Think More: Thursday, June 18, 2026
A socialist takes the capital, the DSA's program in writing, California's taxpayer-funded vote machine, Colorado's compelled-speech law, a bill to let children leave their parents, and more.
Lead · The Left Stops Pretending
A Socialist Takes Washington, and Trump Vows to Take It Back
Steven Richards | Just the News
Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist in the Mamdani mold, leads Kenyan McDuffie by roughly 53% to 37% in the District’s first ranked-choice primary, all but assuring her the mayoralty of the city Donald Trump has pledged to remake. She has championed social housing and once vowed to defund the police, a pledge she now disowns. Trump warns he may run the capital federally instead.
The Left Stops Pretending
The DSA Puts Its Program in Writing: Abolish the Senate
Meeting this month, the DSA’s leadership adopted “Workers Deserve More!”, a platform to abolish the Senate, subordinate the President and Supreme Court to Congress, defund the Department of War, and grant universal amnesty. The prison-abolition plank passed 16 to 8. Stu Smith notes the group grows more radical even as more of its members win office.
The Taxpayers Fund California’s Immigrant Vote Machine
Chris Bray | Tell Me How This Ends
Writing from California, Chris Bray spotlights CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which takes city, county, state, and federal money and openly runs an “Immigrant Political Power Project.” By its own account, Bray says, it canvasses with activists including illegal immigrants and endorses candidates for the offices that control its funding. He reads it as a sign of one-directional decline.
Rule by Grievance
Colorado Defends Its Pronoun Law as a Three-Time Speech Loser
A trio of appeals reached the 10th Circuit to undo Colorado’s year-old ban on deadnaming and misgendering, brought by XX-XY Athletics, the Christian bookstore Born Again Books, and a coalition led by Defending Education. Briefs from the Manhattan Institute, the Independent Women’s Law Center, and Harmeet Dhillon’s Center for American Liberty brand Colorado a “three-time Supreme Court loser” in eight years.
Henry Nowak’s Death Exposes Britain’s Two-Tier Justice
Noel Yaxley | The American Mind
Noel Yaxley, in The American Mind, ties the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak to what critics call Britain’s two-tier policing. After a false accusation of racism, officers handcuffed the stabbed teenager as he said he could not breathe. Yaxley links the failure to anti-racist police doctrine and to a permissive immigration policy that, in his telling, admits men who despise the West.
California Moves to Let Children File Against Their Parents in Secret
Erin Friday | The Post Millennial
Assembly Bill 1967, from Assemblymember Rick Zbur, would let a minor in a residential facility open state dependency proceedings against parents who need not be notified until the matter is decided. Erin Friday, writing for The Post Millennial, warns that “emotional abuse” is elastic enough to reach a parent who declines a child’s gender claims, and that custody can shift before any defense is mounted.
California’s AB 1967, by the cost and the clock
$17,616
Monthly funding a placement facility can draw
14 Days
Court deadline to order a petition filed
18 Months
Until a dependency case must resolve
Governing the Machine
The Anthropic Standoff Shows AI Governance by Grudge, Not Rules
Dean W. Ball | Hyperdimensional
Dean Ball reconstructs the rupture between Anthropic and the Trump administration: after a jailbreak of the company’s Fable model, officials demanded a takedown, and when Anthropic refused, Washington imposed worldwide export controls that pulled the model globally. Ball argues that frontier AI now needs an explicit federal green light, and that governing by grudge yields chaos rather than American dominance.
FERC Orders Six Grid Operators to Rewrite the Rules for Data Centers
Callie Patteson | Washington Examiner
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered six grid operators, among them PJM and the California ISO, to defend or rewrite their rules for large loads such as data centers, calling the terms “unjust and unreasonable.” The move aids the administration’s AI build-out even as data-center demand lifts electricity bills, a liability for Republicans before the midterms. Chairwoman Laura Swett said the orders respect state authority.
The Balance Sheet
Moolenaar and Stefanik Tell the Pentagon to Cut Beijing’s Lobbyists Loose
Select Committee on the CCP | chinaselectcommittee.house.gov
Chairman John Moolenaar and Elise Stefanik, who chairs House Republican leadership, pressed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to enforce a coming ban barring Pentagon contractors from retaining lobbyists who also represent Chinese military companies on the 1260H List. They urged that it reach current contractors, capture U.S. subsidiaries of listed firms, and read “lobbying activities” broadly. The letter follows a fresh expansion of the list.
Remote Work Hits Equilibrium as CEO Mandates Fail to Move It
Justin Lahart | Hoover Institution
Justin Lahart reports that remote work has settled into equilibrium: about 26% of paid full days were worked from home in May, little changed from two years earlier, despite return-to-office decrees from JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and others. Stanford’s Nick Bloom expects the share to rise over time, as younger executives comfortable with remote work replace the bosses who resist it.
