Think More: Tuesday, June 16, 2026
A foiled massacre at the fight, an FBI raid in Ohio, Washington versus the AI labs, home equity stripped in D.C., and more.
Lead · The Federal Hand
FBI Foils Drone-and-Sniper Plot Against UFC 250 at the White House
The FBI says it dismantled a plot involving as many as two dozen people to strike Sunday’s UFC 250 card on the White House South Lawn, using explosive-laden drones to stampede the crowd into waiting snipers. At least five are in custody, and agents are tracing 18 others through encrypted chats. Director Kash Patel said the planned attacks were stopped cold; indictments are expected within days.
The Federal Hand
FBI Raids a Soros-Funded Voter Operation in Ohio
Agents executed search warrants June 11 at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, questioning members statewide and seizing devices; CBS News sources tie the raid to a fraud probe. The Soros-funded group calls the timing political intimidation. The Justice Department says only that a judge approved the warrants, and a canvasser tied to the group pleaded guilty to registration fraud in 2017.
Commerce Forces Anthropic to Pull Its Top AI Models
A Friday Commerce Department letter invoked an obscure export-control directive to bar non-Americans, including Anthropic’s own staff, from its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 systems over an unspecified security concern. Anthropic pulled both models for every customer. Security researchers and reporting in Axios cast the action as retaliatory rather than technical, and the administration has yet to explain itself.
Comer’s Two Letters
Comer Targets D.C.’s Home-Equity Seizures
House Oversight Committee | oversight.house.gov
House Oversight wants answers from the D.C. Council on a foreclosure practice the Supreme Court has already condemned. The District sells tax liens to private investors at 18% interest, then keeps the surplus when homes are seized. Comer notes that 2023’s unanimous Tyler v. Hennepin ruling bars exactly this, and that the District remains one of the last jurisdictions not to comply.
Comer Probes Norm Eisen’s Nonprofit for Pay-to-Play
The committee’s second letter goes to former Ambassador Norm Eisen, whose State Democracy Defenders Fund it suspects of steering 501(c)(3) donor money toward private interests. Comer flags its campaigns against Apple, the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger, and select unions, work he says looks only loosely tied to a charitable purpose. The inquiry extends a years-long look at politicized tax-exempt groups.
Inside D.C.’s tax-lien foreclosures, by Comer’s account
80%
Home equity lost, on average
20%
Debt as a share of home value
18%
Annual interest to lien investors
The Squeeze
Nearly Half of Voters Say Every Dollar Goes to Bills
Napolitan News Service | napolitannews.org
A new Napolitan News Service survey finds 47% of registered voters saying every dollar they earn goes to living expenses, up three points in two weeks. Just half paid their credit cards in full last month, and another 47% say a surprise $1,000 bill would force them to cut back. The paycheck may hold; the cushion is gone.
Americans Lost $3.5 Billion to Imposter Scams Last Year
Federal Trade Commission | ftc.gov
The FTC reports $3.5 billion in losses to imposter scams in 2025, nearly triple the 2020 figure, with fake banks and government agencies leading the way. Such schemes now drive almost one in three fraud complaints. Total reported fraud reached roughly $16 billion, a record, up about 25% in a year. The con has gone industrial.
Colorado Shows How States Hide Spending Off the Books
Thomas Savidge tracks the off-budget enterprises that let governments spend without owning the cost. Colorado’s fee-funded enterprises sit outside its tax-and-spending cap; their revenue has grown from $742 million in the mid-1990s to $23.3 billion. One health-care enterprise alone has pulled in $24.2 billion since 2017. The bill still lands on citizens, just where the ledger cannot show it.
Equality, Contested
Clarence Thomas Makes the Case for the Declaration at 250
Lucas Morel | The American Mind
In a semiquincentennial address at the University of Texas, Justice Clarence Thomas grounds American equality in God and nature rather than government, and indicts the Wilsonian progressivism that traded natural rights for rule by experts. Lucas Morel reads the speech as a civics lesson: reciting the creed will not save it, since each generation must, like the founders, act in its defense.
Democratic AGs Sue Over Trump’s Anti-DEI Funding Rules
Victoria Montilla | The College Fix
A coalition of higher-education groups and 20 mostly Democratic attorneys general, co-led by Maryland’s Anthony Brown, sues to block the rule conditioning federal contracts on rejecting DEI. They call the mandate vague and improperly imposed. The administration counters that race-based preferences already violate civil-rights law. The courts will decide whose reading of equality governs.
