212; email, chat log, doesn&#8217;t matter &#8212; preserve it exactly as received. Don&#8217;t clean it up. The exact words are the point.</p><p>The letter is the predicate. The explanation is the confession.</p><p>His doctorate is in religious counseling. Not mental health. You&#8217;d think a company issuing federal disability determinations might lead with that.</p><h3>The paperwork problem</h3><p>The NPI issue is one thread. The deeper problem is simpler.</p><p>Florida law and standard clinical practice both require a paper trail. Your therapist sees you, evaluates you, documents the encounter, forms a professional judgment. That sequence generates records. Records are how you prove it happened.</p><p>$99. Webform. PDF. Minutes.</p><p>No encounter. No evaluation. No records. No proof anything clinical occurred &#8212; because nothing clinical occurred.</p><p>The permanent injunction I&#8217;m seeking requires exactly what should have existed from day one:</p><blockquote><p><em>Defendants shall maintain records sufficient to demonstrate that, before issuing any ESA Letter to a Florida Resident, a licensed provider conducted an individualized clinical evaluation and formed an independent professional judgment. Such records shall include, at minimum, the date of the evaluation, the occurrence and method of synchronous interaction with the individual (including real-time telephone, video, or in-person communication), the provider&#8217;s identity and license number, a summary of the resident-specific clinical assessment, the clinical basis for the ESA determination, and a copy of the ESA Letter issued.</em></p></blockquote><p>That&#8217;s not a high bar. That&#8217;s a therapist doing their job and writing it down.</p><p>Legitimate providers do it every day without a court order.</p><p>The fact that it requires a court order is the story.</p><h3>Tinner&#8217;s proposed &#8220;fix&#8221;</h3><p>A few cosmetic website changes and a 10-minute evaluation. In less time than it takes for your Domino&#8217;s pizza to arrive, a provider will review your history, obtain your informed consent, explain the risks of therapy, and diagnose your federally protected disability and your disability-related need for an assistance animal.</p><p>The pizza analogy holds in another direction too. At least Domino&#8217;s shows up.</p><h3>Intent</h3><p>Tinner&#8217;s defense wants the court to believe this is a paperwork problem. An oversight. A technicality. Meanwhile, I have a letter &#8212; NPI number, no state license, in a state where he wasn&#8217;t licensed at time of issuance. That&#8217;s not an oversight. To me, that looks like a business model. Intent isn&#8217;t complicated when the pattern is still running while you&#8217;re asking the court to look the other way.</p><div class="pullquote"><p>Kitty remains unimpressed. Furry landlord. Rent free.</p></div><h3>What I&#8217;m documenting</h3><p>I&#8217;m collecting ESA letters issued under NPI 1487060422. If you have one, redact the tenant name and personal identifiers and reach out. I&#8217;m interested in the credential block, the states referenced, and whether a valid state license appears anywhere on the document. If you contacted their support team and received a written response, that too.</p><p>When the injunction enters, I&#8217;ll post the order here &#8212; what it requires, what it prohibits, and what it cost four attorneys and a staff of Keebler elves to not prevent.</p><p><em>If you want the injunction order when it drops &#8212; and the documents behind this piece &#8212; subscribe. It&#8217;s free.</em></p><p></p><div><hr></div><p>If this landed, here&#8217;s what&#8217;s behind it.</p><p>I file public records requests. I post what comes back. I don&#8217;t editorialize when the documents do that job themselves. That&#8217;s the whole operation &#8212; and it runs on paid subscriptions.</p><p>Become a paid subscriber and you get the records drops before they go wide, the follow-up investigations, and the occasional note on what&#8217;s actually happening behind the scenes in local power structures that would rather you weren&#8217;t paying attention.</p><p>Free subscribers get the main posts. I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re here either way.</p><p>But if you want to see what people do with the records when they land &#8212; and you want to help make sure someone&#8217;s there to pull them &#8212; the button&#8217;s below.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div><hr></div><p></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Sheriff Built a Spa. ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Now He Might Lose the Contract.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-sheriff-built-a-spa</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/the-sheriff-built-a-spa</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:20:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!utAI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ce59bb-14a0-447d-9384-30003be6c491_454x572.png" width="454" height="572" 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class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><em>$7.5 million sauna. $200 million public safety franchise. The physics are straightforward.