Recently, the Left in general and Democrats in particular have been criticizing a lot of things that this administration has done. This came up with the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Todd Blanche, and people suggested that, though he may have been qualified, he had too close a relationship as a personal attorney, or he acted in a legal capacity with [President] Donald Trump, and therefore there would be an incestuous relationship between the [Justice Department] and the White House.

But who broke that standard? I think it was broken during the JFK administration. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic president, appointed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general. They conferred daily. If we were worried that that was an aberration, remember Eric Holder bragged that he was, quote, Obama’s wingman. So, the Democrats have had a long history of a close relationship between the DOJ and the White House.

We’ve been told that the Democratic Party is very angry because some local, i.e., state or county or municipal, prosecutors might take a look at Anthony Fauci and see if he had criminal exposure other than federal exposure. And people said, well, what business do these local prosecutors have looking at Anthony Fauci, who was a federal bureaucrat? And if he did anything wrong, it would be a federal offense. You can’t have freelancing prosecutors all over the United States going after—yes, you can. We established that principle with Donald Trump. 

Remember that Letitia James went after him for a real estate deal in which Deutsche Bank, the lender, had no problem with the loan as it was conducted. She was the attorney general of New York. Alvin Bragg could not get Donald Trump on anything other than to bootstrap a federal campaign violation that even federal prosecutors didn’t want to touch. He was just the municipal DA of Manhattan.

Fani Willis met her paramour, Nathan Wade, who was part of her legal team. He met in the White House with Joe Biden, and she was only a Fulton County prosecutor. So, long ago, we dispensed with the idea that regional or local or state or county prosecutors can’t go after a high-profile federal official, and there’s nobody more high-profile than the United States president.

Then we heard last week that they were worried that Donald Trump’s IRS may be too partisan. I think they destroyed that barrier as well. Do you remember Lois Lerner? She was pretty much conducting special audits of Tea Party groups and other conservative-affiliated groups to make sure they did not get nonprofit status, and that was going into the election year 2012.

Do we remember the New York Legislature when Donald Trump’s tax returns were released illegally by the federal IRS? The Legislature in New York piled on and said, we’ll pass a bill that says anybody this year, i.e., Trump, who is under federal audit and whose tax returns are subpoenaed by a congressional committee, once they saw them, we’re going to turn over his confidential state records as well. That was about as weaponizing the state and federal IRSs as you could imagine.

How about election denialism?

Hillary Clinton. You remember, anybody, the 2016 election? Hillary Clinton, she lost the Electoral College. She won the popular vote. What did she say almost immediately? That Donald Trump was not legitimately elected. In other words, he wasn’t our real president. Was she an outlier? No. Former President Jimmy Carter said that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. He was an election denialist.

Stacey Abrams, you remember her? She ran for governor of Georgia and lost by 50,000 votes. She toured the country for two years and said she was the real governor of Georgia, she won that election. She was really an election denialist.

Do we remember in 2000, when George W. Bush beat Al Gore? Al Gore said that he really didn’t lose the key swing state of Florida. Later, The New York Times conducted an affiliated investigation of the county returns that Al Gore had sued to get a hold of. They looked at them, and guess what? George W. Bush did win Florida and, with Florida, won the election. Did that stop the Left? No.

They said that George W. Bush was selected. He was not elected. Do you remember that? Do you remember the 2004 election, when a large contingent of the Democratic House refused to honor the vote in Ohio and voted not to accept George Bush’s popular-vote victory in Ohio that put him over the top?

So, that bar was destroyed a long time ago, and it’s pretty low or nonexistent that you don’t deny an election result. That’s what the Left taught us, at least. 

We were told that the Supreme Court of the United States is too weaponized, too consistently conservative, voting in a bloc. There’s been a lot of studies. One of them showed that the six-justice majority votes anywhere from 60% to 64% in line with their conservative philosophy in cases that come up with an ideological theme to them.

And how about our three left-wing, Democratic judges? The same study found that they are a little bit more partisan. Up to 70% of ideological cases, they vote consistently with the Left.

In other words, if you believe in a weaponized Supreme Court, the greatest offenders are the three liberal justices, which you don’t hear.

We’re talking about a weaponized FBI a lot. Kash Patel has weaponized the FBI. I don’t think he has, but if he were to weaponize it, he would be tutored by James Comey. You remember James Comey? He, 245 times before a House Oversight Committee, said he couldn’t remember, or he didn’t know, or he had amnesia.

He inaugurated the bogus Operation Crossfire effort to promulgate the lie that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. That was during the campaign. Had that lie been widely publicized and widely believed, it would have affected the election. Donald Trump wouldn’t have won.

No sooner had Donald Trump been elected than, with Operation Two that was Oxford Comma, they tried to suggest the sitting president had Russian ties. That was a lie, too.

Andrew McCabe, his interim successor, lied four times under oath on ideological or political matters. His lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, forged a document and submitted it to a FISA court. That was an FBI lawyer. I could go on with Robert Mueller, the Mueller investigation, claiming under oath he didn’t know what the Steele dossier was, even though it prompted his very appointment. I would say the FBI was pretty weaponized and politicized by the time Kash Patel got there.

Finally, we hear that it’s very unfair to bring in Anthony Fauci before a congressional committee.

Why would you try to find something that was criminal in the activity of a federal bureaucrat? After all, he’s a member of government. Can he just say, I don’t want to come, or when he’s there, can he just answer a question? Why would he be forced, unless the questions were designed to embarrass him, to take the Fifth?

Well, we crossed that river a long time ago when Congress subpoenaed, for no real criminal activity, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, former White House aides. Both of them refused to participate. In other words, they refused to show up and plead the Fifth Amendment, like Anthony Fauci. 

And guess what? They arrested Peter Navarro on the street in shackles. Both of them served four-month sentences in jail. Congress had them jailed.

Then we come to domestic spying, where they said Donald Trump is spying on his enemies. He’s conducting a surveillance state. It’s not true, but if it were true, where did he get that idea?

Well, Barack Obama, remember, surveilled the phone data of Associated Press reporters. They also went after Fox News reporter James Rosen. I think they even subpoenaed the calls he made to his grandmother.

And then, of course, Jack Smith, he went to the National Archives to get the phone data of prominent senators and congressmen that he felt were ideological adversaries, maybe?

He not only got their phone data, but he got their actual text messages. 

What’s my point in all this? Long ago, the Democratic Party and the Left believed that any means necessary were justified for their noble ends of mandated equality, and we’ve seen president after president on the Left do that. And so it’s the height of irony, or maybe not irony, but projectionism.

So, I’ll leave you with the idea that anytime somebody on the left accuses the Trump administration of a misuse of government, it’s likely a reflection that they’ve already done that themselves.

Thank you very much. Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

“Yesterday, ICE arrested murderers, violent assailants, kidnappers, drug traffickers, and other dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our communities,” Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told the Daily Signal. “Under the leadership of President [Donald] Trump, ICE is making our nation safer by removing illegal aliens from our communities.”

“When you remove criminal illegal aliens like these from our country, crime rates fall, and the American people are safer,” Mullin added. The Department of Homeland Security claimed that nearly 70% of the illegal aliens ICE arrested have been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States.

ICE provided the Daily Signal with names and mugshots for five illegal aliens.

1. Rie Hachiyanagi

ICE arrested Rie Hachiyanagi, a criminal illegal alien from Japan. ICE claimed that a Framingham, Massachusetts, jury convicted her on three counts of assault to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon—a fire poker, a rock, and scissors—mayhem, and home invasion.

2. Mohamed Elshenawy

ICE arrested Mohamed Elshenawy, a criminal illegal alien from Egypt. ICE claimed that a jury in Red Bluff, California, convicted Elshenawy of attempted murder, terroristic threats, and battery against a police officer.

