Political leadership in California is up-in-arms over federal immigration enforcement efforts under the Trump Administration. Due to anti-law enforcement violence and efforts by pro-immigrant radicals doxxing federal agents (disclosing their identity) many federal agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE agents, started wearing masks or face coverings. Politicians in California responded by passing laws criminalizing wearing masks or face coverings by federal agents and requiring federal agents to display identification. California’s effort did not turn out very well.

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CA Passed Two Laws Directed at Federal Law Enforcement

In September 2025, the California Legislature passed S.B. 627, known as the No Secret Police Act which mandated a law enforcement officer, including federal law enforcement, “shall not wear a facial covering in the performance of their duties.” Violations of the law are crimes.

Also in September 2025, California enacted S.B. 805, which it titled the No Vigilantes Act. Section 10 of the Act works like this:

• First, any law enforcement officer in California who is not in uniform, expressly including “any federal law enforcement officer,” must “visibly display identification” showing his agency and a name or badge number.

• Second, the rule applies during “enforcement duties,” defined as arrests, detentions, and crowd control.

• Third, a “willful and knowing” violation is a state misdemeanor.

The United States sued in November 2025 and asked for a preliminary injunction, which is a court order freezing a law while the lawsuit continues. The United States brought a facial challenge, arguing the law is invalid in every application. That is the hardest kind of challenge to win.

To get a preliminary injunction, a party must show it is likely to win, will suffer irreparable harm without the order, and that fairness and the public interest favor it. The trial court blocked the mask law from taking effect, but refused to block section 10 (the ID law). The Ninth Circuit put the law on hold during the appeal of the decision by the district court refusing to block the ID law. Now, the Ninth Circuit ruled on the appeal.

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Federal Supremacy Knocks Out the California Law

The principle at stake is more than 200 years old and dates literally to this Country’s founding. The principle is that of the “Supremacy” of federal law over state law. This Supremacy is enshrined in the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, found in Article VI, Clause 2:

The Constitution, therefore, makes federal law "the supreme Law of the Land." The rule goes all the way back to the Supreme Court’s decision McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) (holding that Maryland could not tax the Bank of the United States). The Ninth Circuit, in the recent decision at issue, quoted directly from McCulloch v. Maryland in its opinion:

As a corollary to the Supremacy Clause, the United States Supreme Court long ago recognized “intergovernmental immunity” for the federal government and federal agents in the exercise of federal power or operations. This immunity prohibits state laws that “directly regulate” or “discriminate” against the federal government or its agents or representatives.

This immunity in favor of federal agents from state law prosecutions has been recognized in our law for a long time as well.

For instance, in 1889, a deputy U.S. marshal guarding a Supreme Court justice in California shot and killed the justice’s attacker. California charged the marshal with murder. In In Re Neagle (1890), the Supreme Court essentially proclaimed a state may not prosecute a federal officer for doing his federal job, based on the Supremacy Clause, and ordered the U.S. marshal’s release.

California ignored these clearly established legal principles and passed laws intruding on the federal government and the execution and enforcement of federal law by federal law enforcement agents.

On October 14, 2026, unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (which covers California, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) ordered that California be barred from enforcing its new identification mandate against federal officers. The plain question was: can a state make it a crime for a federal agent to carry out federal law the way the federal government directs? The court answered No:

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The narrative versus the record

California argued that its law should stand unless it placed a “substantial” burden on federal operations and the trial court agree. The problem is this “substantial burden” standard is the standard applied to federal contractors as opposed to the federal government itself. The Court of Appeal corrected the district court. The Ninth Circuit stated:

In other words, there is no “small burden” exception to the Supremacy Clause.

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What Happens Now?

Nothing changes, since the Ninth Circuit had already barred enforcement against federal officers while the court considered the appeal of the decision denying the government’s requested injunction. The case now returns to the trial court, which must enter the injunction prohibiting the California law from being enforced.

California can ask the full Ninth Circuit to rehear the case en banc (which means, under the special rules of the Ninth Circuit, a larger panel of 11 judges decides the case), or it can ask the Supreme Court to review it. The injunction protects federal agencies and officers. It does not stop California from applying its ID rules to its own state and local police.

Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit got it right. Federalism is not a one-way street. The same Constitution that keeps the federal government from commandeering California’s police also keeps California from dictating to the federal government how federal agents may carry out federal law. If Americans want new identification rules for federal officers, Congress must change federal law. It is not up to California.

Since the principles at issue in this litigation have been well established since the founding of this Country, the United States Supreme Court is unlikely to take this case up in the unlikely event the State of California asked it to. California is likely facing a dead end.

Many Americans of all political persuasions long ago lost confidence in public opinion polling. The repeated errors and misses by a host of polling firms, almost always in favor of liberal or progressive politicians, led many Americans to conclude polling is often intended to influence public opinion (and elections), rather than report on the mood of the electorate. In the last few months, four separate polling firms were revealed to be illegitimate (or at least suspect), further hammering the polling industry’s credibility.

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American Polling Already Lacked Credibility

Public opinion polling in the USA has long been a debacle. In fact, I dedicated three chapters of my book Fake News Exposed About Trump, Volume One to the shoddy polling of the 2016 and 2020 Presidential race and the biased media reporting promoting it. Perhaps, you remember this colossal miss from The New York Times in 2016 (the NYT projection was “based on the latest state and national polls”):

After the complete polling debacle in 2016, the American polling industry repeated the same mistakes in 2020, as this article in Fortune highlights quite well:

I also wrote about polling misinformation and associated media propaganda on this substack. See here:

Shortly after that article, I encouraged readers to remain critical of 2024 polling in another article here:

The pollsters favored by legacy media in this Country simply can’t get it right.

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The Polls Almost Always Favor Democrats

The repeated polling errors alone are enough to cause voters to question the legitimacy of polling, but making matters worse is the fact the errors almost always favor Democrat politicians. These one-sided errors led many to conclude the errors are not errors at all, but intentional efforts to influence public opinion in favor of Democrat candidates for office. A few illustrations will inform readers.

Polling of Wisconsin in 2016 called for Hillary Clinton to win the state comfortably:

The result? Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by 1% or 27,257 votes.

In 2020, polling of the Presidential race in Florida had Joseph R. Biden winning the state handily:

The result? Donald Trump won Florida in 2020 by 4.3%.

I could go on and on listing one polling miss after another with virtually all of the errors favoring the Democrat candidate, but the point is made: the polling relied upon and promoted by legacy media almost always tilts the playing field in favor of the Democrats. (The two substack articles of mine linked to above cover a wide range of similar inaccurate polls for anyone wanting more examples).

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What Happened Now?

This election cycle four separate polling firms were revealed to be illegitimate, some with completely fabricated data.

Median Strategies. The first domino to fall was “polling” firm Median Strategies in August 2026. Median Strategies outed itself, so to speak, in an unsigned statement claiming (in part):

Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.

The “polls” from Median Strategies showed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading councilmember Nithya Raman by 12 points in the mayor’s race, the Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong leading David Crowley by more than 20 points in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor, followed by a poll of the Nevada governor’s race showing Republican Governor Lombardo leading his Democrat challenger, NV AG Aaron Ford, 51-46%.

The Public Sentiment Institute. Around the same time, The Public Sentiment Institute or TPSI admitted, in a survey of the Florida governor’s race, it altered the results of its survey to realign respondents who indicated they favored Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins to incorrectly reflect they favored Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fischback. TPSI publicly disclosed the switch in a report issued on August 18, 2026. As a result of this misdeed, polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne announced it was “permanently discontinuing use” of TPSI surveys.

Wedgewood Polling. Wedgewood Polling apparently did not poll anything at all. Yet, its “fabricated numbers” from non-existent polls were included in prominent polling aggregators and databases, as Newsweek reported on October 21, 2026:

Wedgewood Polling issued a public statement outlining the reasons these fabricated polls were supposedly created and shared:

Wedgewood Polling was prompted to reveal itself by the polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne after an investigation into the pollster. FiftyPlusOne wrote about the investigation here. Interestingly, Wedgewood Polling issued its public statement on August 20, 2026 (and folded up its operation) literally minutes after responding to a request by FiftyPlusOne for polling data. FiftyPlusOne shared Wedgewood’s response:

One cannot help but wonder if Wedgewood’s motives were more nefarious than conducting an “experimental project” to demonstrate “vulnerabilities” in polling.

Poliagg.com compiled the Wedgewood Polls and put them up on its website. Take a moment to review the data and you will find Wedgewood routinely overstated support for Democrat candidates vs. Republicans and for Democratic Socialists over traditional Democrats in poll after poll. These skewed results call into question Wedgewood’s “experimental project” excuse, making the operation look more like pro-leftist propaganda instead.

