Think More: Monday, June 29, 2026
The Court ends Humphrey's Executor, late ballots in Mississippi, judges reined in on immigration, the SPLC subpoena fight, and more.
Lead · The Court Draws the Lines
Overruling a 1935 Precedent, the Court Lets the President Fire FTC Commissioners
Supreme Court of the United States | supremecourt.gov
In Trump v. Slaughter, a 6-3 Court overruled Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 precedent that shielded independent-agency commissioners from removal, and held that the FTC’s for-cause protections violate the separation of powers. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts reasoned that officials who wield executive power must answer to the President, who answers to the people. The Court reserved the question of the Federal Reserve.
The Court Draws the Lines
Barrett Leads a 5-4 Court to Uphold Mississippi’s Late-Ballot Count
Kevin Killough & Ben Whedon | Just the News
A different 5-4 majority held that federal election-day statutes do not bar Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days later. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for an unusual coalition that included Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices. The practical reach, she noted, is narrow.
The Court Tells District Judges to Stop Making Immigration Policy
John C. Eastman | The American Mind
John C. Eastman reads two immigration rulings, Mullin v. Doe and Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, as a rebuke to government by nationwide injunction, a device that let one judge freeze national policy in days. The decisions reaffirm that immigration belongs to the elected branches, a limit that will bind future Democratic administrations too.
Follow the Money
A Manhattan Grand Jury Subpoenas a Shanghai-Based Marxist Financier’s Network
A federal grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas in a Justice Department probe of Neville Roy Singham, the Shanghai-based tech millionaire whose fortune has funded a web of socialist and pro-China organizations. Prosecutors under U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton are examining possible wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. Singham has not been charged.
House Judiciary Threatens the SPLC With Contempt as the Document Fight Drags On
House Judiciary Committee | judiciary.house.gov
Chairman Jim Jordan has given the Southern Poverty Law Center until July 9 to produce subpoenaed records on its paid “field sources” inside extremist groups, or face contempt. The subpoena fight trails an April indictment over the group’s donor money. Justice Thomas once warned the SPLC could “cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.”
Planned Parenthood’s Political Arm Targets Nine House Republicans With $2 Million
Bryan Hyde | American Greatness
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund has launched a $2 million campaign pressuring nine vulnerable House Republicans across six battleground states to oppose any permanent defunding of its clinics. It builds on a $1.5 million push from April. A one-year Medicaid bar enacted in last year’s reconciliation law cost the group, it says, more than $700 million.
The Federal Ledger
Washington Couldn’t Even Tally the $1.2 Billion It Spent to Counter China
Just the News details the Government Accountability Office’s audit of the roughly $1.2 billion the State Department and USAID spent on 470 projects to counter Chinese influence. When auditors asked how the money was used, more than 100 agency teams needed nearly five months to assemble records that were still incomplete and could not show what worked.
Drained for the Iran War, the Petroleum Reserve Has No Long-Term Plan
U.S. Government Accountability Office | gao.gov
As the United States draws down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to blunt the oil shock from the Iran war, the Government Accountability Office finds the reserve below 350 million barrels and burdened by a repair backlog and an underperforming $1.4 billion upgrade. No long-term strategy has been completed in nearly a decade.
The Republic in Question
The DSA’s New Platform Would Subordinate the President and the Court to Congress
A Federalist essay argues that the Democratic Socialists of America are the logical endpoint of the Democratic Party’s drift. The group’s June platform would subordinate the presidency and the Supreme Court to Congress and bring major industry under public ownership. Now more than 100,000 strong, DSA-backed candidates swept New York’s primaries this week.
After Nations: A Provocative Case That the Nation-State Is Finished
Graham McAleer | Law & Liberty
Reviewing Rana Dasgupta’s After Nations for Law & Liberty, Graham McAleer weighs the claim that the nation-state, home to nearly all of humanity only recently, is exhausted as a vehicle for order. Dasgupta would replace it with blockchain citizenship and a “nomad century.” McAleer admires the history but warns the cure amounts to a digitized oligarchy.
Only a Quarter of Voters Trust the Government, and the Skeptics Are Growing
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
A Napolitan News Service survey finds just 25% of voters trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time, while 35% now say they rarely or never do, up four points in a month. It has been more than 50 years since a majority trusted Washington to do right most of the time.
American distrust of Washington: Napolitan News Service, 1,000 voters, June 17-18
25%
Trust government most of the time
35%
Rarely or never trust it
50+ yrs
Since a majority last did