</em></p><p>Somewhere in your county, a sheriff runs public safety like a franchise operation. Contract cities pay the fees. The sheriff controls the records. Nobody audits the gym.</p><p>This is how it works in Broward County, Florida. It&#8217;s probably how it works in yours.</p><p>In 2003, Broward handed operational control of Fire Rescue to BSO. Six-to-two vote. Interlocal agreement. Done. For more than two decades, Sheriff Gregory Tony&#8217;s predecessor and then Tony himself collected fees from contract cities while the County wrote checks for the big-ticket regional stuff. A public safety empire generating 100s of millions in annual contracts, run out of one office, accountable to whoever decided not to ask questions.</p><p>Nobody asked questions.</p><p>Tony&#8217;s training center started at $34 million. It landed at $73.7 million. Somewhere in that $39.7 million gap, a $7.5 million wellness package appeared &#8212; sauna, cold plunge, recovery amenities with better tile work than your bathroom. Another $550K in branding: the Sheriff&#8217;s name and likeness, prominently displayed throughout.</p><p>Wanna shower with the Sheriff? Come on down. He&#8217;s on the curtain.</p><p>I have a source &#8212; uncomfortably close to the situation &#8212; who tells me the Sheriff&#8217;s wife uses the facility regularly. Uses the trainer. Receives services from taxpayer-funded staff.</p><p>I filed four public records requests asking three questions: who has access, what&#8217;s the written policy, and who authorized it.</p><p>BSO has not produced a written policy governing who gets into a $73.7 million publicly-funded facility.</p><p>That&#8217;s not a footnote. That&#8217;s the story.</p><p>Do you get to use the facility? Neither do I.</p><p>A supposedly restricted operation &#8212; can&#8217;t release training videos via public records, too sensitive &#8212; but Mrs. Sheriff clocks in and out like she owns the place.</p><p>That&#8217;s some bullshit right there.</p><p>A sheriff who spent seven years telling contract cities they weren&#8217;t paying enough for public safety cannot produce a document explaining who authorized his wife&#8217;s spa membership.</p><p>On April 14, the Broward County Commission takes up File 2026-356 &#8212; Commissioner Lamar Fisher&#8217;s motion directing the County Administrator to map out exactly what it would take to pull Fire Rescue back under direct County control. Same meeting where a law enforcement feasibility study drops covering BSO&#8217;s contracts at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and all of Port Everglades.</p><p>You don&#8217;t commission a feasibility study to admire the cover page.</p><p>Tony got his job in 2019 because a Stoneman Douglas victim&#8217;s father &#8212; a man he knew from the gym &#8212; recommended him to DeSantis. The vetting took days. The background check missed the 1993 homicide, the LSD admission, the suspended license. All of it.</p><p>The sheriff who couldn&#8217;t pass his own background check built a $73.7 million facility with no written policy on who gets in. And it took a public records request to notice.</p><p>Every contract city administrator in Broward County is watching April 14. They now have a third option. Stay with BSO. Go independent. Or slide under the County umbrella and let someone else sort it out.</p><p>Tony built the argument for every city that wants to walk. He used taxpayer money to do it.</p><div><hr></div><p>File a public records request in your county. Ask who has access to the training facility. Ask for the written policy.</p><p>See what comes back.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Am Not Here to Tell You How to Do Your Job]]></title><description><![CDATA[I'm doing my job, stress testing bureaucracies]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-am-not-here-to-tell-you-how-to</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/i-am-not-here-to-tell-you-how-to</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 01:45:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><hr></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg" width="1456" height="1183" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1183,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:4646500,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/192565711?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Nz-8!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dbd309b-1b26-4593-a27e-291252cba91b_2048x1664.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Even though I have spent decades sitting on my ass in FAU&#8217;s Wimberly Library, I am not a librarian. So, I don&#8217;t manage collections, don&#8217;t run reconsideration committees or train staff, or come to think of it, navigate the particular hell of watching your professional judgment get overruled by a school board member who has not read the book in question and has no intention of doing so.</p><p>That&#8217;s your job, likely done alone, for years.</p><p>But, like I&#8217;m never going to tell you how to librarian, please stay out of my swim lane, for you likely know not.</p><p>What I do is different. Thirty years of public records requests, statutory cross-references, and watching institutions explain &#8230; in writing, to their own embarrassment &#8230; why their actions don&#8217;t match their words. Done this to city halls, and in governor&#8217;s offices and school boards across the US. I have done it long enough that the 2024 Florida Legislature named me personally in the justification for rewriting HB 1467. (I did not write that law. I merely used the one they had.)