SoCal Strategies. We once again have the guys and gals at FiftyPlusOne to thank for the investigation into this polling firm. They reached out to SoCal Strategies after receiving information from an anonymous source calling into question some of SoCal’s data. I cannot direct readers to anything directly from SoCal Strategies, because it scrubbed its online footprint from existence after FiftyPlusOne reached inquiring into its operations. SoCal Strategies literally shut down its website, newsletter (also here at substack) and deleted its social media accounts. That seems completely legitimate, eh?

FiftyPlusOne reported on SoCal Strategies and the investigation in an article posted on October 22, 2026:

FiftyPlusOne announced it will no longer collect surveys published by SoCal Strategies as a result of the investigation.

I was unable to locate a compilation of all of the polling data published by SoCal Strategies. Its data is spread across several years (2024, 2025 and 2026) and was reported by numerous media outlets and polling aggregators. Some of it is suspect, such as the poll showing the far left Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Haley Stevens in the Democrat primary for Michigan Senate by 15 points (56-39) in a survey conducted from July 28-30, 2026. A few days later, on August 4, 2026, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Stevens in the Democrat Senate primary by 1% (48.5% to 47.5%). It takes real effort to miss that big.

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Conclusion

The American people don’t trust polls for good reason. The public opinion polls relied upon by legacy media are routinely wrong and almost always prop up Democrats. They are probably headed for another series of big misses in the mid term elections. We will find out soon enough. The difference this election cycle is now we have 4 separate polling firms either openly admitting their data was bogus or tacitly admitting as much, after much of the data was widely disseminated and/or incorporated into polling aggregates. These disclosures are devastating blows to the remaining credibility of the legacy media pollsters.

Keep in mind, there are some good guys conducting polls (though they are often ignored by legacy media). Check out Rich Baris and Big Data Polls, Trafalgar Group, and Atlas Intel. There are a few more, but these are a good start.

There will probably be more to report about inaccurate polling after the mid terms, so stay tuned!

Today, The Constitutional Compass presents another article by Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto. Dr. Cotto is the creator, host and producer of News Sight, delivering sharp insights on the key events that shape our lives. He publishes Cotto’s Digest, sharing how business and the economy really impact us all. During the 2024 presidential race, he developed the Five-Point Forecast which accurately predicted Donald Trump’s national victory and correctly called every swing state. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt.

Too Many American Voters Do Not Care About Trump’s Economic Miracle

The manufacturing revival under President Donald J. Trump is no longer a forecast. It is a measurable fact.

The Council of Economic Advisers, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, created by Congress in 1946 to provide the President of the United States with objective economic advice, examined President Trump’s second term to date and found robust growth across jobs, output, wages, and construction. That comes after the Biden-Harris years shipped more than 200,000 American manufacturing positions overseas. Factory construction employment in non-residential specialty trades has climbed by more than 110,000 since January 2025.

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Readers of this newsletter or my books are well-informed on the Fake News Media and its blatant efforts to influence public opinion, rather than report the news. When elections are near, however, the legacy media kicks into overdrive in an effort to swing elections. Once again, Americans are subjected to a massive Fake News Media propaganda campaign as the Mid Term elections approach. Here are a couple of the worst examples from recent reporting.

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Trump Called for Iran to Bomb LA? No, He Did Not

On Monday, October 5, 2026, President Trump held a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska. During the rally, President Trump offered his views on why it was necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Referencing oil and gas prices, President Trump said:

Though the context was clear that President Trump was talking about what Iran could have done if the USA had not acted decisively to stop the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions, the Fake News Media and Democrat politicians pounced falsely claiming President Trump asked Iran to destroy LA and San Diego.

The LA Times reported:

ABC News reported:

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, jumped on the bandwagon:

The duplicitous Governor Newsom was joined by a cacophony of Democrat politicians, including former first lady of California Maria Shriver, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) and 42 California U.S. Representatives who signed a ridiculous joint statement calling for President Trump to apologize.

The truth was (and is) readily apparent to virtually anyone:

President Trump pointed this out himself on X:

RedState covered the media misinformation campaign in an article the day after the comments:

Even CNN’s Daniel Dale confirmed the story was misinformation:

You know the Fake News Media is peddling balderdash when CNN calls them out on it. Even after the false claims were debunked, some in the Fake News Media (along with leftist politicians) kept spreading the propaganda:

The Fake News Media will never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

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The FBI Director is in Russia - Not Really

The rebranded Fake News Heavyweight, MSNBC, might have a new name, MS NOW, but it is up to the same old tricks.

On Wednesday, October 14, 2026, MS Now anchor Peter Alexander announced FBI Director Kash Patel was in Russia:

Alexander was joined by “Justice and Intelligence” reporter Ken Dilanian who claimed the reason for the trip was for the FBI Director to meet with some shady characters associated with Russian intelligence. (The Fake News Media just cannot give up the ridiculous “Russia Collusion” hoax, no matter what.)

The problem with the report is FBI Director Kash Patel was at a publicly held event at Liberty University in Virginia, as the FBI Rapid Response team posted on X:

The FBI Director demanded an apology from the hapless “intelligence” reporter at MSNOW:

Just over 2 hours after falsely reporting FBI Director Patel was in Russia, MS NOW retracted the report:

The “Justice and Intelligence” reporter, Ken Dilanian, issued the following retraction:

What a colossal, humiliating blunder. This is yet another good illustration of why NO ONE should believe a word the legacy media says when it relies on anonymous sources. Am I the only one wondering how these “reporters” even have jobs after this debacle?

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Conclusion

The Fake News Media cannot help itself — it simply must push misinformation, propaganda and biased reports. These two recent examples are but two of dozens of media hoaxes being peddled right now in an effort to deliver the U.S. House and Senate to the Democrats. Keep that in mind as you are bombarded with media nonsense and misinformation from now until the Mid Term elections on November 3, 2026.

When I started this newsletter, I focused on exposing and breaking down media misinformation, falsehoods, propaganda campaigns and biased attacks. That is where the name Fake News Exposed came from, after all. This publication quickly expanded to include legal analysis, along with news, political analysis and commentary. As the range of material being published grew, the name Fake News Exposed quickly seemed too narrowly focused.

After much thought and deliberation, this publication is being rebranded. The range of topics and analysis provided in this publication will expand and the look of the publication will change.

As part of the expansion, you will see:

• New logos, slogans and visual identity

• New artwork

• Revamped formatting and layout

• A greater variety of issues and topics covered

• Guest contributors and more

These changes are designed to better reflect the broader scope of the material published, while keeping the same straightforward approach you have come to expect — clear writing, sourced analysis and a focus on facts rather than narrative. Breakdowns of fake news will still be provided, as well as legal analysis, political commentary and news.

Your subscription will not be interrupted. You will continue to receive posts as usual and paid subscribers will retain full access to the archive and all paid subscriber-only content. The only thing changing is the packaging and the breadth of what will be covered going forward.

In the coming days, the new name and look will appear and more details will be shared with you. Be on the lookout for emails with the new look and new name to appear in your inbox. In the meantime, as always, I appreciate your readership and your support.

Thank you,

Daniel R. Street
October 18, 2026

The DSA Will Doom Working Americans

The Democrat Socialists of America are the driving force behind the radical leftist takeover of the Democrat Party. Their radical leftist agenda of open borders, mass illegal alien amnesty, Medicare for all, universal rent control, student-debt cancellation, “free” tuition, the Green New Deal and a 32 hour workweek (among other things) will literally wreck the Middle Class.

The Council of Economic Advisors, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, created by Congress in 1946 to provide the President of the United States with objective economic advice completed its analysis of eight (8) policy pillars of the DSA. The results are shocking. The cost of the DSA’s beloved agenda will be a wrecking ball for American households.

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Federal law has long told an otherwise eligible buyer that he may purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer in another state - so long as he does not take it home. Instead, the gun dealer must send the handgun to a second dealer in the buyer’s home state, pay a transfer fee, and wait. Call it a “condition of sale.” What it does is ban direct purchases of handguns out of state.

On September 18, 2026, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held the federal barrier unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The ordinary question is simple: when does a commercial “condition” become a purchase ban the Constitution still reaches?

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The case is Elite Precision Customs, L.L.C. v. BATFE. The district court’s opinion includes a very informative, concise background paragraph explaining the basic law, the parties and what the case is about:

Plaintiffs included Elite Precision Customs, a Texas licensed dealer that said it would sell handguns directly to nonresidents but for the Ban; Arizona resident Freddie Blish and New Mexico resident Tim Herron; and the Firearms Policy Coalition. Herron attested that the home-state dealer workaround typically cost him $30 to $40 and delayed possession. The district court held the Ban did not implicate the Second Amendment’s plain text. The U.S. Fifth Circuit disagreed.