3. Eder Hernandez-Morales

ICE arrested Eder Hernandez-Morales, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico. ICE said a jury in Los Angeles convicted him of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, vandalism, theft, receiving known stolen property, and possession of a controlled substance.

4. Victor A Calles-Flores

ICE arrested Victor A Calles-Flores, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador. ICE said a jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, convicted him of kidnapping and transporting a stolen vehicle.

5. Sergio Calvio-Ayala

ICE arrested Sergio Calvio-Ayala, a criminal illegal alien from Costa Rica. ICE said a jury in Newark, New Jersey, convicted him of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

As announced in a Wednesday statement, the State Department created the Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force to work with the Department of Homeland Security to investigate suspected cases of birth tourism by going after suspected foreign nationals who use temporary visas to travel to the United States to give birth and secure U.S. citizenship for their children.

The department is working with the Bureau of Consular Affairs and consular officers, stationed at U.S. embassies and consulates, who have identified what officials described as recurring patterns of deception among some visa applicants.

The department warned that foreign nationals who intentionally misrepresent the purpose of their travel to the United States may become permanently ineligible for a visa or admission into the country.

Based on the findings of the task force and cooperating institutions, State Department officials have said that the initiative has examined the travel histories of visa holders worldwide and has already resulted in the revocation of more than 600 visas, which the department believed indicated potential ineligibility.

Aside from revoking visas from foreign nationals believed to be facilitators of birth tourism, the task force is also targeting the tourism networks they run.

According to the State Department, some facilitators advertise themselves as doulas, midwives, or wellness advocates while promoting services that include visa assistance, hospital arrangements, and guidance on giving birth in the United States.

Officials also allege that some operators forge medical records, coach clients to conceal the true purpose of their travel, or avoid paying hospital bills. Online advertisements often promise “automatic citizenship” and “a future without borders,” according to the department.

In its release, the department noted several examples uncovered during investigations into people who ultimately had their visas revoked by the task force, including a couple who claimed they were on a shopping vacation but were actually traveling to give birth to two children.

Another case included one of a traveler who obtained a visa for what was described as a vacation to Orlando, but instead traveled to Los Angeles and gave birth five days after arriving in the United States.

The State Department has claimed that the task force will continue its efforts.

Trump’s Allies on the Hill

In the Senate, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced the SAFE KIDS Act earlier this year, which would address loopholes in existing U.S. immigration law.

“There has to be some value to American citizenship. We need to keep the rest of the world from exploiting our immigration system, and that includes letting adversarial nations like Communist China use surrogacy to do it,” Scott previously told the Daily Signal.

“We’ve already seen troubling cases of human trafficking and abuse linked to international surrogacy schemes, as our foreign adversaries prove willing to exploit every loophole they can to destroy us,” the senator from Florida continued.

If enacted into law, Scott’s effort, which has been co-sponsored by Sens. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Ashley Moody, R-Fla., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jim Banks, R-Ind., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Mike Rounds, R-S.D., John Kennedy, R-La., Tim Sheehy., R-Mon., Dave McCormick, R-Pa., and Todd Young, R-Ind., would give people who profit off birthright citizenship—by knowingly or recklessly facilitating a prohibited commercial surrogacy agreement with citizens from a foreign adversarial nation—a misdemeanor.

The law would also invalidate any commercial surrogacy agreement that is entered into with a citizen of a foreign adversarial nation.

In June, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts, a Barack Obama appointee, blocked Trump’s mail ballot order for 23 states challenging the policy. The president’s order prevents the U.S. Postal Service from mailing ballots to residents not listed as eligible voters, instructing the USPS to send lists of eligible voters to states ahead of the November elections.

Sauer, in his Wednesday filing, urged the court to act quickly ahead of the elections. “Otherwise, the district court’s erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government’s ability to implement Section 3 of the Executive Order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity,” the filing stated.

Trump signed the executive order in March, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”

The order called for the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state and to send those lists to states at least 60 days before a federal election. For mail-in ballots, the order directed the U.S. Postal Service to send a list of eligible voters to states and prohibited the Postal Service from mailing ballots to residents not on the lists. Trump directed the attorney general to investigate and potentially prosecute state and local officials who issue federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote.

In a lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, 23 states and the District of Columbia sued to block Trump’s order. Talwani in June opted not to rule on the case, but rather determined that the plaintiff states’ claims regarding the upcoming midterm elections were ready for review and that Trump’s executive order “created a ‘direct and immediate dilemma’” for them.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause the matter. Then the administration, on July 27, asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

On Aug. 3, the states filed a brief with the high court saying Talwani’s ruling means the federal government would rush a voter system ahead of the November elections to the detriment of states.

“It would allow the federal government to rush out an unprecedented, legally indefensible voter-verification and ballot-interception program that would, among other things, give the U.S. Postal Service far-reaching new powers and responsibilities,” the states said in their brief.

“Under this new program, USPS, a budget-strapped agency that has struggled to administer a variety of programs in recent years, would require state governments to assemble (and then upload to an untested online USPS ‘portal’) lists of voters registered to cast mail ballots,” the states said. “States would also be forced to redesign their ballot mail to adopt barcodes that USPS would scan to make voter-eligibility determinations. And USPS would refuse to deliver ballots for voters not identified in its database.”

California has long struggled with homelessness, and recent scandals involving taxpayer dollars flowing to troubled nonprofits have intensified scrutiny. The Trump administration announced in June that it would cut off federal funding to Los Angeles.

At a press conference held at the Dream Center, a faith-based nonprofit, Turner told the Daily Signal the administration wants to see actual results—people getting off the streets and receiving treatment.

“What we’re looking for is, we’re looking for the Dream Center and places like the Dream Center that are results-oriented, that have a true continuum of care. The Dream Center does not receive funding that’s passed by the Senate. It’s [funded] by friends, family, churches, private people,” Turner said. “What we’re looking for is what you see here, to bring someone in. Bring them in, house them, put the ax to the root.”

He added, “What is the problem? Why are they homeless? [It is] drug addiction, mental illness. To treat that and then get them healed and transform that to a life of self-sufficiency, that’s what we’re looking for. It’s a new paradigm. … It’s not just housing—it’s not housing first.”

Both Turner and Kennedy emphasized that places like the Dream Center are faith-based nonprofits. During his remarks, Kennedy highlighted that under the Biden administration, former HHS Secretary and current Democrat California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra refused to fund faith-based organizations.

That approach has shifted under the Trump administration. Kennedy said faith-based groups like the Dream Center are now prioritized by HUD and HHS because of their results.

“During the Biden administration, the White House made the decision that my agency and Scott’s agency could no longer give money to faith-based organizations. I’m told the states also cut off funding to faith-based organizations, and that was downgraded during the COVID crisis,” Kennedy said. “All the government officials in Los Angeles, including Adam Schiff across the state, were telling people to go to the Dream Center to get meals. The meal burden here went from 1,000 meals a day to 10,000, because there was no place else for people to go.” 

“When they went to the government agencies, my agency, and asked for support, my agency told them, ‘We can’t help you because you’re a faith-based organization.’ It made no sense,” he added. “And we have now changed that and put faith-based organizations front and center, because they’re doing it better than the government can do. They’re doing it at one-tenth the price that we’re paying.”

Homelessness in the state rose significantly under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, climbing from an estimated 151,000 people in 2019 to 181,934 in 2025, according to HUD’s latest annual report. Los Angeles’ homeless population also increased this year, with the county’s unsheltered count rising 3.3% and the city’s unsheltered count rising 7.9%, according to data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

In addition to the rising numbers, officials, including Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have promoted a “Housing First” strategy that focuses primarily on moving people off the streets and into taxpayer-funded housing. Yet, with an estimated $1 billion spent on efforts such as Project Homekey, the city has either stalled on finishing units intended for homeless residents or seen some of those units damaged by occupants struggling with mental illness or addiction.

