Think More: Monday, July 13, 2026
DOJ noncitizen voting cases, the DSA's Michigan run, $225M in school fraud, and the coming end of mass literacy.
Lead · The Midterm Map
Justice Department Wins Two Dozen Noncitizen Voting Cases, With 90 More Under Investigation
The Trump Justice Department has secured roughly two dozen arrests, prosecutions, or convictions for noncitizen voting in recent months, with about 90 cases still open, John Solomon reports. Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the Civil Rights Division, says every state has been warned that election officials who knowingly enroll noncitizens can be prosecuted themselves. The dozen or so states that opened their rolls found 20,000 to 30,000 noncitizens.
The noncitizen voting docket: Justice Department figures reported by Just the News, July 12
2 dozen
Arrests, prosecutions, or convictions
90
More cases under investigation
20K to 30K
Noncitizens found on cooperating states’ rolls
The Midterm Map
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Take the Michigan Senate Primary for Abdul El-Sayed
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will rally with Abdul El-Sayed in Detroit, Lansing, and Grand Rapids on July 18 and 19, weeks before Michigan’s August 4 Democratic primary. El-Sayed runs on Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and freezing property taxes for seniors. Haley Stevens holds the establishment lane, backed by more than 17 unions.
Iran Had Slipped to Fourth on the Voters’ Worry List, and Then the Ceasefire Collapsed
Napolitan News Service | napolitannews.org
Asked in their own words to name the most important issue facing the country, 37% of voters said the economy, while politics and immigration tied at 12% apiece. The war with Iran, which topped the same open-ended list in the spring, had fallen to fourth. The survey closed days before President Trump announced the ceasefire’s end.
Prosecutors and Patrons
A Prosecutors’ Coalition Formed to Charge ICE Agents Runs on Donors It Will Not Name
Jessica Costescu | Washington Free Beacon
Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and Hennepin County’s Mary Moriarty built the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach to prosecute federal immigration agents, and members say the operation is bankrolled entirely by outside donors whose names stay hidden. Rachel Paulose, a former U.S. attorney, told the Free Beacon the arrangement raises “stunning concerns about impartiality.”
Paramount’s Advisers Want Out of California if Bonta Sues to Block the Warner Deal
David Ellison’s advisers have urged him to move Paramount’s headquarters and redirect much of its $30 billion in annual content spending out of California if Attorney General Rob Bonta sues to stop the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Semafor reports. Ellison, who moved the company to Los Angeles last year, remains reluctant to go.
What the Schools Are Losing
Federal Auditors Have Logged $225 Million in Alleged K-12 Fraud Since 2019
Open the Books | openthebooks.substack.com
Working with the State Financial Officers Foundation, Open the Books tallied more than $225 million in alleged fraud across more than 90 Education Department inspector general cases since 2019. A Los Angeles charter school director admitted stealing over $3 million, including $220,600 spent on Disney cruises and theme parks. Education Secretary Linda McMahon says K-12 is next.
A Brown Economist Says Half His Class Cheated, and the University Was Slow to Act
Roberto Serrano | The Free Press
Roberto Serrano, who has taught economics at Brown for 34 years, moved his exams to a take-home format and watched enrollment jump to 86. The midterm average came in at 96, with 40 perfect scores, against a historical range of 65 to 80. Answers matched what ChatGPT produced when he fed it his own questions.
Conscience and Its Cost
Xi’s Police Are Emptying China’s Underground Churches
Allegra Mendelson | The Telegraph
Armed police stormed the Early Rain Covenant Church last month and detained more than 30 members, the Telegraph reports, part of a decade-long campaign that ChinaAid founder Bob Fu says has swept up more than 10,000 people. Beijing recognizes only state-controlled congregations. An estimated 115 million Chinese Christians worship outside them.
Michael Pack’s New Documentary Revisits the Scientists Who Dissented on Lockdowns
Christian Toto | Just the News
Michael Pack, working with the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, has made “The Lockdown Dissidents,” which follows Jay Bhattacharya and the Great Barrington Declaration through the professional punishment and platform bans that followed. Pack argues the suppression was the deeper scandal, and that science in particular cannot afford to silence counter views.
The Post-Literate Public
Only 7% of Instagram Time Is Spent on People You Actually Follow
Andrey Mir takes up NYU psychologist Jay Van Bavel’s finding that just 7% of time on Instagram and 17% on Facebook involves friends or followed accounts, with the rest algorithmic video from strangers. More than half of long posts on Meta are now written by AI. Engagement has reverted to broadcasting.
If Mass Literacy Dies, the People Who Still Read Will Rule
Peachy Keenan takes up The Atlantic‘s claim that the age of reading is ending and finds the credentialed class already surrendering: a Harvard adviser describes a student who used ChatGPT to translate A Clockwork Orange. Her counsel is to hoard hardcovers and imitate the Irish monks who kept the flame for six centuries.