The case involved challenges to three separate provisions of Federal criminal law. These three statutes, acting together, create the challenged framework.

First, 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(3) generally bars a person from transporting a firearm into the State where he resides if the firearm was “purchased or otherwise obtained” outside of the State.

Second, 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(5) generally bars a person from transferring a firearm to a person who resides in another State and

Third, 18 U.S.C. 922(b)(3) bars licensed dealers from selling firearms to a person who the dealer knows or should know does not reside in the State where the dealer is located.

Two of the three judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit panel which considered the case found the ban on interstate handgun purchases unconstitutional under the United States Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment case New York Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen.

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The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Necessarily Includes the Right to Buy Arms

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen set forth a straight-forward two step process for the successfully challenge of a firearms regulation:

First, the plaintiff (the party challenging the firearms law or regulation) must show that the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the banned or proscribed conduct. Second, if the court finds the Second Amendment covers the conduct, then the government must demonstrate the law or regulation is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

At Bruen Step 1, the Fifth Circuit majority followed the Fifth Circuit’s earlier holding in Reese v. ATF: the right to keep and bear arms “surely implies the right to purchase them.” A categorical bar on an entire class of otherwise lawful handgun purchases is a purchase ban, not a mere market stipulation.

The government leaned on the home-state FFL transfer and on McRorey v. Garland, which upheld an expanded background-check waiting period with a defined end. The Fifth Circuit majority treated those as different animals. A ten-business-day delay ends by operation of law. The Ban never does. The workaround also depends on a receiving dealer’s willingness and adds a fee. Once plaintiffs show the law restricts keeping or bearing arms for “the people,” it is presumptively unconstitutional.

The Government’s Historical Analogues - and Why They Failed

At Step 2, the government offered eighteen colonial and early-republic laws. The majority grouped them into wartime and common-defense measures, regulation of commerce with foreign sovereigns (including Indian tribes and, early on, other colonies), and consumer-protection prototypes such as inspection and quality control. A Dutch-era New York restriction whose full text has been lost was discounted.

None matched the modern Ban’s “why” and “how:” peacetime public-safety regulation of lawful interstate handgun sales among residents of states within one sovereign. Citing United States v. Hemani (a 2024 case in which SCOTUS held the prohibition on possession of firearms by an unlawful user of controlled substances violated the 2A) the Fifth Circuit refused to stretch colonial border controls into a founding-era tradition for today’s rule.

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There is Now a Circuit Split

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held the ban on interstate handgun purchases unconstitutional. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held these same provisions of Federal law to be constitutional in a decision rendered in 2025 called United States v. Vereen. This is an important fact implicating the United States Supreme Court’s discretionary review. United States Supreme Court Rule 10 specifically identifies a “split” in the circuit court decisions as a primary grounds for the Supreme Court to take a case:

This split in the circuit courts of appeal on this question of law make the Supreme Court’s intervention more likely, as media recognizes:

What the Ruling Does Not Wipe Out

Precision matters. The court did not strike background checks, prohibited-person rules, or state possession and purchase requirements. It addressed the federal prohibition on direct interstate handgun purchases formed by these § 922 provisions. As The Firearm Blog observed, ATF dealer guidance has not instantly rewritten itself.

The strongest serious objection is the government’s public-safety story: people might shop across borders to evade stricter home-state rules. That concern is real as policy. Under Bruen, policy fears do not substitute for a historical tradition the government must prove. Tools aimed at prohibited persons and genuine evasion must fit the constitutional method the Supreme Court prescribed - not a peacetime categorical ban dressed up as a commercial condition.

The Practical Stakes for Lawful Buyers

For lawful buyers within the Fifth Circuit’s orbit (Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi), the judgment means this Federal ban failed constitutional review. The decision is not yet final, as the government may apply for rehearing (ask the Fifth Circuit panel to take another look at the case) or for rehearing en banc (ask the entire US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case). For now, even in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi nothing will change immediately. But, a lot of eyes are on the case watching to see what happens next.

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Conclusion

The Second Amendment’s guarantee of the Right to Bear Arms does not mean much if the government can stop its citizens from buying firearms. When the government forbids an entire class of direct, otherwise lawful handgun sales without a founding-era tradition for that peacetime barrier, calling the rule a "condition of sale" does not save it. Further, given the federal background check system which weeds out ineligible purchasers, there is little justification for the prohibition. The Fifth Circuit got it right. Now we will see if the ruling sticks.

Parties challenging the Trump Administration’s policies and actions keep cherry-picking federal district courts loaded with leftist district judges to file their legal challenges. As a result, they oftentimes get temporary victories in district court, generating plenty of legacy media headlines, only to lose in higher courts. In the last couple of weeks this scenario played out yet again in two important cases involving election integrity and immigration.

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Voters Trust Democrats on Inflation, Even Though Trump Lowered It

If polls are to be believed, Americans are judging inflation by fading memory and tribal loyalty, not by the numbers.

That is how a plurality of likely voters can rate Democrats better than Republicans on the cost of living. Meanwhile, the last 20 months under President Donald J. Trump are plainly better than the first 20 months under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The mismatch is not a rounding error. It is a GOP public-relations failure, which is maddening because the numbers are incontrovertible.

Start with mounting household bills.

Over the first 20 months of the Biden-Harris years, rising prices piled $7,081 in extra costs onto the average household. Over the matching span from January 2025 through August 2026, the extra burden was $4,200. That is $2,881 less; a 40.7 percent slowdown in the pace of added household pain:

Of course, prices did not fall. Inflation always means the checkout line costs more than it did beforehand.

Nonetheless, compared with the Biden-Harris surge, the Trump term cut the added hit by more than two-fifths. Every state posted a smaller increase.

Texas, a GOP-run state, saw the sharpest relief: household cost increases ran 58.4 percent lower, a $4,216 difference. New Jersey, a blue bastion, had the smallest slowdown at 18.2 percent. Even this was $1,243 less. Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana posted thousands of dollars less in added costs than they did in the Biden-Harris period. Even the Democratic behemoths of California and New York posted smaller increases relative to Biden-Harris.

Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price data sit underneath those estimates. Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee used the same basic method to crunch figures about Trump’s first term. Therefore, they cannot easily wave the new statistics away as mere partisan arithmetic.

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This Polling Data is Real

Yet, a national survey of 1,500 likely voters offers a jarring revelation. I collaborated on this poll with the Democracy Institute’s Patrick Basham. It ran from September 21-23, finding Democrats ahead 46 percent to 42 percent on who would better control inflation. Blame for high prices splits 47 percent Trump and 47 percent Biden.

Basham does not direct a brand that churns out slop polling, which runs rampant nowadays. In November 2016, his Democracy Institute (DI) poll had Trump with enough support to beat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This came after the DI correctly called Brexit. Ten years ago, virtually no pollsters foretold Trump winning or Brexit passing. Indeed, the DI is the only firm to accurately forecast both events.

In 2024, the final DI/Daily Express pre-election poll showed Trump up by three points over Harris. The exit poll had Trump leading as well. He went on to win the popular vote; the first time any Republican did so in 20 years. When a pollster with that record finds Democrats rated better on inflation, the problem is not the questionnaire. The problem is that too many voters have not been told the comparison in language that resonates.

Any inflation still lifts prices. Families feel the pinch of every penny. The charge is not that living costs under Trump are pleasant. The charge is that Biden-Harris inflation was worse and that the second Trump term cut the added household hit by more than two-fifths. For a plurality to give Democrats the edge on inflation is absurd. It is also a harsh verdict on whatever passes for the Republican public affairs strategy.

GOP messaging has failed to make the contrast felt. Republican politicians and politicos recite indexes. Voters remember steak and insurance. The party has not hammered that the record now shows a $2,881 smaller burden under Trump, in every state, with Texas nearly 60 percent better. Until that sentence is repeated, then made relevant to the costs of essential goods and services, Democrats will keep winning the inflation argument. Even though they lost it on paper.

It is also not just cause for midterm doom and gloom. I built the Five-Point Forecast that called Trump’s 2024 national and swing-state wins: economic sentiment and inflation, felt jobs and growth, energy prices and confidence, judgment of Washington’s economic response, and trusted polling. Those points moved a presidential electorate.

Midterms are a different crowd. Presidential years since 1980 have averaged about 63 percent turnout among voting-age citizens. Midterms average about 48 percent. The drop leaves an older, more crystallized, overwhelmingly tribal pool of partisans. Especially in this age of escalating political polarization.

Recent data confirm the point.