While the state has spent upwards of $26 billion on the homelessness crisis, questions about where the money is going continue to grow.

“Year after year, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were funneled to LAHSA with little accountability and zero results,” Turner said during the press conference. “The LA Continuum of Care led by LAHSA had received $1 billion in taxpayer dollars over the last five years—that’s $1 billion over the last five years with no accountability and zero results. And despite receiving more federal homelessness funding than any other jurisdiction in our nation, LA remains the epicenter of the nation’s drug-fueled homelessness crisis.”

“During that same decade, the homelessness in LA doubled. HUD funding to LA nearly tripled. How many know that’s a problem? … We’ve got to run a new play. That play is not working.”

Crackdowns on Los Angeles nonprofits and their CEOs that received taxpayer dollars through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority have also come from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

In January, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of South Los Angeles charity executive Alexander Soofer, charging him with fraudulently obtaining $23 million in taxpayer funds intended to combat homelessness while allegedly pocketing $10 million for himself. 

Additionally, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that a Southern California nonprofit running domestic violence shelters paid its longtime chief executive, Carol Adelkoff, more than $1.6 million in salary and vacation pay over two years, even though she lived in Hawaii.

With funding to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority halted, the agency has sued the Trump administration over roughly $240 million now in limbo.

A federal judge’s ruling on Friday struck down HUD’s attempt to shift federal funding away from permanent housing. As a result, HUD will have to issue new guidelines for its annual homelessness grant competition, a decision that could affect the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

The freeze on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority funding and the push for faith-based, results-driven programs mark a clear break from the housing-first model that has dominated California for years. For now, hundreds of millions remain in limbo while the administration insists taxpayer money will only follow programs that get people off the streets and into recovery.

“Under the leadership of President [Donald] Trump and Vice President [JD] Vance, we are rooting out corruption and ensuring that those who need care are truly going to get it. The days of funding corrupt failure are over. The Trump administration will not fund a homeless industrial complex any longer,” Turner said. 

“At HUD, we’re only interested in real results,” he continued. “And that’s actually helping our fellow Americans get off the streets, out of addiction, and on the path to self-sufficiency.”

Leavitt is leaving at the end of the month “so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The president added that Leavitt will become one of his “top outside advisors” and work with the Republican Party to win the upcoming midterm elections in November.

In his post, Trump then described Leavitt as “one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office. and thanked her “for a job well done!”

Leavitt gave birth to her second child, Viviana, in May, after leaving her post temporarily to go on maternity leave. She returned to the role in June.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” Leavitt wrote on X.

“Our country is facing an existential threat from an increasingly extremist Democrat Party that seeks to destroy everything great about America, and I believe it is incumbent upon all of us who care about this country to fight back against that threat,” she added, writing, “My fight is entering a new phase, but it is far from over.”

The president described Leavitt as “one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office.”

Sen. Rick Scott was among those who praised Leavitt on social media following her announcement.

“Karoline Leavitt did a fantastic job as White House Press Secretary! Children are such a blessing and her decision is one to be admired. God bless her and her family!” the Florida Republican wrote.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted on X that “Leavitt has served President Trump and the American people with courage and conviction. She’s a great colleague, a fearless voice for the President’s agenda and a true professional.”

Most Notable Moments

Last March, Leavitt told the Daily Signal’s politics editor, Bradley Devlin, during an interview that the president “loves young people,” and noted that as part of the reason why she had “the honor” of serving in the role.

“Many people told him that I was too young to have this position, and he told me, ‘You’re not. When I was 21, I was building buildings in Manhattan, and I believe you can have this job.'”

The youngest White House press secretary began her time in the second Trump administration, opening up the White House press briefings to new media voices and restoring the ones of 440 journalists and media outlets that were revoked under former President Joe Biden’s administration.

In March 2025, after Trump’s address to the nation, Leavitt referred to the Democratic Party as the party of “insanity and hate,” which “wants to put America last,” because “they’ve allowed their Trump Derangement Syndrome to stop them from celebrating America and their people,” after congressional Democrats and media alike failed to celebrate the achievements touted by the president during the address.

“It’s not just the Democrat Party, the mainstream media still doesn’t get it,” Leavitt continued. “Last night, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace disgustingly looped in a 13-year-old boy with brain cancer into an attack on the president over January 6.”

In August 2025, while Russia and Ukraine peace talks were ongoing, Leavitt slammed the American media for allegedly attempting to sabotage the peace talks with faulty coverage of the president’s foreign policy.

“One thing that has not changed is the media’s negative and downright false coverage of President Trump and his foreign policy accomplishments,” she said.

“From the beginning of this entire process, much of the left-wing media has been actively rooting against the president of the United States in the pursuit of peace,” Leavitt continued.

Flanagan was declared the victor in her race against Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., after receiving the backing of 59% of primary voters.

“For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money,” Flanagan said as she celebrated her victory in Minneapolis. “Well, guess what? The many just won.”

The race comes as a major victory for the far-left progressive flank of the Democratic Party, which has recently secured major wins across the country.

In recent weeks, Abdul El-Sayed became the Democrat nominee for Michigan’s Senate seat after beating Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., by a narrow margin. Also, several Democratic Socialists of America candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, such as Claire Valdez and Aber Kawas, won their primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York Senate.

Flanagan’s Race

Flanagan rose to victory despite being chastised by Republicans and centrists for serving in a governor’s administration that oversaw the federal government’s dismantling of a widespread network of fraud in health care, food assistance, education, and taxpayer-funded programs and grants in Rep. Ilhan Omar’s congressional district.

Flanagan received several high-profile campaign endorsements from progressives such as Omar and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In recent months, the far-left candidate continuously campaigned on a platform of progressive priorities, including universal childcare, guaranteed health care, and higher wages.

Her primary opponent, Craig, ran on a campaign of strengthening border security while offering pathways for immigrants, reinforcing support for the LGBTQ+ community, and “standing up to [President] Donald Trump and Republican extremists.”

Craig was endorsed by many high-profile establishment Democrats: former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Sens. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Jackie Rosen, D-Nev.; Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill; former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

Her Challenger

Flanagan will now face 30-year football reporter and Republican nominee Michele Tafoya in the November general election.

Tafoya, who secured the party’s nomination with 52.1% of the vote, is running on a campaign with the issue of fraud front and center.

If she were to win the Senate seat, Tafoya has promised to deport migrants convicted of fraud and “stop treating fraud as a second-class crime,” as stated on her website.

“As our Senator, Michele will fight for tough new mandatory minimum sentences that put fraudsters in federal prison and keep them there,” her website says.

Tafoya has also campaigned on holding state officials accountable for the misuse of federal funds, following “basic audit and recovery practices.”

“Minnesota is in play,” she wrote on X soon after the polls closed. “We have a real opportunity to flip this Senate seat and defeat far-left socialist Democrats in November.”

I’ve been opining about why the California bullet train will never succeed since I wrote my very first column as a young college pup. But even my accurate (though not difficult) prediction about its certain failure didn’t quite capture the sheer depth of the wasteful insanity this project has achieved.

There now may be a glimmer of hope, though a faint one, that the “project”—a word I use loosely in this case—may mercifully starve to death after fattening itself on taxpayer cash for nearly two decades.

According to a recent review by the Office of the Inspector General, the California High-Speed Rail project “will exhaust its current funding resources as soon as December 2027 if it does not secure financing.”

The inspector general warned that the high-speed rail faces a $9.5 billion funding gap over the next five years and there is currently no plan to fill it.

Even more damning is the inspector general’s note that there are “significant concerns” regarding transparency and that completion projections have been a moving target.

The only reason the high-speed rail was even keeping close to its already massively bloated budget numbers was due to just lopping off parts of the planned line.

“Ultimately, the major cost savings observed in the Merced and Bakersfield extensions are not due to increased efficiency—which we define as delivering equivalent scope for less cost—but are instead the result of planning to build less,” the report explained.

