Think More: Thursday, June 25, 2026
The Court rules on TPS and concealed carry, campus speech codes, the SNAP fraud fight, Newsom's circle of corruption, and more.
Lead · The Gavel Comes Down
The Court Clears Trump to End Temporary Protected Status
Supreme Court of the United States | supremecourt.gov
In Mullin v. Doe, a 6-3 Supreme Court held that immigrants from Syria and Haiti cannot block the termination of their Temporary Protected Status, ruling that the governing statute forecloses judicial review of all but constitutional claims. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, also rejected a claim that Haiti’s termination was driven by race. The administration has now ended 13 TPS designations in a row.
The Gavel Comes Down
Hawaii Can’t Ban Concealed Carry in Public Businesses
Hours after the TPS decision, the Supreme Court struck down Hawaii’s law barring licensed concealed-carry holders from private property open to the public without the owner’s consent. In Wolford v. Lopez, a 6-3 majority found the so-called “vampire rule” inverted the default and violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. Alito again wrote for the Court.
Students Sue California and Minnesota Over Gender-Speech Codes
Young America’s Foundation and Defending Education filed federal suits against the University of Minnesota and the University of California, calling harassment policies that punish misgendering and “deadnaming” unconstitutional speech codes. Gov. Gavin Newsom is named as a U.C. regent. Just the News reports the plaintiffs say the rules are too vague to follow.
The Audit
Team Trump Exposes Billions in Fraud as the States Stonewall
A New York Post opinion column argues Vice President Vance’s anti-fraud task force is surfacing tens of billions in stolen funds across Medicaid, daycare subsidies, and food aid, even as Democratic governors stonewall the audits that would expose more. It ties the blue-state refusal to share SNAP data to the waste taxpayers keep funding.
Newsom’s Circle: A Roster of Convicted Associates
Christopher Rufo, Jedd McFetter & Susan Crabtree | christopherrufo.com
With Newsom reportedly under federal investigation, Christopher Rufo and two colleagues catalog the governor’s “circle of corruption” from his San Francisco years. Among the convicted: former chief of staff Dana Williamson, who pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy, and ex-works director Mohammed Nuru, given seven years. California’s ethics board also fined Newsom over behested payments.
Burchett Presses Five Blue States Withholding SNAP Fraud Data
House Oversight Committee | oversight.house.gov
Representative Tim Burchett’s oversight subcommittee is pressing the governors of California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the five largest SNAP states that refused to give USDA data sought to hunt fraud. SNAP cost $100 billion in fiscal 2024 at a payment error rate near 11%. Twenty-nine states, mostly Republican-led, complied.
What Washington spends on SNAP, and loses to error
$100B
SNAP cost, FY 2024
~11%
payment error rate
$10B
paid out improperly
The Socialist Moment
Mamdani’s Slate Sweeps New York, and the DSA Eyes 2028
Three candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept New York congressional primaries Tuesday, toppling two incumbents and announcing the Democratic Socialists of America as a real force. Politico reports the DSA is surveying its 250 chapters on whom to run for president in 2028, with a vote next year. Ocasio-Cortez looms over every list.
The Cure for Zero-Sum Politics Is Visible Mutual Gain
John O. McGinnis | Law & Liberty
Writing in Law & Liberty, John McGinnis diagnoses grievance politics of both parties as one error: treating another’s gain as your loss, whether the villain is the billionaire or the immigrant. As the markets and civic associations that once taught mutual gain decay, he argues, politics supplies enemies. His fixes: licensing reform, open primaries, and federalism.
Voters Still Rate the Economy Poor, by Wide Margins
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
The economic mood underwriting that leftward turn stays sour: 42% of voters rate the U.S. economy poor and just 28% call it good or excellent, in Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan News Service survey. A narrow majority, 54%, say it is getting worse, and Republicans are far likelier than Democrats to see the economy positively.
The Uses of Force
The Real Test in Ukraine Is the Peace That Follows
In Lyceum, former Trump official Dave Harvilicz argues the West asked the wrong question about Russia, fixating on punishment rather than what a durable peace should look like. A settlement leaving Ukraine sovereign, armed, and integrated with Europe could pull Russia from China’s orbit. The century’s defining contest, he writes, is with Beijing, not Moscow.
The Military Already Has Its Rules for Autonomous Weapons
Will Thibeau | The American Mind
Will Thibeau argues in The American Mind that the autonomous-weapons debate keeps inventing a moral problem the military already solved. Its “weapons control statuses,” set by a commander to fit the mission, scale from human troops to machines: weapons free in the Taiwan Strait, weapons hold in Tehran. The fix is doctrine, not new ethics.
Antifa Ringleader Gets 100 Years for the Texas ICE Attack
A federal judge sentenced Benjamin Song, ringleader of a 2025 armed assault on a Texas ICE detention center, to 100 years, with eight co-defendants drawing 30 to 70 years. In Power Line, John Hinderaker calls it the first prosecution under Trump’s order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. The attackers shot a responding officer.