About 68 percent of 2020 presidential voters came back in 2022. Trump 2020 voters returned at 71 percent, and Biden voters at 67 percent. Dual-cycle voters barely switched: 95 percent of 2018 Republicans and 92 percent of 2018 Democrats remained loyal. Issue gaps have widened 64 percent since 1988, almost all after 2008. The left moved 31.5 percent more socially liberal on abortion, family, equality, insurance, and race. The right moved only 2.8 percent more conservative.

Mixed views thinned, because people now vote as blocs.

History has slayed the notion that economics write the midterm script. A tight labor market and a major tax cut still cost U.S. House Republicans about 30 seats in 2018. Forty-year-high inflation in 2022 still produced the strongest midterm showing in two decades for an incumbent president’s party. Democrats held the Senate, and almost kept the House, simply because their voters showed up where it counted most.

The president’s party has lost an average of 25 House seats in midterms since 1946, and nearly 37 when approval sits under 50 percent. No economic theory erases that penalty.

November brings hundreds of House, Senate, state, and local fights. A handful of suburban legislative districts can counteract finely-crafted talking points, generated by well-paid consultants in DC. Partisan organization, and organic voter motivation, beat social media vibes. The movable middle barely exists, especially this year. Midterms belong to tribes, not an economics-first electorate.

That does not excuse the inflation gap in public opinion. Public ignorance is real and rueful. Americans just lived through a 40.7-percent slowdown in added household costs. A plurality of them nonetheless awarded the inflation-control trophy to the Democrats, who presided over sheer carnage. Shame on the voters who refuse to look at the facts. Greater shame on the Republicans who will not put those facts in front of Americans every day, in a manner which normal people can understand.

Prices still rose under President Trump. However, compared with Biden-Harris, the rise was slower and more manageable for families in all 50 states. That should be the first sentence of Republican economic talk from now through 2028. The party has every reason to get real about its record. If it fails to do so, then Republicans should hardly be surprised when the next presidential race treats inflation control as a winning issue for Democrats.

Considering what the blue team actually did, that would be inexplicable.

(Be sure to give Dr. Cotto a follow on his social media account at X where you will find his podcast episodes, links to his books and articles, along with his daily posts containing everything from political analysis to economic analysis and more.)

The Mid Terms Are Not Shaping Up to Be a Blue Wave

The panic is the product. A tight midterm is being sold as a GOP collapse, and that sales pitch deserves to be rejected on the facts.

Republicans hold the House 220 to 215. Democrats need a net of 3 seats. That is a knife-edge, not a wave. Inside Elections projects a Democratic U.S. House pickup of two-to-10 seats and a Senate gain of two-to-four, with Republicans still holding 26 governorships to 24 for the Democrats. Those ranges admit what social media loudmouths refuse to say: Congress can stay Republican or flip blue by a handful of contests. Even more interestingly, each chamber might veer in a different direction.

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The federal government has a peculiar relationship with the states when it comes to elections.

Federal law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. (See 18 U.S.C. 611.) Federal law also requires states to maintain accurate voter-registration lists. (See 52 U.S.C. 20507(a)(2)-(5).) Yet, when states seek information from the federal government to determine whether people on their voter rolls are citizens, they can find themselves accused of violating the voters’ privacy rights.

That apparent contradiction is now before the Supreme Court.

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On September 8, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the Department of Homeland Security to resume operation of an expanded version of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, commonly known as SAVE. The application follows a September 4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refusing to stay a lower-court ruling that blocked the expanded system while the case is on appeal. (See here, Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters.)

The dispute is worth understanding because underneath the partisan arguments lies a fairly straightforward question: What information may the federal government provide to state officials charged with determining who is legally eligible to vote?

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What SAVE Actually Does

SAVE is not new. Congress created the underlying verification system in 1986 so government agencies could verify immigration status when determining eligibility for certain public benefits. For decades, federal, state and local agencies have used it for government eligibility determinations.

The system was substantially expanded in 2025.

Previously, SAVE generally searched DHS immigration records, usually one person at a time. That meant it had an obvious limitation: DHS might have extensive information about immigrants and naturalized citizens while having little useful information about Americans who were citizens from birth.

The modified system connects SAVE with Social Security Administration records, permits searches using Social Security numbers and allows bulk searches. A state election agency can submit identifying information and receive citizenship or immigration-status information through SAVE.

That made the database considerably more useful for voter-list maintenance—and considerably more controversial.

The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and several individual voters sued. In June, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled against the government, concluding, among other things, that the modified system violated the Social Security Act and Privacy Act and that DHS lacked statutory authority for the changes. (D.C. Circuit Court)

The government appealed.

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The (Misunderstood) SSN Privacy Question

Many Americans believe federal law prohibits the use of Social Security Numbers (SSN) for identification. This is simply not the case. Federal law actually provides limited confidentiality for SSNs.

The Social Security Act protects Social Security numbers and certain related records from disclosure, under some circumstances. The plaintiffs in the SAVE database case argue that the expanded SAVE system improperly transfers protected information from the Social Security Administration to DHS and then makes information available to requesting government agencies.

The government contends the confidentiality provision regarding SSNs is not applicable at all.

The Social Security Act provides the following with respect to the confidentiality of SSN:

(42 U.S.C. 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)(I).) This is the basic SSN confidentiality provision. Readers will note, it protects SSNs “obtained or maintained” by the government “pursuant to any provision of law enacted on or after October 1, 1990” from disclosure.

In its Application for a Stay filed with SCOTUS, the Trump Administration points out:

The federal government further points out, the SAVE system actually started in 1986, in response to the income and eligibility verification systems required by 42 U.S.C. 1320b-7. As a result, the SAVE system predates 1990 as well (thereby not violating the SSN confidentiality provision).

Additionally, federal statutory law requires the federal government to provide states with information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of an individual. (See 8 U.S.C. 1373.)

Finally, the government notes the way the SAVE system is being used does not violate the confidentiality provision even if the court found it applied. This is because the way the system is set up, the DHS is NOT sharing SSNs. The States requesting the SAVE eligibility search provide the SSN (or the last four digits of it) to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Dissenting Judge in the DC Circuit Highlighted These Issues

The Trump Administration appealed the

Judge Gregory Katsas, dissenting from the D.C. Circuit’s refusal to stay the lower-court ruling, offered an important distinction.

He concluded that the Social Security Act provision relied upon by the plaintiffs does not prohibit SSA from supplying the relevant information to DHS because SSA maintains its core Social Security and citizenship records pursuant to statutes predating the particular 1990 confidentiality provision at issue.

More importantly, Katsas said DHS does not disclose Social Security numbers obtained from SSA to the requesting election agency. Instead, it provides information concerning citizenship or immigration status about a person whom the requesting government agency has already identified. (D.C. Circuit Court)

That distinction deserves considerably more attention than it has received.

There is an obvious difference between publishing citizens’ Social Security numbers or personal records and one government agency asking another government agency: Is this identified person a citizen?

Whether the statutes legally permit that exchange is precisely what the courts must decide. This precise information is exchanged for a number of other reasons (see 8 U.S.C. 1373, and 8 U.S.C. 1644, for instance). Additionally, the SAVE system has been used for voter eligibility verification since 2005 (to a lesser extent). The answer seems obvious, but thus far, the federal courts do not agree.

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But What About Mistakes?

The challengers raise another legitimate concern: government databases contain errors. How will these errors affect voters?

Two U.S. citizens involved in the litigation say Social Security records still identify them as noncitizens because they obtained Social Security numbers before becoming naturalized. Federal agencies themselves acknowledged that citizenship data maintained for Social Security purposes may not always be current when used for another purpose. (D.C. Circuit Court)

That is a potential problem.

But it does not necessarily follow that states should therefore be denied access to federal citizenship information altogether. After all if a person’s citizenship is not confirmed by the SAVE system (which includes a manual search of records if the database search does not confirm citizenship) the State is directed to “contact the registrant or registered voter to obtain proof of U.S. citizenship.” Providing such proof by a person who is a naturalized U.S. citizen would be incredibly simple.

A database match—or failure to match—does NOT automatically cancel anyone’s voter registration. It can instead trigger additional verification and provide the affected voter an opportunity to establish citizenship and correct erroneous government records.

The sensible legal question is therefore not whether government databases are infallible. Obviously they are not.

The question is whether inaccuracies require abandoning citizenship verification or instead require adequate procedures for correcting mistakes. The federal government notes in its Application for a Stay filed with the United States Supreme Court that from January 1, 2026 to April 1, 2026, SAVE processed 59.7 million voter-verification queries from elections officials in 27 States. The tiny number of errors identified by the plaintiffs highlights the exceedingly low error rate of the system. And how hard it is it for a naturalized citizen to prove he or she is naturalized? Not very hard at all, since each naturalized citizen gets a Certificate of Naturalization.