The report noted that the Merced-to-Bakersfield line, the pitifully shortened and getting shorter segment of what was once sold as a connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles, now has a projected completion date of September 2034.

I’d love to go back in time to my college campus and tell students who bought into the fast, “green” train that was going to connect the whole state that what they were ultimately getting was a short line in the Central Valley that might finish construction closer to their retirement than graduation—if they are lucky.

On top of everything else, the inspector general wrote with seeming exasperation that the High-Speed Rail Authority tasked with overseeing the project “has obscured basic facts about the project, hindering lawmakers’ ability to provide effective oversight of the project.”

I’d argue that if the lawmakers and powers that be in the state cared about the high-speed rail’s viability, they would have taken action to shut it down and untangle the mess long ago.

A few lone voices, including Republican Rep. Vince Fong, have been pointing out red flag after red flag for years, but they’ve mostly been ignored. Fong, like poor Sisyphus, did so again after the IG report came out.

“California’s High-Speed Rail is the quintessential example of government mismanagement,” he wrote Tuesday on X. “I’ve called it out since day 1. Californians were promised a completed rail 6 years ago. Today we’ve spent billions and billions, for a total of zero trains. Gavin Newsom owes us an explanation. And an apology. It’s beyond time to shut this down.”

Fong is right. Not only should the California bullet train to nowhere be shut down, but taxpayers also deserve a full accounting of what went wrong here.

We don’t even know the depths of failure outside the shifting budget projections and the visible lack of evidence that a functioning train is likely to come online any time soon.

Every piece of information that drips out of the high-speed rail project is about delays, increased costs, deceptive practices, and total unaccountability.

Even basic things, like buying the trains, are behind schedule with no explanation.

Newsom and other California Democrats blamed President Donald Trump for the recent hiccups on the removal of $4 billion in federal funds.

However, according to a recent investigation by CBS News, the delay in buying trains, which was supposed to be done by the end of last year, had nothing to do with the lost federal funding. And, of course, the California government has provided no explanation for the hold up.

California quietly withdrew its lawsuit against the federal government over the pulled funding at the end of 2025, which was the right call given that it can’t meet basic deadlines.

What this means is that the high-speed rail project—which I’d argue has been operating as a slush fund for bureaucrats and fake jobs for some time—might truly be put on full pause soon.

The Trump administration isn’t going to hand them a penny now or ever again.

Private investors have mostly stayed far away. The best they’ve got on that end is some companies “exploring” the viability of the project, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they are just trying to find ways to gobble up some of the remaining public money.

And without public subsidies that would have to be approved by voters, it’s hard to see where the money will come from to keep the thing rolling. Well, not rolling at all, actually.

It’s shameful that this charade has gone on for so long. I truly hope this report will be the beginning of the end of this long, expensive, pointless scam that the people of California have endured for too long.

“My understanding is, today there was an arrest made and there is a new indictment that includes the former CFO of SPLC,” Blanche said in a press conference Tuesday.

The Justice Department announced the arrest of Beirich, a 59-year-old resident of Palm Springs, California, after Blanche’s press conference.

The SPLC faces federal charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering related to its alleged payments to members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other groups. While the center claims it was paying informants in order to combat extremism, the Justice Department claims it was propping up the extremism that it claims it exists to oppose. The Justice Department also claims the SPLC opened bank accounts for fictitious entities to funnel cash to the extremists.

The newly unsealed superseding indictment against the SPLC and Beirich includes the initial 11 counts and two more criminal counts. Three of the counts include Beirich: wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

A superseding indictment in June alleged that a staff member had engaged in a romantic relationship with a Neo-Nazi who had taken money from the SPLC. The New York Post previously identified Beirich as that staff member. This indictment confirms that report.

“Beirich was also in a relationship with F-9 [an informant in the neo-Nazi group National Alliance],” the indictment states. “During this relationship, Beirich and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts.”

“Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000 in donors’ money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and Beirich,” the indictment states. “This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts. Beirich then used donors’ money to pay the couple’s personal living expenses.”

Beirich left the SPLC in 2020, founding the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism with another former SPLC staffer that year.

The Daily Signal reached out to the SPLC and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism regarding the New York Post’s reporting and did not receive a response.

“I think, as alleged in the indictment, this individual participated in the scheme, as alleged, I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that that were not accurate as as described,” Blanche said.

“This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the US attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment,” he added.

The Daily Signal reached out to the Justice Department, the SPLC, and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, but did not receive an immediate response.

The child, known as baby Gabriel, was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped.

The baby was born on Wednesday to McKenna West, who is a surrogate from Alaska, CBS News reported.

Treatment for Gabriel’s condition will require three staged surgeries, beginning with the Norwood procedure.

Information provided to Paxton’s office shows that Gabriel was diagnosed at 20 weeks’ gestation. The intended parents, who reside in California and are using a surrogate, requested during the pregnancy that Gabriel be terminated. Following their request, the surrogate mother traveled to Texas to seek protection and ensure that Gabriel could receive the lifesaving surgery he needed to survive. 

The intended parents have refused to consent to the surgery and may attempt to transport Gabriel out of Texas to prevent him from receiving the procedure, according to Paxton’s office.

After learning of the situation, Paxton filed an intervention in the case and asked a district court to prohibit Gabriel from being removed from the state.

On Tuesday afternoon, Paxton announced that a Dallas County judge had entered an emergency temporary order preventing Gabriel from being removed from Texas.

Under the emergency order, Texas law governs the child’s parentage, protection, and medical decision-making. Now that Gabriel has been born, Susan Dueslar will be appointed as the guardian ad litem for the child.

The court also ordered that “upon the child’s live birth, medically indicated stabilizing and life-sustaining care shall be provided to the child pending further order of this Court. No person shall withhold, direct the withholding of, obstruct, or delay that care.”

Paxton applauded the court’s order, saying his office will continue to protect Gabriel.

“The court has made the right decision in immediately acting to protect baby Gabriel’s life and ensure he receives the care he deserves,” Paxton said. “My office utilized every tool at our disposal to protect life, and we will not back down in continuing to support baby Gabriel’s well-being. Every child in our state deserves to be cared for and protected, and that’s exactly what I’ll fight for.” 

In addition to the intervention, Paxton sent a letter to UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, reminding the hospitals of their legal obligations to provide lifesaving care to Gabriel.

“Where a parent refuses consent to medically indicated treatment, the authority to override that refusal belongs to the State and to the State alone,” the letter reads. “A hospital cannot override a refusal on its own authority, and neither can a physician outside an emergency. Where time permits, the proper course is court intervention. Texas courts have entered exactly those orders, including appointing a governmental entity as temporary managing conservator with authority to consent to treatment over the family’s objection.”

Kimberlyn Schwartz, director of media and communications for Texas Right to Life, told the Daily Signal that Paxton is right to protect Gabriel.

“The attorney general absolutely did the right thing here,” Schwartz said. “A child’s life is worth more than a contract.”

“This case exposes big problems with surrogacy: A woman is treated as a reproductive contractor, and a baby is treated as a product for sale,” she continued. “Baby Gabriel and every other child conceived in surrogacy have infinite worth that no legal contract can cancel.”

The order will remain in effect until further order from the court.

Editor’s note: This article was updated at 5:38 p.m.

The two-count indictment alleges that some foreign nationals paid as much as $100,000 to be in the sham marriages, according to the Justice Department. The scheme was primarily for Chinese nationals.

“This scheme was not a quick, fly-by-night operation, but rather a yearslong, multimillion-dollar cottage industry to criminally assist people who would not, or legally could not, otherwise become citizens of the United States,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Wednesday. “The men and women who facilitated this scheme were all naturalized citizens, originally from China, and one green card holder.”

The attorney general added, “Not only are we protecting our physical borders from unlawful crossings, but we are also preventing immigration fraud schemes that are just another way to skirt the immigration laws of the United States.”