</p><p>Next up?  <br>Books, as the methodology is the same.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ed7k9r8iq3yh8fpyvf0f3/Lib-FOI-Request-Engineering-Playbook.pdf?rlkey=gr3i625da9tjbvji48l2smz2p&amp;dl=0&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Download The Playbook&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ed7k9r8iq3yh8fpyvf0f3/Lib-FOI-Request-Engineering-Playbook.pdf?rlkey=gr3i625da9tjbvji48l2smz2p&amp;dl=0"><span>Download The Playbook</span></a></p><p>Recently showed up in your community recently with a tool. Some of you grasped my idea, some of you decided, without zero inspection, the tool wasn&#8217;t worth your time of day. Fair enough. First impressions in professional communities are hard to walk back, and I did not make mine quietly.</p><p>I am not, what they&#8217;d call, a wallflower.</p><p>So here you go &#8212; the plain version &#8212; before you read a single page of the playbook:</p><p>I am not here to tell you how to do your job. You do books, good for you.  I do tools, in this case, a highly-tuned instrument of accountability &#8212; applied FOI Pressure Engineering &#8212; damn sure it&#8217;s something you&#8217;ve never considered. The playbook hands it over. No credential required. No ideology required. You don&#8217;t have to like me.</p><p>Take it, use it, ignore the parts that don&#8217;t fit.</p><p>Here&#8217;s an excerpt from the upcoming <em>FOI Playbook for Library Accountability</em>.</p><div><hr></div><p><strong>Using This Playbook</strong></p><p>Electricity is still electricity, regardless of what plug is on the end of the cord. The engineering logic here &#8212; start with the decision, infer the mandatory paper trail, use constraint-based language, anticipate the response &#8212; applies wherever lawful decisions are required to generate records. The methodology was developed against city halls and governor&#8217;s offices. It works just as well against school boards and library directors, because the underlying mechanic is identical: lawful decisions generate records, and the absence of those records is diagnostic.</p><p>This edition exists because the terrain is specific. A school librarian filing a records request against their own district administrator is not in the same position as a journalist filing against a state agency. The employment relationship changes the risk profile. The professional ethics framework changes the tone calibration. And the target decisions &#8212; book challenges, collection removals, reconsideration committees &#8212; require a different paper trail map than general government accountability work.</p><p>Three realities are worth naming directly. First, this playbook is adversarial in substance and professional in language &#8212; those are not contradictions. Second, if you are a librarian filing against your own employer, read the insider-filer section before you do anything else. Third, the methodology&#8217;s provenance is American and process stress testing. Judge it by whether it works, not by who developed it.</p><p>The methodology was built for people who read the manual before pushing the red button. You&#8217;re holding the manual.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Fund Our Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Fund Our Work</span></a></p><p><strong>Why This Matters for Librarians</strong></p><p>Librarians are trained in professional neutrality and intellectual freedom. Those values are not just philosophical &#8212; they are encoded in institutional policy. Every library operates under an adopted Collection Development Policy, a Reconsideration Procedure, and usually an ALA-aligned selection framework. Those documents create the mandatory paper trail automatically.</p><p>When a book is removed without a completed reconsideration form, when a challenge is processed without committee review, when administrative directives arrive outside the written policy &#8212; the institution has documented its own failure. FOI is the tool that surfaces that documentation.</p><p>FOI allows librarians to document:</p><ul><li><p>Whether collection decisions followed written policy</p></li><li><p>Whether challenges are coordinated by outside organizations</p></li><li><p>Whether political pressure is bypassing formal procedures</p></li><li><p>Whether administrators are acting outside their written authority</p></li><li><p>Whether the same standards are being applied consistently across all challenged titles</p></li></ul><p>That is not activism. It is professional audit of institutional compliance. The language is different. The method is the same.</p><p><strong>A Note on Who This Is For (And Who It Isn&#8217;t)</strong></p><p>This guide was not written by a librarian.</p><p>Librarians built it anyway &#8212; questions, calls, texts at odd hours from people who need to know what a coordinated challenge campaign looks like in a paper trail. Their fingerprints are on every page. Their names aren&#8217;t on the cover because librarians have enough problems.