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Additional Considerations

Judge Katsas’s dissent in the D.C. Circuit’s order denying the government’s Application for a Stay of the lower court ruling identifies the issue that may ultimately attract the Supreme Court’s attention.

Federal law requires states to maintain accurate voter-registration rolls. Federal law also prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. And the Constitution leaves substantial responsibility for administering elections with the states.

Yet immigration and citizenship records are overwhelmingly controlled by the federal government.

As Katsas put it, how are states supposed to perform their responsibilities effectively if they cannot obtain reliable citizenship and immigration information from the federal government—the government with primary authority over immigration? (D.C. Circuit Court)

Congress has also directed DHS to respond to government inquiries seeking information about the “citizenship or immigration status” of individuals within their jurisdictions under 8 U.S.C. §1373(c). (D.C. Circuit Court)

That creates the central tension in the case.

Congress protects personal information. Congress requires accurate voter rolls. Congress prohibits noncitizen voting. Congress also requires the federal government to provide certain citizenship and immigration information to government agencies.

The courts have to interpret those provisions together.

(There is more to the case, including Privacy Act and Administrative Procedure Act issues, however, the SSN issues predominate and this article focused on those issues.)

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CONFLICTING RULINGS

This article focused thus far on the district court ruling in the D.C. District blocking the use of the database. Another federal district court in Florida ordered the federal government to allow four states involving in litigation before the court in Florida to continue accessing the SAVE database:

The case was the subject of a settlement agreement between the federal government and four states in 2025. The terms of the settlement called for the four states involved to be able to access SAVE. When the district court in DC enjoined the use of SAVE, the federal government quit performing the SAVE verification for the four states. The states then went back to the federal district court in Florida and the court ordered the SAVE searches to resume.

The federal judge in the Florida case observed:

The decision is an interesting read. Check it out here. (Judge Sooknanan is the federal judge in DC who ordered the SAVE searches must stop. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago and was one of 22 judges nominated by former President Biden, but confirmed by the U.S. Senate after President Trump won the 2024 Presidential election. Her bio page at the DC District, includes a link describing how to pronounce her name.)

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Now the Supreme Court Has the Question, Maybe

The procedural posture matters, since SCOTUS may not decide to weigh in on the issues just yet.

The D.C. Circuit has not yet issued a final decision on the government’s appeal. On September 4, 2026, a divided panel refused to suspend the district court’s ruling while that appeal proceeds. The majority emphasized that some of the government’s present Social Security Act arguments had not been properly presented earlier in the litigation. Judge Katsas would have granted the stay. (D.C. Circuit Court)

The Trump administration then went to the Supreme Court and requested a Stay. The case is Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters, No. 26A308. The government filed its Emergency Application for a Stay on September 8, 2026. The challengers filed their opposition September 15. (Supreme Court.)

The immediate question before the justices is not yet the ultimate winner of the case. It is whether SAVE may operate while the underlying litigation continues. But the larger issue will remain regardless of how the High Court handles the emergency application.

Election officials have a legitimate obligation to protect eligible citizens from being improperly removed from voter rolls.

They also have a legitimate obligation to ensure that people who are not eligible to vote do not remain registered.

Those obligations are not mutually exclusive.

CONCLUSION

The vast overwhelming majority of Americans want non-citizens to be removed from voter rolls, prohibited from registering to vote and prohibited from voting. The far left disagrees and opposes any efforts to stop non-citizens from registering to vote, to remove non-citizens from voter rolls or to stop them from voting. Whether Americans will win this fight remains to be seen, but in the short-term without intervention from the United States Supreme Court, election integrity will take the loss.

If You Are Concerned About Gas Prices, You Will Love What President Trump Just Did

Cheap energy is not a talking point. It is power.

President Donald J. Trump just locked in a supply that can last generations, and he did it without charging American taxpayers a dime.

On August 28, his administration secured the biggest oil deal in world history:

The United States now holds majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves. That dwarfs the roughly 46 billion barrels already counted as U.S. territorial proven reserves. The arrangement is designed to last a century. The price to the Treasury is zero. That bears repeating. The price to the U.S. Treasury is ZERO.

This is the kind of concrete win that matters any time, but particularly in a close midterm election year. Voters do not live on slogans. They live on gasoline, heating bills, factory jobs, and whether Washington can keep the lights on when a crisis hits. The presidential deal passes those tests.

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Americans hold the right to Freedom of Speech under the First Amendment dear to our hearts. Freedom of Speech is one of the bedrock rights of American liberty. Most Americans, however, are unaware the full power of the First Amendment does not apply to broadcast media. Broadcast media, such as the American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., or ABC, other television broadcasters and radio stations are subject to extensive federal statutory and regulatory rules which substantially limit their First Amendment rights. Some of these rules impose content restrictions on broadcast media. Recent FCC investigations of ABC/Disney implicate these issues.

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Americans Finally Stop Footing the Bill for the World’s Medicine

For decades, American families paid triple what patients in other wealthy countries spent for the exact same pills, made in the same factories.

That era is finished.

Fresh government figures show prescription drug prices recorded their steepest annual decline in more than 60 years, the biggest drop since 1963.

The numbers do not lie.

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Prescription drug prices have fallen 3.9 percent since President Donald J. Trump retook office. They have declined every single month of 2026. Nonprescription drugs are down 2.4 percent over the same stretch. Medical care commodities, the broader category that includes drugs, equipment and supplies, dropped 2.7 percent over the past year. In July alone, the prescription drugs index fell another 0.8 percent.

Due to President Trump’s leadership, seventeen of the world’s largest drugmakers, representing roughly 86 percent of the branded market, have agreed to sell their products in the United States at prices no higher than the lowest paid by comparable developed nations:

Americans no longer bankroll cheaper medicine for Europe, Japan, and Canada while facing the highest stickers at home.

The executive order which Trump signed in May 2025 made MFN’s principle plain. The US accounts for less than five percent of the world’s population, yet has long funded around three-quarters of global pharmaceutical profits:

Foreign governments demanded deep discounts and American patients covered the difference.

That freeloading is over.

Patients are already feeling the difference through the TrumpRx platform, which is MFN’s direct-to-consumer platform. It has generated $700 million in savings for millions of Americans. GLP-1 drugs that once ran more than $1,000 a month now start as low as $149. Fertility treatments, inhalers, insulin, cholesterol medicines, and dozens of other high-cost drugs have been cut by 50 to 90 percent or more.

Couples facing in-vitro fertilization can expect to pocket more than $6,000 in savings. Uninsured GLP-1 users stand to save about $3,000 a year.

Longer-term projections confirm the scale.

Prospective MFN rules for new drugs are expected to generate $529 billion in domestic savings over the next decade, across private and public markets. Extending the lower prices to state Medicaid programs for existing drugs will save another $64.3 billion in federal and state dollars over the same period.

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Politicians Talk About Drug Costs, Trump Acted Decisively to Lower Them

For all the noise, most often made during campaign season, nothing was delivered of MFN’s magnitude. Whether the White House, and Congress, were under red or blue control, “public servants” allowed foreign price controls to stand while American seniors, working families, and veterans absorbed the markup. Drugmakers collected the higher US revenue, all the while resisting real negotiation at home.

The result was predictable: families rationed insulin, delayed fertility treatment, or even skipped doses of life-saving medicine. That pattern of destruction has been broken through President Trump’s bold action. Once again, President Trump delivered on a campaign promise.

MFN does not punish innovation. It forces other wealthy nations to stop free-riding on American research and US wallets. Trade leverage and pricing commitments now work together. Foreign governments face hard, sustained pressure to pay fair value while manufacturers gain bargaining power abroad. That combination equalizes prices by pulling American costs down and foreign costs up.

The human stakes are concrete.

A parent no longer chooses between a child’s inhaler and the mortgage. A veteran receives the full course of treatment without the federal government stretching its budget thin. A couple pursuing fertility treatment sees the price cut in half or more. These are not abstract percentages. They are monthly budgets that finally make sense.

Critics who spent years defending the old system have gone quiet. They once insisted that any serious attempt to align American prices with the rest of the developed world would destroy research or empty pharmacy shelves. The data now show steady monthly consumer cost declines, massive savings for Uncle Sam, and hundreds of billions of dollars projected over the coming decade.

The predicted collapse never arrived.

Americans have subsidized the world’s medicine long enough. Far longer than enough, actually. The largest prescription-drug price drop in six decades proves that change, which voters may credibly believe in, is both possible and already underway. Patients are no longer the last in line. Nor are they the ones who pay soaring costs so everyone else can pay less. The bill is finally being shared more fairly, and American families are keeping more of their own money as a result.