The 11 arrests occurred Wednesday morning. The indictment covers a period from at least 2016 through July 2026, with an investigation led by U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald for the Southern District of New York.

“Today’s arrests have dismantled a central component of one of the largest marriage fraud schemes charged in United States history,” McDonald said.

However, the case covered alleged sham marriages arranged in other states as well, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. Marriages were also allegedly arranged abroad in China and the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

The network included alleged facilitators who oversaw the scheme and foreign-national customers; recruiters who found willing U.S. citizens; and assistants who prepared immigration paperwork, such as green card applications, for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The defendants were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and immigration fraud. If convicted, they could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison. They were also each charged with one count of conspiracy to encourage the unlawful residence of aliens in the United States. If convicted, this crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The indictment alleges foreign nationals paid facilitators as much as approximately $100,000 for a sham marriage and assistance in obtaining lawful permanent resident status.

Facilitators allegedly paid participating U.S. citizens up to $30,000 and paid recruiters commissions of as much as approximately $5,000 for each citizen recruited, according to the Justice Department.

In total, the defendants and their co-conspirators recruited hundreds of U.S. citizens to enter into sham marriages, the Justice Department said.

According to the Justice Department, the defendants arrested Wednesday morning were: Amy Cheng, also known as “Amy Zhou,” 72, of Brooklyn, New York; Xiao Mei Chan, also known as “Carmen,” 64, of Queens, New York; Christine Lu, also known as “Lily,” 52, of Queens; Jing Yan Ye, also known as “Serene,” 43, of Staten Island, New York; Xiao Yan Chen, also known as “Anna,” 48, of Brooklyn; Gang Zheng, also known as “Michael” and “Mike,” 61, of Queens; Anthony Cheng, 47, of Staten Island; Michelle Duenas, 35, of Staten Island; Angela Duenas, 26, of Staten Island; Sigrid Cetino, 32, of Peekskill, New York; and Erika Johnson, 43, of Ossining, New York.

On Friday, Acton told Signal Statewide that she accepts the possibility that Ohio’s voter ID law may become enshrined in the state constitution.

“This amendment has overwhelming support from Ohioans across the state. As this doesn’t change what is already law, as governor, I will support it,” Acton told Signal Ohio.

“At the same time, as both a candidate and governor, I will fight to ensure that all eligible Ohio voters, regardless of party, can access the required identification easily and at no cost, so they can exercise their fundamental right and have their voices heard,” she added.

While the amendment is popular, many state Democrats, including Kathleen Clyde, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, have criticized the policy.

The Daily Signal reached out to the Ohio Democratic Party for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Voter ID has also pitted the Democrat and Republican nominees for secretary of state. Democrat state Rep. Allison Russo opposes Issue 3, while Republican Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague promoted it and predicted it would pass “overwhelmingly.

In a statement to the Daily Signal, Sprague’s campaign reiterated that support while criticizing both Acton and Russo.

“Amy Acton is in favor of Issue 3 only because she’s seen the polling and knows Ohioans overwhelmingly back photo ID as the most effective way to secure our elections,” Dalton Throckmorton, campaign manager for Sprague for Ohio, told the Daily Signal. “In doing so, she has left Allison Russo, who spent her career voting against photo ID, stranded on an island and having to explain why she’s against secure elections.”

Russo, meanwhile, reiterated her opposition to Issue 3, which she voted against in the General Assembly.

“My position is clear and unchanged. I oppose the constitutional amendment because it is unnecessary, and I believe locking it into the Ohio Constitution is overkill, plain and simple,” a statement from Russo to the Daily Signal said.

“But we’re a big tent party. Unlike Republicans, who fall in line even if it forces working people to pay higher gas prices or lose their homes due to high property taxes or enter into a prolonged war without end, we are the adults in the room, and we can have differences of opinion. That’s democracy,” she continued.

State Sen. Jane Timken, who sponsored the Ohio Senate resolution to put Issue 3 on the ballot, says voter ID has sent the Democrats into “disarray.”

“It’s a desperate political calculation [for Acton] to distance herself from her own Democrat party that is taking orders from socialists who support open borders and men in women’s sports. They [democratic socialists] want to end the U.S. Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution. They demand photo ID for [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani’s grocery store but not for voting in our elections,” Timken told the Daily Signal.

“They are in such disarray. Her running mate, David Pepper, is on the record opposing photo ID,” she added.

Pepper provided opposition testimony against Senate Bill 153, which would strengthen Ohio voter registration rules.

As Acton noted, Voter ID is already state law. However, Republicans like Timken and others argue that it must be added to the state constitution to make it permanent and difficult for a future legislature to repeal.

Acton has already come under fire from Democrats over her support for protecting women’s sports, which she called “settled law” after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws on the matter.

The Daily Signal also reached out to the Acton campaign for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Victor Davis Hanson: I’ve mentioned a couple of times that on the internet, there’s a whole genre on YouTube, I guess you would call it race wars now. It’s open. It’s just open. And we saw the WNBA. Did you see the hit on Sophie Cunningham by DiJonai? 

Jack Fowler: Well, yeah, we should get into that a little more deeply. But that immediately became a race issue. She was clotheslined by DiJonai Carrington. 

Hanson: What I didn’t understand was that here you had this player, and she was trying to stop a layup. And usually, when you want to commit a foul to stop somebody, you kind of run up behind them because they’re going to make the basket. And she did make the basket. You kind of grab their hips or something or push them a little bit, and then you incur a two-shot foul. It’s kind of an iffy thing to do because if they make the basket, they get one shot, and they can get a three-point play out of it. So you have to be very careful.

But what was strange about it was that she didn’t even make an attempt. She just went up and conked her with her elbow. I mean, conked her— 

Fowler: She clotheslined her.

Hanson: Yeah. That’s a good term. And so, my point is, what did she do afterward? They didn’t call a foul on her at first. Or they called a minor foul, and then they looked at it and said it was flagrant. And they suspended her from that game, and then she immediately, almost instantaneously, went on social media and said, “White privilege.” And I’m thinking, what does white privilege mean? You mean that you got a foul, and you’re so accustomed in the WNBA that if you’re black, you can do this and nobody will enforce it because you’re 65—you view people not as individuals but as collectives. And the league is 65% black and maybe 35% gay, and this is a little enclave that you feel is protected.

And then I thought, if you think it’s white privilege and you’re so angry, why would you culturally appropriate blond hair? She had a big blond wig. And I’m thinking, if Sophie Cunningham had had dreadlocks when she did that, they would call her a racist. So, what I’m getting at is that the whole thing is so imbalanced, and we all just don’t talk about it. Maybe it’s because half of the African American community is doing wonderfully in terms of purchasing power. They’re reaching parity, but half are not, and nobody wants to talk about that.

But when you look at this WNBA, when it was formed in 1997 until Caitlin Clark came in 2024, it had lost $20 million to $30 million a year, and more like $40 million some years.

It was a charity of the NBA.

It was a charity of the NBA, and the owners bought those cheap franchises. They bought them not for economic reasons, as we saw with the owners of the Seattle team. And what I’m getting at is that at every level, it is weaponized. You see owners weighing in and trying to harass two young girls who happened not to say anything about trans issues. They just said that we support Sophie. Then you see a coach deliberately wearing a trans jacket. Then you see players who are highly weaponized in racial and sexual-orientation terms.

And you say, the whole league is this way. And nobody knew about it because nobody cared about it. It was this little tiny eddy over here, off the river of American sports, a little side eddy. Everybody said, well, it’s women’s liberation, and we should have two basketball leagues. We know that the general public, women included, prefer to watch male basketball, but just to get them off our backs, we’ll give them $30 million or $40 million.

