Think More: Monday, June 15, 2026
The Navy escorts tankers out of Hormuz, ICE pulls voter files, the captured academy, 300,000 migrant kids missing, and more.
Lead · The Iran Bargain
The Navy Is Escorting Tankers Out of Hormuz as Trump Weighs an Iran Deal
Maydeen Merino | Washington Examiner
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told CNBC the Navy is now guiding more than 20 crude carriers a night through the Strait of Hormuz, some holding 2 million barrels, after Iran’s effective closure of the waterway since February throttled global supply and battered Trump politically. The president claims a secret mission pulled 100 million barrels free; oil still trades between $90 and $100 as he teases a ceasefire with Tehran.
The Iran Bargain
Lee Smith: Trump’s Iran Deal Is Becoming Obama’s
Lee Smith argues that the Iran framework Vice President JD Vance is negotiating has curdled into the very bargain Trump spent a decade mocking. Reports Friday say the UAE is releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets, $3 billion already delivered. Smith’s verdict: paying Tehran up front, while restraining Israel, is the JCPOA repackaged.
Proof of Citizenship
ICE Is Pulling County Voter Files to Hunt Noncitizen Voters
Carter Schroppe | Washington Examiner
Homeland Security investigators obtained individual voter records in Webb County, Texas and Forsyth County, North Carolina, emails released to Axios show, part of a multi-agency push before the November midterms. The Webb County administrator reported two noncitizen votes among more than 150,000 voters in four years. Heritage’s database logs about 100 such cases nationally from 1982 to 2025.
Hundreds of Noncitizens Surface on New Jersey’s Voter Rolls
Brianna Lyman | The Federalist
New Jersey Republicans say records from at least eight of the state’s 21 counties turned up hundreds of noncitizens registered to vote, many through the motor-vehicle system, most discovered only when the registrants asked to be removed. The find lands days after four Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins, joined Democrats to block a SAVE Act amendment.
The Captured Academy
Florida Can’t Find a University President Who Hasn’t Championed DEI
David Randall | The American Mind
David Randall of the National Association of Scholars reads the University of Florida’s stalled presidential search, which cycled from Santa Ono to Stuart Bell, as proof that faculty committees filter out reformers before a deanship. His fix: a “Sasse Society,” a Federalist Society for administrators, to supply the 16,000 leaders he says public universities need.
Most Law Professors Now Self-Censor, and Fear the Cost of Speaking
FIRE surveyed faculty at 192 of 197 ABA-accredited law schools and found 56% at least occasionally hold their tongue, climbing to 72% among conservatives but reaching 50% of liberals too. Most reject DEI statements in hiring and tenure, and 81% say a liberal fits their school against 44% for a conservative.
Two Public Universities Call Their Syllabi “Trade Secrets” to Dodge Records Requests
The University of Idaho and University of Minnesota refused a conservative group’s public-records requests for syllabi from gender-studies and sexuality courses, calling the documents trade secrets or protected intellectual property. The American Accountability Foundation notes a Minnesota appeals court already rejected the same copyright dodge, and has set a June 12 deadline before going to court.
The Washington Ledger
Just 29% of Voters Say Congress Upholds the Nation’s Values
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
A Napolitan News Service survey by Scott Rasmussen finds 64% of voters believe most Americans still hold to the country’s core values of freedom, equality, and self-governance, but only 29% say the same of Congress, while 50% say it does not. By 64% to 28%, voters also want politicians to represent constituents over party.
Gabbard Declassifies Contested Claims of a U.S.-Funded Global Biolab Network
Office of the Director of National Intelligence | dni.gov
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released declassified slides asserting Washington has long funded more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including vulnerable sites in Ukraine, and accused prior officials of burying the program. The claims, which revive a politically charged dispute earlier assessed by intelligence officials as Russian disinformation, remain contested; she ties them to Trump’s 2025 order ending gain-of-function funding.
Trump Centralizes Federal Cyber Authority Under the NSA
The White House | whitehouse.gov
A new national security memorandum, NSPM-12, rebuilds the government’s cyber chain of command: it re-establishes the Committee on National Security Systems, names the NSA director as National Manager for the classified military and intelligence networks, rescinds a 1990 directive and a 2022 Biden memo, and makes agency heads accountable for defending their own systems.
Children and the State
DOJ Says 300,000 Migrant Children Remain Unaccounted For
Bethany Blankley | Just the News
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the government has identified more than 475,000 unaccompanied minors brought across the border during the Biden years and cannot account for some 300,000 of them, with about 146,000 located so far. Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin pointed to 15,500 “super-sponsor” cases, where one adult claimed multiple unrelated children, as evidence of a vetting collapse.
California’s SB 934 Would Open Therapists to Suits for Questioning a Child’s Trans Identity
California’s SB 934, from state Senator Scott Wiener, would let people who underwent “conversion therapy” sue practitioners years later, under a statute of limitations critics call effectively perpetual. After the Supreme Court’s 8-1 Chiles v. Salazar ruling protected such counseling as speech, the bill was rewritten as content-neutral, barring any push to steer a minor toward a preset identity. It has cleared the Senate and is moving through the Assembly.
By the DOJ’s own count: unaccompanied minors brought across the border under the prior administration
475,000
Minors brought in
300,000
Still unaccounted for
146,000
Located so far