Regrettably, beyond what words can describe, Americans once rationed insulin. They skipped fertility treatments. They watched veterans stretch razor-thin budgets. All this happened while foreign patients paid pennies for the same medicines. Now, those same Americans see proof of tangible progress, secure in the realization that more will follow.

President Trump has brought the largest prescription-drug price collapse in more than 60 years:

Something long thought to be impossible has arrived. No amount of denial can erase the monthly savings, the $10 billion already secured for former servicemen, or the hundreds of billions still coming.

This time the bill was finally sent where it belonged, and American families are keeping the change.

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The July report made their progress, however uneven, undeniable. Hospital services rose 0.5 percent and physicians’ services rose 0.2 percent, even as prescription drugs fell another 0.8 percent that month. Medical care overall still climbed 1.7 percent over the year, while medical care commodities dropped 2.7 percent. Those commodities have long crushed family budgets.

Those price drops now make a fiscally sustainable Medicare expansion for anti-obesity drugs possible after patients paid more than $1,000 a month. Veterans Affairs, with $10.44 billion in pharmaceutical reductions this fiscal year, has enrolled more than 215,000 additional veterans. It also opened 40 new clinics since January 2025. Both happened because list prices no longer swallow the departmental budget.

Hundreds of billions more in long-term savings remain as new drugs launch at Most Favored Nation prices instead of American-only markups. Direct-to-consumer discounts are slated to count toward deductibles so the savings are real, not cosmetic. A mother choosing between an inhaler and groceries, a veteran delaying a prescription refill, a couple abandoning fertility treatment no longer have to live that way.

The largest drug-price drop in six decades is insulin in the cabinet, a pregnancy that can proceed, and a healthcare appointment that happens. For decades, Americans paid the world’s premium. After years of lip service from politicians who refused to actually do anything about prescription medication costs, President Trump stopped the abuse. Be sure to remember that in November.

(Be sure to give Dr. Cotto a follow on his social media account at X where you will find his podcast episodes, links to his books and articles, along with his daily posts containing everything from political analysis to economic analysis and more.)

My article last Tuesday, August 25, 2026, dealt with the United States Supreme Court’s decision granting the Trump Administration's request for a stay of a Massachusetts federal judge’s order enjoining (preventing enforcement of) President Trump’s Executive Order dealing with the United States Postal Service and mail-in ballots (among other things). The SCOTUS decision allowed the Executive Order to be enforced while the case works its way through the appeals process.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, the USPS was yet to issue any actual regulations in furtherance of the Executive Order. As I noted in the article on August 25, 2026, the United States Postal Service issued the regulations implementing parts of the Executive Order on August 21, 2026, with the regulations going into effect on August 26, 2026. The same judge the Supreme Court just reversed now entered another injunction the following day, August 27, 2026, this time, against the regulations and not the Executive Order.

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Judge Indira Talwani Strikes Again

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani (nominated by former President Obama), tried to stop the United States Postal Service and the United States Attorney General from doing what President Trump instructed them to do in the Executive Order. She suffered a stinging rebuke from the United States Supreme Court in its August 24, 2026 decision, as I described at length in my August 25, 2026, article.

The primary problem with her previous rulings is the court had no jurisdiction to stop the federal government from implementing the Executive Order, because there was no “case or controversy” (which is required by Article III of the United States Constitution), since the plaintiffs in the cases suffered no harm (and as a result had no “standing’). There were other problems with the lower court’s decisions, but this one proved fatal across the board.

The Supreme Court’s decision on August 24, 2026, however, did NOT approve any USPS regulations implementing the President’s Executive Order, because those regulations were not in force yet.

I stated in my August 25, 2026, article:

I don’t think a prognostication of mine was ever proved correct any quicker than this one. On August 27, 2026, the day after the USPS regulations at issue went into effect, this same judge granted a temporary restraining order stopping enforcement of the new regulations for fourteen (14) days. (A temporary restraining order or TRO is a type of injunction that instructs a person to stop taking a particular action or actions. It is limited to 14 days under FRCP 65, but can be extended another 14 days).

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My Next Predictions

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide a short timeline for injunctions. Temporary Restraining Orders last 14 days and may be extended another 14 days. Thereafter, the TRO is supposed to be dissolved or a Preliminary Injunction is to be issued. Mark my words, this federal judge will extend this TRO by another 14 days and/or grant a Preliminary Injunction against the regulations. How could I know? She already told the world as much in the rulings reversed by the Supreme Court. The judge’s latest ruling is more of the same.

The judge’s order granting the TRO contains the following language:

To issue a TRO, the court had to find the parties challenging the USPS regulations are “likely to succeed on the merits” (among other things). This judge thinks the USPS “likely” lacked authority to issue the Final Rule and that the regulations are “likely” unconstitutional.

The judge had this to say in response to the Government’s contentions about the need for the regulations:

Mail ballot fraud is an “unsubstantiated problem?” That is a ridiculous statement for a person with a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary to put in writing. How ignorant of reality would one have to be to make such an statement in a court order? Unbelievable. Mail ballots are highly susceptible to fraud. The bipartisan commission on federal election reform, formed in the aftermath of the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, found mail voting and absentee voting found “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voting fraud” and that was over 20 years ago. But this is an “unsubstantiated problem?”

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The North Carolina Curveball

North Carolina is a party plaintiff in the California v. Trump case (one of the two cases before Judge Talwani). That means it is one of the states challenging the Executive Order and USPS regulations in federal court.

Guess what? On August 27, 2026, the North Carolina Board of Elections confirmed it (1) submitted envelopes to the USPS for review and approval and (2) uploaded a list of everyone to whom the state is submitting a ballot:

The NC Board of Elections issued a public statement confirming it expects the state’s plan to send out absentee ballots “will happen flawlessly and smoothly.”

The State of North Carolina complied with the USPS regulations on the very same day the federal judge issued her Order finding “Plaintiff states” (which includes North Carolina, of all things) do not have the “time or funds” to comply with the regulations.

How could North Carolina comply with the regulations you might ask? Because the United States Postal Service already has standards in place for the design of US mail pieces (the USPS even employs “Mailpiece Design Analysts” for this very purpose) and already recommended the changes made by the regulations in the USPS Official Election Mail Guide.

Despite this, the plaintiff states go to federal court and screech about being unable to comply with simple requirements from the USPS about ballot envelopes and voter lists when some of the same plaintiff states already implemented the recommended changes and the others should have. Further, are we to believe these states cannot compile lists of the voters to whom ballots are to be mailed? They undoubtedly have lists of the names and addresses of the voters to whom ballots are being mailed, otherwise the ballots could not be mailed in the first place.

The fact one of the states suing the USPS over the regulations is able to comply with the regulations in a timely manner SHOULD work in favor of the USPS and the regulations, since the ability to comply completely undermines the claims such compliance is impossible. Judge Talwani will undoubtedly be unpersuaded by evidence of North Carolina’s compliance, but higher courts might.

Additionally, other states are purportedly going to comply with the regulations in coming days. That will greatly undermine the claims by the states who sued the government that they are unable to comply.

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Conclusion

The federal district judge in Massachusetts did exactly and precisely what every conservative legal commentator following this case expected her to do. Her opinions in this case read like they were drafted by lawyers for the Democrat National Committee, so reading the “tea leaves” and making an educated guess about how she would rule was not difficult. The Government’s request for a stay of the TRO is already filed. (A stay of the TRO would allow the regulations to be implemented.) That stay will be denied. Then she will extend the TRO by another 14 days or grant a preliminary injunction or both.

The Trump Administration will need to get relief from the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court, as is so often the case. I doubt that can all be done in time to salvage these simple regulations in time for the mid-term elections in November. We will see. Keep in mind the current regulations do very little to improve election integrity. There will likely be more regulations promulgated before 2028. Again, time will tell. I will do my best to keep you all informed.

The Illegal-Alien Green Card Game is Over. Democrats Want to Revive It.

A landmark ruling, from the nation’s highest immigration appeals court, has just delivered a triumph for Americans who really put their country first.

On August 13, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued Matter of Delcarmen-Lara. This judgment thoroughly overturns a 2012 binding precedent that, as a holdover of the Barack H. Obama era, had let aliens game the system. They did this at a scale so great, it is almost beyond belief. The decision pertains to advance parole, a program for certain immigrants inside the United States who need permission to reenter after global travel.

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It goes without saying that aliens who crossed the US border unlawfully lack a legal entry record. This renders almost all of them ineligible to apply for a green card from within America. However, a wide loophole existed via securing advance parole, most often through Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS). After taking a trip abroad, a paroled alien’s return generated an unambiguously lawful, inspected stamp on their passport.