And they were taking buses or flying economy, and nobody said a word. Then all of a sudden, this Caitlin Clark sensation, who could hit 3-pointers from nearly half court, was amazing. She goes into this little enclave and is roughed up for being heterosexual and white. And then Sophie Cunningham, who unfortunately for the WNBA is absolutely stunning. She’s a blond, beautiful bombshell, tall, statuesque, et cetera. She protected Caitlin Clark, and suddenly you had two white people who were the objects of these flagrant fouls.

Even the referees were in the tank. They would never call it right. Even Sports Illustrated had a headline. Did you see it? Sophie Cunningham gets karma, karma, karma. In other words, she deserved that for honestly expressing an opinion about trans issues. And at some point–they don’t play in places like Florida. You can see why. The Florida attorney general already said that if they had played in Florida, he would have filed a felony assault charge for that foul on Cunningham.

They play mostly in blue areas or purple states. But it’s very funny how we have allowed a public—we’re so critical of sports. We had the whole Colin Kaepernick phenomenon, take a knee, and LeBron James lecturing us and all. Then we had this overtly racist and chauvinistic gay league, which was completely intolerant of anybody who did not fit that majority stereotype. Any minority who went in there and played well was an object of derision and attack in racist terms, and I’d say sexual orientation terms too, but reversed from the usual cause of victimhood.

And then, to top it off, Caitlin Clark, according to many economists, has brought in $1 billion in revenue, media endorsements, publicity, and all of them now are making $500,000 a year from almost nothing. They’re flying first class or on private jets. They’re all better off. And how do they look at that? They keep trying to injure this woman because they hate her more than the self-benefit.

So, where did they get that? Where did that idea come from?

And the idea, I should define it, is that you should look at people in racial terms, number one. And No. 2, if you act overtly racist, whether you say the N-word or you go after and try to hurt somebody, you will be protected if you can qualify as a victim on the Marxist binary of oppressed and oppressor.

We’re free to do anything we want as long as we’re a victim and we can prove it. That’s how sick the whole thing has become. What was in the mind of a coach who thought, “I’m going to go across there, and I’m going to harass these two young girls for having a ‘Support Sophie’ sign”? Co-owner of the team.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The Federal Trade Commission and four state attorneys general sued WPATH in June, alleging that the association engaged in deceptive practices by promoting “gender-affirming care” that causes harm to patients, particularly minors who cannot provide informed consent. Late last month, WPATH urged the court to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the government was retaliating because it disagreed with the association’s protected speech.

The association defended its Standards of Care as “opinion” protected by the First Amendment on subjects considering “medical and scientific uncertainty” in a debate with more than one reasonable position. The group also cited a Supreme Court ruling that upheld state laws forbidding “gender-affirming care“—a decision WPATH itself has loudly condemned in the past.

Admitting WPATH’s ‘Opinion’

In its case against WPATH, the Federal Trade Commission presented “core deceptive statements” based on the eighth edition of WPATH’s Standards of Care, claiming that these statements mislead consumers into self-harm. The association claims that those statements “are non-actionable opinions about subjects on which there is ‘medical and scientific uncertainty.'”

The association claims that the statements are not the kind of claims that the FTC is designed to regulate. The motion cites appellate precedent stating that “a challenged statement must make a specific and measurable claim, capable of being proved false or of being reasonably interpreted as a statement of objective fact.”

Yet, if the newest edition of the standards of care is not “reasonably interpreted as a statement of objective fact,” that should undercut the medical groups—such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association—that treat the standards as gospel when it comes to transgender “care.”

‘Medical and Scientific Uncertainty’

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that states had the right to ban sex-rejecting procedures for minors in the case U.S. v. Skrmetti. WPATH loudly condemned the decision, calling it “a dangerous setback for transgender health and human rights in the United States.”

Yet WPATH repeatedly cited the Skrmetti decision in its motion to dismiss the FTC complaint.

“The Supreme Court has recently addressed the ‘medical and scientific uncertainty’ regarding transgender health care for minors and concluded that it ‘underscore[s] the need’ for states to have ‘legislative flexibility,'” the motion states, citing Skrmetti. “The FTC cannot erase that ‘flexibility’ by declaring deceptive certain statements about care that states not only permit but deem necessary.”

WPATH opposed state restrictions on sex-rejecting procedures when Republican legislatures enacted them. Now, citing Skrmetti, it is arguing that states do have the right to make their own laws on these procedures. Whatever the legal merits of this argument, it marks a significant rhetorical shift.

Acknowledging the Other Side

The transgender movement has been notorious for demonizing its opposition. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign have suggested that disagreement with transgender ideology contributes to suicide, and social media companies have silenced critics for similar reasons.

Now, the transgender movement’s sainted authority on medical issues is effectively admitting that there is more than one position on the issue—and telling a court that preserving open debate on transgender “health care” is a public good.

The FTC and state attorneys general “acknowledge that there are parties on both sides of this medical debate,” WPATH wrote in the filing. “WPATH is on one side of that debate and provides guidelines on how to best provide transgender health care. Others, such as Dr. Hilary Cass, fall on the other side of the debate and disagree with how to, or if one should, provide transgender health care to adolescents.”

The government agencies are “now improperly attempting to insert themselves into the middle of this medical debate and silence those with whom they disagree,” the association stated.

WPATH even begrudgingly admits the validity of the Department of Health and Human Services’ 400-page peer-reviewed report finding “extremely weak evidence” of any benefit for “gender-affirming care” for minors. “The federal government has thus already alerted doctors and the public to what it views as the problems with WPATH’s speech,” the association wrote. “That is the exact remedy the First Amendment envisions: ‘the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.'”

Ramifications for WPATH

WPATH has presented cogent arguments here, but it remains to be seen whether the court will dismiss the case. Regardless, the transgender group may have significantly weakened its credibility.

Its argument may help it defeat the FTC lawsuit. Yet, in making that argument, the organization has weakened one of its most powerful rhetorical claims: that its Standards of Care represent an unquestionable scientific consensus.

According to a recent Public Policy Institute of California report, K-12 enrollment statewide has dropped 8% since 2015 and is expected to continue declining over the next decade.

Julien Lafortune, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told the Daily Signal that the decline has been substantial.

“A decade ago, [California had] 6.2 million students. Now, this past year is just about 5.7 million students. That’s almost half a million fewer students in public K-12.”

Lafortune described the demographic shift as “almost like a cascade,” with each successive group of children entering California schools smaller than the one before it.

For California teachers, the enrollment decline is more than just a statistic.

One Southern California elementary school teacher who chose to remain anonymous told the Daily Signal that she was personally affected by the shift after being switched from kindergarten to a higher grade at the last minute due to low enrollment.

“From my perspective, I think part of what we’re seeing is that fewer young people are having children, especially with the cost of living and housing prices being so high. There also seems to be a shift in priorities among people in their 20s, where many are choosing to focus on themselves, travel, careers, and enjoying their 20s before starting a family. That eventually translates into fewer 5-year-olds entering elementary schools.”

The Southern California teacher also said she believes concerns among some parents about politics in the classroom have led them to consider alternatives, including homeschooling or moving out of state.

“Overall, I think the combination of fewer births and changing attitudes toward family and education is going to continue having a noticeable impact on elementary school enrollment,” the elementary school teacher said.

In another Public Policy Institute of California report, “Examining Trends in California’s Birth Rates,” Lafortune and his co-authors found that California’s fertility rate has fallen well below the level needed for a population to replace itself.

“The total fertility rate in California has dropped from 2.21 children per woman in 2007 to 1.48 in 2023, well below the replacement level of 2.1 necessary to keep a population from declining.”

Migration has also played a role. Nearly 10 million Californians have moved to other states since 2010, and California currently has the nation’s largest net domestic outflow.

The implications extend beyond California schools facing potential downsizing. A shrinking younger population could eventually mean fewer workers supporting a growing older population, potentially straining the state’s economy and contributing to labor shortages.

