Think More: Thursday, May 21, 2026
The Justice Department indicts Raúl Castro, the DNC's disavowed 2024 autopsy, Rasmussen on the popular-vote compact, Samuelson on John Adams, and more.
U.S. Indicts Raúl Castro for the Brothers to the Rescue Murders
U.S. Department of Justice | Justice.gov
The Justice Department unsealed a superseding indictment charging former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five regime co-defendants over the February 24, 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue Cessnas in international waters, an attack that killed four men, three of them American citizens. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges in Miami, and right-of-center accounts amplified them within hours.
More Voter Fraud Charges Scream for the Senate to Pass the SAVE America Act
Kittle stacks the latest noncitizen-voting prosecutions, including a Canadian permanent resident in Saugus, Massachusetts charged with voting in four general elections since 2008, against the Democratic insistence that such fraud never happens. The arrests, he argues, make the Senate’s failure to pass documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements indefensible.
Self-Sabotage? Controversial Candidates Could Risk the Democrats’ Midterm Advantage
Steven Richards | Just the News
Democrats hold a six-to-eight-point generic-ballot lead and a 62% Trump disapproval number, but Richards catalogs the candidates testing that advantage: a Texas House hopeful who vowed to jail “American Zionists,” Maine’s tattoo-scandal Senate nominee, and a Michigan contender who refused to disavow a streamer that justified a CEO’s murder.
Read the Full DNC 2024 Campaign Autopsy
Democratic National Committee | Washington Examiner
The Democratic National Committee released its long-withheld 2024 autopsy, a roughly 192-page review built on more than 300 interviews across all 50 states. Chairman Ken Martin published it while disavowing it, annotating claims he could not verify. The report faults neglected state parties and a “persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters,” urging a renewed focus on Middle America and the South.
Just 35% Favor the National Popular Vote Compact
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
A new Napolitan News Service survey finds 35% of voters back the interstate compact pledging a state’s electoral votes to the national popular-vote winner, while a 42% plurality opposes it. Tellingly, a 50% plurality doubts California would actually honor the pledge if doing so meant handing the presidency to a Republican.
Two Americans Died Fighting for Filipino Communists
Smith traces how Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem, both killed last month in a Philippine counterterrorism operation, were drawn into the New People’s Army, the armed wing of a State Department-designated terrorist organization, through American campus chapters and diaspora networks such as Anakbayan-USA that operate here with little scrutiny.
Grifters, Activism, and Thomas Massie
Scott McKay | The American Spectator
McKay reads Thomas Massie’s primary defeat as a parable about the influencer-activist economy. The grifters, he argues, never sacrifice themselves; they recruit pliable true believers and move on. Massie’s constituents found him out, and the Kentucky congressman, McKay writes, did this to himself.
Learning on the Job
Richard Samuelson | Claremont Review of Books
Reviewing Lindsay Chervinsky’s Making the Presidency, Samuelson shows how John Adams, the man who coined “checks and balances,” learned to govern: asserting the president’s right to fire a disloyal cabinet and, in 1801, surrendering power peacefully amid bitter partisanship. Adams’s writings, he argues, still speak to today’s fights over executive power.