</p><p>It is not a library science manual. I don&#8217;t manage collections. I don&#8217;t run challenge processes. I do bureaucratic pressure engineering &#8212; thirty years of public records requests, statutory cross-references, and watching institutions explain why their written policy doesn&#8217;t mean what it says. The subject happens to be books. The target is always the same.</p><p>If you need collection management guidance, Kelly Jensen&#8217;s work belongs on your shelf first. Come back here when an administrator tells you a challenge followed policy and something feels wrong. Come back when you want to know what coordination looks like in a paper trail. Come back when you need to use their written procedures to hold them to their written procedures.</p><p>Here is what that looks like in practice: The administrator says the process followed policy. A records request &#8212; intake forms, draft memos, internal emails &#8212; says otherwise. The gap between the official story and the documentary record is where accountability lives.</p><p>Not complicated. Just requires someone willing to do the reading.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ed7k9r8iq3yh8fpyvf0f3/Lib-FOI-Request-Engineering-Playbook.pdf?rlkey=gr3i625da9tjbvji48l2smz2p&amp;dl=0&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Download The Playbook&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ed7k9r8iq3yh8fpyvf0f3/Lib-FOI-Request-Engineering-Playbook.pdf?rlkey=gr3i625da9tjbvji48l2smz2p&amp;dl=0"><span>Download The Playbook</span></a></p><div><hr></div><p>One more disclosure.</p><p>This guide was produced using STAN &#8212; my proprietary multi-agent adversarial AI stack built for high-stakes accountability work. I disclose this on every work product STAN touches. Always have.</p><p>Seven different models. Opposing mandates. Four human checkpoints. A locally-running identity model that holds institutional memory and does final synthesis. Every statutory citation flagged for verification. Every number checked against a primary source document.</p><p>One model writes the briefs for the others. Some build. Some destroy. One is really cranky. What survives has been argued over before it sees daylight.</p><p>This is not ChatGPT. This is not AI slop.</p><p>STAN helps with drafts. Humans decide. The signature is mine.</p><p>Their rules. Their words. Their problem.</p><p>That part is all human.</p><div><hr></div><p>Go get ready, as the full playbook drops shortly.</p><p>Take it.  Or leave it, and grab what&#8217;s on Kelly Jensen&#8217;s bookshelf.</p><p>The book haters are still out there. Along with the paper trail, and the FOI stuff I  taught you.</p><p>That part doesn&#8217;t care whether we agree.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[They're Using AI to Ban Books. Librarians Already Have the Tool to Fight Back.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Most just don't know it exists.]]></description><link>https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/theyre-using-ai-to-ban-books-librarians</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/theyre-using-ai-to-ban-books-librarians</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[T. Chaz Stevens]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 17:34:46 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png" width="676" height="642" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:642,&quot;width&quot;:676,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:64533,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/i/192526817?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gGuH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ca8e3d-a1a0-422d-a1de-f494fedfd92f_676x642.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Dateline: Manchester, England, UK.</strong></p><p>A school fed its library catalogue into an AI and got a removal list back. The librarian who said no got a safeguarding investigation.</p><p>No complaint form. No committee. No documented criteria. Just a spreadsheet and a consequence.</p><p>That&#8217;s not an isolated incident. That&#8217;s a workflow.</p><p><strong>The infrastructure already exists</strong></p><p>Every public school library operates under two documents: a Collection Development Policy and a Reconsideration Procedure. Both are public records. Both were adopted by the board. Both describe, in writing, exactly what has to happen before a book gets pulled from a shelf.</p><p>Nobody reads them.</p><p>That&#8217;s not an accusation. Librarians run libraries. Compliance auditing is not in the job description. But those two documents are the circuit breaker &#8212; and right now the wiring is live and everybody&#8217;s standing in a puddle.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p><strong>What&#8217;s actually happening</strong></p><p>Book challenges are coordinated. Same complaint language. Same day. Different districts. Titles ending up on restricted shelves without a reconsideration form ever being filed. Administrators making verbal calls that generate no paper by design.</p><p>The machinery is organized. The documentation is deliberately not.</p><p>Here&#8217;s the thing about undocumented decisions: there&#8217;s a gap where the records should be. That gap is findable. That gap has a name &#8212; it&#8217;s called a public records request.</p><p><strong>The method</strong></p><p>Three moves.