If California’s population continues to lag behind growth in other states, Lafortune said, the state could eventually lose congressional representation.

And Lafortune does not expect the trend to reverse anytime soon.

“A lot of this is slow-moving and continuous, and I think with the declines in birth rates that we’ve seen, it’s definitely not something that looks like it’s going to reverse.”

“This is kind of a new reality for a lot of school districts,” Lafortune said, “just managing the fact that … next year there’ll be even fewer kids.”

The Oversight Project filed an amicus brief late Tuesday in Navarro’s appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Navarro spent four months in prison on a contempt of Congress conviction stemming from his defiance of a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack. Navarro, who pushed a plan to delay certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, argued he had executive privilege in his role as a presidential adviser, and a separate branch of government could not compel him to share documents and testify about his actions.

The Oversight Project filed an amicus brief late Tuesday in Navarro’s appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Navarro spent four months in prison on a contempt of Congress conviction for his defiance of a congressional subpoena. Navarro, who was subpoenaed to testify about his plan to delay certification of the 2020 election, argued he had executive privilege in his role as a presidential adviser.

In July, a three-judge panel of two Barack Obama appointees and one Joe Biden appointee on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed his conviction. Navarro then asked for a rehearing, and the Oversight Project supported his appeal.

“This case is about separation of powers and a huge ambiguity in a federal criminal statute weaponized during the Biden administration,” Oversight Project Director of Litigation Jeff Clark said in a statement.

The separation of powers argument contends that a presidential adviser should have a reasonable expectation of confidentiality from another branch of government for his counsel.

Navarro was arrested at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in June 2022 on the contempt of Congress charge, as he was leaving for a speaking engagement in Nashville. Clark noted that Navarro was imprisoned “without being able to present to the jury any defense based on his good-faith belief that President Trump had invoked executive privilege to protect the candid counsel he received from Dr. Navarro.”

“This court should grant rehearing en banc to address the exceptionally important issues we lay out,” Clark added.

After Trump disputed Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, Navarro wrote a report called “The Green Bay Sweep” that argued then-Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, could delay certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021, under the Electoral Count Act.

The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack subpoenaed Navarro for material related to his report. He responded to the committee that his advice to the president was protected.

The D.C. appeals court held that “privilege must be claimed by the President (current or former) or an official authorized by the President to claim it.”

The Oversight Project’s amicus brief, first shared with the Daily Signal, says, “This case presents a question of exceptional importance that the en banc Court alone can resolve: whether a citizen may be branded a federal criminal for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena when he did not know, and had no reason to believe, that his conduct was unlawful.”

Oversight Project President Mike Howell said, “Leave no MAGA behind,” referring to the defense of those who claimed they were targets of a politically weaponized justice system during the Biden administration.

“We will never forget what they did to our people and will do again if they get the chance,” Howell said.

The motion’s author, Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, said that he authored the motion for noncitizen voting because groups that represent illegal aliens asked him to do so, but then he had second thoughts when his own black constituents pushed back.

Soto-Martinez said he hasn’t had a change of heart, but that “more work needed to be done before the issue is presented to voters.” Translation: He thinks he just has a PR problem.

Councilwoman Traci Park initially voted for the measure but changed her mind. “My concern here is that if this goes to the ballot, the voters won’t really know what they are voting for,” she said, “because we don’t really know either.”

The original motion passed 10-5—only to be reversed by a 14-0 vote. Was the unanimous change of heart the product of the realization that they hadn’t done their due diligence, or was it because they had been caught in the act by a suddenly attentive nation? Only the council members know for sure.

It is clear that the plan to let noncitizens vote legally in Los Angeles is not going away. This bad idea will be back, and with better marketing. The funny thing about bad ideas is that they tend to spread. How long will it be before the California Legislature decides to legalize noncitizen voting for state elections? 

Such a controversial idea has already been attempted legislatively in Connecticut and New York. While the Los Angeles ballot measure was pulled because of the fear that voters would not approve it in November, the California Legislature could legalize noncitizen voting for state elections on its own tomorrow, if it wanted to, without having to ask the voters for approval. 

What most people fail to realize is that noncitizen voting in California wouldn’t stay in California. The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2 and the 17th Amendment, ties voter eligibility for congressional elections to voter eligibility in state legislative elections, and Congress affects everybody. If noncitizens are eligible to vote for the state legislature, they are also eligible to vote for members of Congress, and there isn’t a state or federal statute that can alter that fact. It’s in the Constitution and has been since 1789, which is how noncitizens were able to legally vote in local, state, and federal elections for the first half of our nation’s history. 

Only an amendment to the U.S. Constitution can insulate the rest of the country from one state deciding to legalize noncitizen voting.

House Joint Resolution 152, sponsored by Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., is that constitutional amendment. This resolution would amend the United States Constitution to specify that only American citizens may vote in elections for federal office. The amendment would ensure a uniform franchise nationwide, and it would prevent any single state from undermining our representative democracy by allowing noncitizens to vote for members of Congress or the president.

 Supporters of noncitizen voting believe that the noncitizens in our communities should be able to participate in the democratic process.

I am an immigrant. When I wanted to participate in the democratic process, I became a citizen. We should require citizenship as the bare minimum for participating in elections—especially federal ones.

At a time when our nation is celebrating its 250th birthday, I can’t think of a better way to mark this milestone than to pass an amendment for citizen-only voting. The amendment would strengthen our representative democracy, highlight the value of citizenship, and protect federal elections from the actions of one state. Congress should pass HJR 152 without delay.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

After 10 years in Congress, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., will be giving up his safe House seat in the hopes of serving his home state of Arizona, where the congressman is now the Republican nominee for governor.

In his bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, Biggs’ campaign has doubled down on the issues that animated Arizona Republicans in 2024: immigration, election integrity, and affordability. Following a series of losses in statewide races for Arizona Republicans, Biggs is hoping to buck the trend and spoke to the Daily Signal about his platform.

Arizona’s Election Integrity Concerns

As Republicans in Washington struggle to pass the SAVE America Act, an election integrity measure that would require voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote, Biggs wants Arizona to take election integrity matters into its own hands.

“We want to pass the Florida-style election integrity bill and get that signed very quickly,” Biggs told the Daily Signal.

The Florida SAVE Act, which Biggs calls the “gold standard” of election integrity, increases verification processes for U.S. citizenship, removes noncitizens from voter rolls, and requires the use of paper ballots to vote.

Biggs claimed Arizona has a reputation for insecure elections. Its current election laws, Biggs claims, create loopholes that allow noncitizens to register to vote in federal elections. If an individual attests to being a citizen but cannot provide proof of citizenship, Arizona registers the individual as a “federal-only” voter until the person can verify citizenship documents and vote a “full ballot” in all federal, state, and local elections.

And that’s if the system works properly. Two years ago, county election officials uncovered 98,000 individuals who could not prove their citizenship and were mistakenly given a “full ballot.” Yet Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled they could remain on the voter rolls.

“On that federal-only ballot, which impacts presidents, U.S. senators, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the [Arizona] Supreme Court said we have no jurisdiction over the date, time, and manner of that,” Biggs told the Daily Signal. “So that’s why the Save America Act is so critical for us, and I keep pitching it to my colleagues in D.C. They’re not listening, though.”

While in Washington, Biggs has introduced or co-sponsored major pieces of election integrity legislation. He is a co-sponsor of the SAVE America Act and also introduced the Voter Integrity Protection Act in 2025 to increase penalties for illegal immigrants who vote in federal elections.

Border Security Still Top of Mind

Biggs has also been a staunch advocate of border security and recognizes that secure borders are tied to secure elections.

Biggs currently serves as co-chair of the Congressional Border Security Caucus and has introduced multiple border security bills to “reverse the Biden-Harris regime’s disastrous open-border policies” that led to high levels of illegal immigration in the state.