With that record of legal entry, said immigrant was able to apply for a green card through an immediate relative, wholly from inside the US.

Now, any international excursion counts as a full departure under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). That single clarification triggers three-year or 10-year bars on reentry. The shorter term is for anyone who illegally accrued more than 180 days in America. The longer term applies to those with a year or more of unlawful presence.

For years, the Obama-era Arrabally rule created an exploitative safe harbor. Aliens who entered illegally or overstayed visas could secure advance parole, then travel and return without being barred. The BIA has decisively restored the ordinary meaning of the word “depart.” No special exception exists for temporary authorized travel. The change applies only going forward, protecting completed trips, yet it closes the door for every future traveler who plays the Obama-era game.

This is not technical tinkering. It removes a major obstacle that had frustrated removal of aliens already under final deportation orders:

Immigrants who entered illegally, then received a removal order, but later obtained temporary protection, and finally used advance parole to manufacture eligibility for permanent status are out of slick tricks. Once they leave America under Delcarmen-Lara, a multi-year bar locks in. The existing removal order can finally be executed, or a new one may be issued.

Immigration judges and law enforcement officers now possess a clearer, faster route to carry out the INA. The timing could not be better.

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Donald J. Trump’s administration has already transformed border security and interior enforcement into the most effective operation in modern history:

The Trump Administration’s accomplishments on border control and immigration policy are impressive:

• Southwest border encounters have collapsed more than 95 percent. Daily crossings hover near 250. For months on end, zero illegal entrants have been released into America. Interior removals and self-deportations together approach three million. Criminal aliens, gang members, and terrorism suspects are being prioritized and removed at record rates.

• Temporary parole programs that funneled hundreds of thousands from failed states have been terminated.

• Refugee ceilings have been slashed to historic lows. TPS for multiple countries has ended, subjecting more than a million previously shielded individuals to removal.

• These results fulfill explicit campaign commitments made in 2024: close the border, end catch-and-release, launch the largest deportation effort ever, and restore operational control.

Yet the legacy media, and even the conservative press, have treated this nationwide ruling as barely a footnote. That silence is indefensible. A binding change of this magnitude deserves sustained attention, especially in a midterm year when control of Congress hangs in the balance. Voters who care about national sovereignty should grasp what has been accomplished and what remains at risk.

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The Democrats Will Open the Floodgates

The Democratic Party no longer resembles the coalition that once claimed to defend working families and other decent Americans who fall on hard times. It has been captured by far-left activists who, under the banner of “democratic socialism,” view American borders as moral failures and Western civilization itself as evil. Their rising, third-worldist hostility toward traditional Americana, non-woke white people, and pro-Israel Jews is overt.

They celebrate policies that flood America with migrants from underdeveloped countries, while labeling any immigration law enforcement effort as first-world oppression.

In the case that Democrats regain the US House, the Senate, or both, they will move immediately to defund and obstruct every successful immigration control measure now in place. They will go to bat for catch-and-release chaos, try to revive the parole pipelines, and weaponize every procedural delay against Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At the same time, they will harass and investigate any Republican preparing for the 2028 presidential contest. The next two years shall be warped into a continuous campaign of blue-on-red institutional sabotage.

All this deserves protection and expansion. The alternative is a return to the Biden-Harris open-border experiment that produced carnage on a level which knows no easy description.

The Board of Immigration Appeals operates inside the Department of Justice as the final administrative voice on immigration questions. Its nationwide authority exists to produce uniform application of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The entire immigration court system has been stacked with Trump administration personnel.

If not for this, Delcarmen-Lara would have been mere wishful thinking from starry-eyed immigration control advocates. The presidential team has replaced pro-illegal alien judges. It has accelerated once-glacial dockets so that removal orders actually mean something. It has appointed jurists who issue new binding precedents that expedite unlawful alien removal.

The Delcarmen-Lara decision, an appreciably ripe fruit from the 2024 presidential election’s tree, returns the law to its text. This ruling denies reptilian immigration advocates the ability to manufacture an enduring legal status for unlawful aliens, essentially through the simple act of cross-border travel.

Republican voters surely understand the stakes, without needing some purportedly “elite” translation of plain truth. A nation that cannot control who enters and who stays is not a sovereign country. A government that rewards illegal entry while punishing those who wait in line invites contempt for every other law.

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Conclusion

President Trump’s record demonstrates that determined leadership can reverse years of nauseating failure in a remarkably short time.

The new Delcarmen-Lara precedent removes one more barrier that had slowed the work of ensuring America’s first-world nationhood. Citizens who want the progress to continue should treat this November’s midterms as the crucial test they are. Anything less invites the very wreckage that buries America into the bowels of perdition.

(Be sure to give Dr. Cotto a follow on his social media account at X where you will find his podcast episodes, links to his books and articles, along with his daily posts containing everything from political analysis to economic analysis and more.)

On March 31, 2026, President Trump issued a bold Executive Order intended to ensure integrity in Federal elections. (See here for my previous article about the EO.) The EO sought to prevent non-citizens from voting in our elections and to curtail the misuse, abuse and fraud surrounding voting by mail. Within days of the EO being issued, two lawsuits were filed in federal court in Massachusetts, one by a group of blue states and another by the League of Women Voters, challenging the Executive Order.1 The two cases were consolidated or “put together.” In June 2026, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani (nominated by former President Obama), issued an Order declaring parts of the EO of “ultra vires” and “unconstitutional.” The First Circuit Court of Appeal denied the Trump Administration’s request for a stay.

Today, the United States Supreme Court granted the stay requested by the Trump Administration, thereby allowing the EO to continue to remain in effect while the case is appealed. While this is a huge victory for President Trump, the Trump Administration and election integrity, it does not decide the case and is not the ruling we (Americans who care about honest elections) are in need of. That fight is yet to come.

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Trump is Making America Safe Again

America is witnessing a decisive turnaround in public safety under President Donald J. Trump’s leadership.

Traditional street crime is collapsing at a pace unseen in generations, while cutting-edge digital predators are finally meeting real resistance from Uncle Sam. This is not rhetoric. It is measurable results delivered with speed, focus, and an unapologetic sense of duty to the American people. That is the essence of putting the nation first.

Look at the numbers on violent crime.

In the first half of 2026, homicides across the largest U.S. cities dropped 17.2 percent compared with the same period the year before. Robberies fell more than 16 percent. Rapes and aggravated assaults declined as well. Altogether, that means nearly 14,200 fewer violent crimes reported in just six months:

Cities that once symbolized carnage now show sharp reversals. Washington, DC saw homicides plunge almost 44 percent. Memphis recorded a similar drop. New Orleans posted a nearly 25-percent decline.

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Trump Takes Aim at Cyberspace Crime

That same determination is now being aimed at the sophisticated foreign networks that prey on Americans through cyberspace.

On August 12, Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum that arms federal law enforcement with new authority to disrupt transnational criminal organizations operating overseas:

These groups run coordinated campaigns of ransomware, phishing, financial fraud, sextortion, and impersonation scams. They target seniors, children, and working families, draining savings and wrecking lives.

In 2025 alone, Americans reported losses exceeding $20 billion to such schemes. Nearly three-quarters of adults have faced some form of online attack, and the public overwhelmingly recognizes the danger.

The new directive creates a structured program inside the Homeland Security Task Force’s National Coordination Center. Two executive directors, one from the Justice Department and one from Homeland Security, will oversee limited cyber operations against foreign cyber-enabled criminal groups.

Critically, the program draws on the unmatched innovation of the American private sector. Vetted US companies can propose and help execute operations under strict government direction and control. They may share threat information gathered in the course of ordinary business and coordinate with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies.

Every action remains subject to rigorous review, constitutional limits, and applicable international agreements. The memorandum sets clear procedures for approval, deconfliction, reporting, and immediate shutdown if any operation risks crossing legal boundaries.

This is not privatization of force. It is the federal government harnessing the nation’s technological edge while retaining full authority and accountability.

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Earlier Steps Prepared the for These Changes

The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed in 2025 and championed by First Lady Melania Trump, targets the non-consensual spread of intimate images and deepfakes that devastate children and families. The first conviction under that law came in 2026. Additional executive orders and notices have tightened cybersecurity for critical systems, guided financial institutions against financially-motivated sextortion, and directed broader action against fraud and predatory schemes.

The latest memorandum simply extends that record of results into the digital domain where foreign criminals have long operated with relative impunity.

These gains did not appear by accident. They reflect a governing philosophy that refuses to treat crime as inevitable or to prioritize the comfort of offenders over the security of citizens. America-first leadership means using every lawful tool, including street-level enforcement, federal surge capacity, and now precise cyber-disruption, to protect the people who live, work, and raise families here.