</p><p>Identify the decision node &#8212; the moment the title was flagged, moved, or removed. Identify the records that must exist <em>if the documented procedure was actually followed</em>. Request those records using the institution&#8217;s own language.</p><p>No accusation. No rhetoric. Just: <em>per your adopted Reconsideration Procedure, please provide the completed challenge form for [title], the committee roster, and the written rationale for the outcome.</em></p><p>If the form exists, you have a record. If it doesn&#8217;t, you have a finding. Either way, the institution is now on paper.</p><p>A book removed without a reconsideration form isn&#8217;t a discretionary call. It&#8217;s an off-ledger action. In a public institution, that&#8217;s a different animal entirely. (Ask any auditor. The missing record is the record.)</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://research.revolt.training/fund&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Fund Our Work&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://research.revolt.training/fund"><span>Fund Our Work</span></a></p><p><strong>The five requests, in order of what they tend to produce</strong></p><p>The <strong>coordination request</strong>: any communications between district administration and outside organizations regarding specific titles. Moms for Liberty sends the same letter to 40 districts on the same Tuesday. Somebody received it. That email exists.</p><p>The <strong>committee integrity request</strong>: evidence that committee members read the challenged title before voting. Meeting minutes, a sign-in sheet, one email saying &#8220;I read chapter four.&#8221; Anything. You&#8217;d be surprised how often the answer is nothing.</p><p>The <strong>parallel treatment request</strong>: compare the challenge file for a title that was challenged and <em>retained</em> against a file for one that was challenged and <em>removed</em>. If the process looks identical on paper but the outcomes diverge, you&#8217;ve found where the manual override happened.</p><p>The <strong>informal directive request</strong>: any written instruction, email, or administrative note about removal outside the formal procedure. Hallway directives don&#8217;t generate paper. But people confirm hallway directives in writing afterward more often than you&#8217;d think. They always assume nobody will ask.</p><p>The <strong>legal advice request</strong>: not the advice &#8212; attorney-client privilege is real, and I&#8217;m an activist, not your lawyer &#8212; but the <em>existence</em> of the consultation, its timeline, and any factual communications surrounding it. A privilege claim tells you where the body is. You don&#8217;t need to open the coffin to know there&#8217;s one.</p><p><strong>One real limit</strong></p><p>If a principal says &#8220;put that in the back room&#8221; and never writes it down, there&#8217;s nothing to request. What you get instead is the institution confirming in writing that no documentation exists.</p><p>That confirmation is also a record.</p><p>&#8220;We have no written record of this decision&#8221; is information. File it accordingly.</p><p><strong>The insider problem &#8212; unvarnished</strong></p><p>I file records requests against school districts from a home office with a laptop and nothing on the line. You are an employee. In a community. With a teaching certificate, a pension, a health plan, and colleagues you will see Monday morning.</p><p>This is not a legal defense fund and does not pretend to be one. The method works. The professional risk is real. If you&#8217;re considering filing against your own employer, document your professional rationale <em>before</em> you file &#8212; not for me, for the grievance procedure you may eventually need.</p><p>Clear-eyed going in beats surprised going out.</p><p><strong>The playbook</strong></p><p>Built for public school librarians. Reviewed against ALA policy standards and Florida&#8217;s Chapter 119 public records statutes. Released under Creative Commons &#8212; free, no strings, no credit required. Being pitched to ALA as a field resource.</p><p>Which means it needs people who know how a district library actually operates to tell me where I&#8217;ve gotten it wrong before it lands in front of that audience.</p><p><strong>The ask</strong></p><p>Not publishing this yet.</p><p>If you&#8217;re a school librarian &#8212; or know one &#8212; <a href="mailto:disrupt@revolt.training">drop me a line</a>, and I&#8217;ll get you my doc.</p><p>That&#8217;s it.</p><p><strong>About the author</strong></p><p>Chaz Stevens is the founder of <a href="https://research.revolt.training">REVOLT Training</a> and a longtime public-records strategist focused on forcing accountability through process, not protest. His work has triggered policy reversals, criminal prosecutions, and national media coverage by weaponizing bureaucracy, public records laws, and First Amendment doctrine against institutional dysfunction.<br><br><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaz_Stevens">Learn more about him on Wikipedia</a>.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/theyre-using-ai-to-ban-books-librarians?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chazstevens.substack.com/p/theyre-using-ai-to-ban-books-librarians?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>