In 2023, Phoenix’s illegal immigrant population reached 225,000, fueling concerns that noncitizens could be registering to vote if recent revelations in other states apply to Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security has identified more than 250,000 potential noncitizens who illegally registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Biggs has cultivated strong relationships with border enforcement officials such as White House border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whom he plans to work with to enforce immigration laws in Arizona.

“The first thing that we’ll do is we will reinstitute and refund the Border Security Task Force,” Biggs told the Daily Signal. “That will actually get everybody back into the 287(g) Program.”

The Border Security Task Force targets transnational criminal organizations and includes the 287(g) Program, which allows local jails, task forces, and warrant service officers to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Biggs plans to focus these programs on parts of the Arizona-Mexico border that are still open and secure the final stretches that remain vulnerable.

Affordability in Arizona?

One of the main narratives shaping the 2026 midterms is the affordability of everyday goods, and that’s especially the case in the Grand Canyon State.

If elected governor, Biggs would inherit the 45th-worst state in affordability, according to the Common Sense Institute. The report shows that after taxes and necessary expenses, the average Arizonan has less than 20% of his or her gross income remaining. Home prices in the state have more than doubled in the past decade.

Biggs believes prices can be brought down by fighting state government corruption.

“We are going to DOGE the heck out of our state, clean it up, clean it up of corruption, clean it up of fraud,” Biggs told the Daily Signal. “We’re gonna prosecute fraudsters, and we’re gonna save the state untold billions of dollars.”

Though many Republicans are expecting to take hits on the issue of affordability, Biggs thinks he can flip the script on his Democrat opponent.

Hobbs’ financial management of the state has long come under attack from Republicans. Recently, Republicans criticized her original fiscal year 2027 budget for its reliance on “fantasy revenue” from unpredictable data center growth and $760 million in grants from the federal government that are not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, utility costs have risen by 27% under Hobbs, who has vetoed legislation designed to curb rising rates. For example, Hobbs vetoed House Bill 2113 in June that would have allowed taxpayers to use Arizona’s residential customer advocate when faced with a 100% or greater increase in utility rates. Hobbs has blamed rising costs on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran, both of which are national issues.

Hobbs’ campaign did not respond to two email requests for comment by the time of publication.

A Friend of Charlie Kirk

Biggs’ run for governor has drawn endorsements from major political figures such as Trump and Vice President JD Vance, yet one endorsement from a close friend stands out. The late Charlie Kirk, founder of Phoenix-based Turning Point USA, officially endorsed Biggs in May 2025 on an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

“We are fully endorsing my friend, Andy Biggs,” Kirk said. “We are behind you 100%, and we’re excited to make you the next governor of the state of Arizona.”

Biggs was one of the last people Kirk endorsed before his assassination, which shook the nation on Sept. 10, 2025.

Kirk had anticipated celebrating his friend’s win on election night.

“On election night in 2026, which feels like a long time away, but boy, it’s going to be here just like this, we are going to be celebrating that my friend Andy Biggs is the next governor,” Kirk told a crowd of Arizonans.

Biggs hopes to pay homage to his late friend by erecting a statue in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. He has introduced H.Res. 842 “to honor his enduring legacy of free expression, civic leadership, and unwavering commitment to the American principles of faith, family, and freedom.” If Congress fails to pass the bill, Biggs hopes to erect a statue of Kirk in Arizona.

“If Congress doesn’t place the statue that I’ve introduced legislation for, then I would love for that statue to go here in Arizona,” Biggs told the Daily Signal.

Incumbent Gov. Hobbs vetoed two pieces of legislation earlier this year that would have renamed a state highway after Kirk and created a specialty license plate in his honor because it would have inserted “politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”

Backed by Kirk and Turning Point Action, Biggs now enters the final three months of a gubernatorial race that could be a barometer for how swing states are feeling two years into the Trump presidency and two years away from another critical presidential election.

The consumer price index edged up 0.1% last month after dropping 0.4% in June, which was the first decline in six years, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday.

In the 12 months through July, the index advanced 3.4% after rising 3.5% in June. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the index gained 0.2% last month after being unchanged in June. The so-called core consumer price index increased 2.5% in the 12 months through July after climbing 2.6% in June. 

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the consume price index rebounding 0.1% and core inflation rising 0.2% over the month.

The U.S. central bank tracks the personal consumption expenditures price indexes for its 2% inflation target. 

The consumer price index report followed news last week of surprise job losses last month. Prior to the report, financial markets saw a roughly 46% chance of a rate hike at the Fed’s Sept. 15-16 policy meeting, CME’s FedWatch tool showed. 

Policymakers will still get August’s consumer price index and employment reports before that meeting. Economists expect the pace of consumer price increases to pick up in August, reflecting the recent increase in oil prices. Job growth is also expected to rebound as seasonal distortions fade.

The Fed last month left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range. 

The United States’ position as a net oil exporter and the drawing down of petroleum inventories had cushioned the hit on the economy from the oil price shock sparked by the Middle East conflict, but some economists said that could not persist indefinitely. They also added that the U.S. and other nations would at some point need to replenish petroleum inventories, which would keep oil prices elevated.

President Donald Trump accused Iran of being “devious negotiators” in an interview released late on Monday and described some of his ​current options in the war—”just bop along” and let Tehran fail ‌economically or hit it “really, really hard.”

While July’s cooler inflation readings could further temper rate hike expectations, they would likely be of little comfort to consumers, with wages not keeping up with prices.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Chizu Nomiyama)

In Tuesday night’s Wisconsin Democrat gubernatorial primary, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley was declared the victor by the Associated Press early Wednesday morning at 3:34 a.m. EDT, capturing 39.8% of the vote to state Rep. Hong’s 39.4%.

“Now, David is focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results,” Garren Randolph, Crowley’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

The primary matchup was the latest test of whether centrist Democrats can maintain control of the party against a resurgent progressive wing. Crowley, backed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, will face Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., on the ballot in November.

Crowley’s Race

Throughout the campaign, Crowley emphasized his experience as a state legislator and was considered the establishment candidate.

Crowley, who served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 2017 to 2020 before working as a county executive, worked to pass Wisconsin Act 12, a piece of legislation that reformed state and local revenue sharing. As county executive, he signed the largest property tax cut in Milwaukee County history.

On the trail, Crowley focused on expanding childcare, backed electoral redistricting, and pushed for universal early childhood education.

Aside from the Evers endorsement, Crowley earned the support of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council. He also had the support of Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., whip of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Hong’s Battle

Leading up to the primary, Hong campaigned on a wide range of issues, such as universal childcare, gender-affirming care, increased rental regulations, and “taxing the rich.”

Hong has also called for fully abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and giving illegal aliens government-issued IDs, as well as in-state college tuition, and supported the idea of creating taxpayer-funded grocery stores while abolishing taxes imposed on unions.

Other policies Hong supports include abolishing life sentences for juveniles, legalizing marijuana, and enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.

On the campaign trail, Hong has received pushback on previous statements ranging from “defund the police” to her thoughts on Thanksgiving.

“I support defunding the police as a first step to abolishing them,” Hong previously wrote on X.

She has since disavowed those comments, saying that she’s “not running to defund the police,” and has campaigned on policies to increase public housing and health care and turn empty parking lots into public spaces as a solution to drive down the crime rate.

In November of 2020, Hong urged her followers on X not to “gather” on Thanksgiving, which she referred to as a “colonizer holiday.”

“Please DON’T gather for the colonizer holiday,” she wrote.

In February 2022, she wrote, “As if we weren’t invisible enough to those who don’t recognize the emotional & physical labor of service work, the worst of humanity comes out from folks ‘celebrating’ on another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”

Last week, however, Hong told Politico in an interview that she does not want to actually cancel Thanksgiving.

“I don’t want to cancel it,” Hong said. “I actually love it.”

Hong courted endorsements from the far left, with notable examples being Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and far-left social media influencer Hasan Piker.