The speed and efficiency on display should leave no doubt about the seriousness of Trump’s effort. Yet his progress is all too fragile.

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The Democrat Party Will Put the Brakes on the Crime Crackdown

The Democratic Party has been overtaken by hard-left forces that view American strength as the problem rather than the solution. Third-worldist and communist elements, masquerading as democratic socialists, aggressively climb through its ranks. They advance an anti-Western, anti-white, and anti-Semitic outlook that treats national borders, traditional justice, and cultural cohesion as evils.

Regrettably, these are not fringe voices in anonymous web chats or half-empty faculty lounges. They shape the blue party’s direction and its candidates. Their agenda of race-based grievance and soft-on-crime policies, among other perils, produced the disorder that Trump’s administration is now reversing.

Simultaneously, Democrats will weaponize Congress against any serious Republican who might seek the presidency in 2028, ensuring the next contest begins under maximum disadvantage.

Republican voters should understand the astronomical stakes.

Staying home in November is not neutrality. It is an America-last choice that hands the levers of power back to those who have already shown they will use them against the country’s security and prosperity. The evidence of what works is now clear and accumulating by the month. Violent crime is falling at historic rates. Digital predators face new and coordinated pressure.

The tools of national power are being applied where they belong: on the side of citizens rather than criminals. Protecting and extending that record entails showing up at the ballot box and rejecting the hard-left capture of the Democratic apparatus. Anything less means reversing the astounding gains which Trump has already secured. It also means inviting a more extreme version of the carnage that his leadership has allayed.

The choice is straightforward. The duty is equally clear.

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Conclusion

The evidence stands clear and unyielding. Trump has driven violent crime to levels not seen in generations while launching precise strikes against foreign cyber-networks that prey on vulnerable Americans. This is true America-first leadership in action: swift, efficient, and driven by unyielding duty. Street thugs and online scammers both feel the pressure.

Citizens gain safety because Uncle Sam finally chose strength over surrender and results over excuses. Ordinary Americans now live freer from fear.

The midterm choice is stark and cannot honestly be ignored. Far-left radicals are seizing the Democratic agenda. They push an anti-Western, anti-white, and anti-Semitic ideology that threatens everything which American civilization has traditionally championed. If the blue team captures Congress, they will hamstring not just the Oval Office, but everything GOP in sight.

Democrats would gleefully pave the way for chaos even worse than what America suffered under Biden-Harris. Republican and conservative leaning voters who stay home in November will hand victory to the left and the hard-won gains made by President Trump and Republicans will be in jeopardy. Do not let that happen.

(Be sure to give Dr. Cotto a follow on his social media account at X where you will find his podcast episodes, links to his books and articles, along with his daily posts containing everything from political analysis to economic analysis and more.)

On June 30, 2026, the United States Supreme Court decided an important campaign finance case disapproving of some limits placed on political party spending. Some in legacy media hyperventilated about the ruling claiming the sky is falling when the decision is much more limited than some media reports suggested. But, the implications for the upcoming mid-term U.S. House and Senate elections could be significant. Here is what happened.

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Republicans Need to Get Real About Trump’s Economic Record

Factories across America are humming louder than they have in years.

Production lines that sat idle or sputtered under the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration now run at full capacity.

New orders pour in from both domestic buyers and overseas customers who once again want goods stamped “Made in the USA.”

This is not a temporary blip. It is the direct result of red policies that reward investment, protect workers, and put American industry first.

Manufacturing expanded in July at its fastest pace in more than four years. The sector has grown for seven straight months after contracting throughout the Biden-Harris era. Export orders turned positive. Production hit levels not seen in a July since the early 1950s, according to data highlighted by Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz.

The Federal Reserve reports rising activity, payrolls, and wages nationwide. Factory wages rose 4.2 percent over the past year, outpacing inflation and delivering real gains to workers. The Philadelphia Fed survey shows general activity and new orders near five-year highs.

These numbers did not appear by chance.

Republican tax cuts aimed at working families have supported millions of jobs, protected hundreds of billions in wages, and sustained more than a trillion dollars in economic activity. Non-residential investment jumped 11.7 percent last quarter. Business equipment orders head toward a record this year. Capital goods imports now make up more than 40 percent of all goods imports as plants expand and retool.

Since President Donald J. Trump’s second term began, 83,000 construction jobs have been added in factories. More than 18,000 manufacturing positions have been created this year alone. The economy is projected to grow at a 6.2 percent annualized rate in the third quarter.

Michigan offers the clearest example of the revival:

• Auto plants that once faced uncertainty now expand

• General Motors is putting six billion dollars into American facilities, including Metro Detroit’s Orion Township, and adding overtime in Flint

• Ford is investing three billion dollars in a battery park that will create 1,700 jobs and running a third shift on the F-150 line

• Stellantis is pouring hundreds of millions into new hubs and expanded lines in the Detroit area

• Detroit Diesel has recalled workers and added a shift

Meanwhile, vehicle sales in 2025 reached their strongest level since 2019. Ford posted its best year in six years. General Motors saw strong SUV demand. Jeep sales rose for the first time in years.

Corning, Chobani, GE Aerospace, and other manufacturers are expanding with hundreds of millions more in new plants and jobs.

Inflation continues to ease. Core personal consumption expenditures inflation fell to 3.3 percent. Paychecks grow because of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, signed last summer. Among many other great things, it eliminates taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security while expanding the child tax credit and standard deduction. Every Democrat in Congress opposed these measures. Real disposable income per capita rose faster than prices. Spending increased as families regained breathing room.

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Contrast this with the ruinous record left by Biden-Harris

Democrats produced the largest debt increase of any presidential term, adding $8.5 trillion after the economy had already reopened from COVID-19 shutdowns. Biden’s signature 1.9 trillion dollar spending package drove inflation from 2.6 percent to a 40-year peak of 9 percent. Cumulative prices rose 20.9 percent. A family of four paid an extra $18,496 a year for the same goods and services. Food climbed 22.6 percent, gasoline 32.3 percent, and rent 24.1 percent.

Combined with weak wage growth, Americans lost $8,000 in real income. Interest rates soared as the Federal Reserve hiked 11 times. Net interest costs on the debt more than doubled.

Yet public perception lags far behind reality.

A July survey found only 28 percent of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy while 70 percent disapprove. Just seven percent believe conditions are improving; 71 percent say they are worsening. Two-thirds claim the country is already in recession. Even among Trump’s supporters, many expect further decline.

This gap is dangerous.

Most Americans simply do not see the gains already delivered. Factories expanding, wages rising, investment pouring in, and inflation retreating remain invisible to far too many. That blindness creates an urgent requirement for Republican voters. The midterms approach fast. A low-energy turnout risks handing one or both chambers of Congress to the Democrats.

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Conservative and Independent Voters Need to Turn Out for the GOP

Blue vipers would then use every procedural tool to block further GOP progress, stall Trump’s appointments, and set the stage for a nation-wrecking leftist presidential victory in 2028.

Such an outcome would reverse ongoing red gains and revive toxic blue policies that produced soaring prices and cratering opportunity. The threat is sharper still because the Democratic Party has moved further left.

Three in four Democrats say they would support a democratic socialist candidate for president. Fully two-thirds of Democrats now view socialism more favorably than capitalism, the first time fewer than half rate capitalism positively. Their positive view of socialism has climbed from half in 2010 to two-thirds today. Meanwhile, support for free enterprise has fallen. Republicans and independents continue to reject that dead-end path.

A blue party whose base prefers socialism over capitalism will not deliver growth, higher real wages, or expanding factories. It will deliver higher taxes, heavier regulation, and the same inflationary spending that crushed American lives for years. The Republican manufacturing renaissance underway proves what works. Strong investment, clear incentives for domestic production, and tax relief that puts more money in workers’ pockets produce great results.

The Biden-Harris approach produced widespread misery, and Democrats would do even worse going forward.

Republican voters therefore carry a clear responsibility. They should acknowledge Trump’s actual economic performance rather than lose their minds in the prevailing national mood. They should turn out in force this November. Only a decisive showing can protect the gains the GOP already made and prevent a return to Democratic policies that left Americans in dire straits.

The data show factories expanding at the strongest pace in years, wages beating inflation, and investment accelerating. The general public attitude does not yet match those facts. That mismatch is the wake-up call. The choice in the midterms will decide whether President Trump’s positive direction continues. If it does not, then the country shall slide back into the Democrats’ economic decline, complete with soaring costs for essential goods and services.

The evidence leaves Republican voters with no time to waste.

(Be sure to give Dr. Cotto a follow on his social media account at X where you will find his podcast episodes, links to his books and articles, along with his daily posts containing everything from political analysis to economic analysis and more.)