Think More: Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Zeldin's $29 billion in referrals, a quarter-billion-dollar food fraud, an Iranian agent in New York, the accreditation racket, and the spending squeeze.
Lead · Follow the Money
Zeldin Sends Criminal Referrals Over Billions in Green Grants
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says he has referred several transactions to the agency’s inspector general and the Justice Department after finding that billions in Biden-era green grants flowed through nonprofit pass-throughs to former Obama and Biden officials and Democratic donors. He has flagged or blocked roughly $29 billion, including a $2 billion award to a group tied to Stacey Abrams that had reported $100 the prior year.
Follow the Money
A Second House Memo Maps Taxpayer Money to Anti-Israel NGOs
House Judiciary Committee | judiciary.house.gov
A new House Judiciary Committee memo, the second in a series, charges that the Biden-Harris administration funneled taxpayer money through USAID and the State Department to anti-Netanyahu NGOs and groups with alleged terrorist ties. It names the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which gave nearly $4 million, and the Tides Network, which gave over $1 million.
Feeding the Fraudsters: A Quarter-Billion-Dollar Meal Scam
Jennica Pounds | The American Mind
Aimee Bock, who ran the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was sentenced to nearly 42 years for orchestrating what the Justice Department calls the largest COVID fraud in the country, stealing close to $250 million meant for children’s meals. Seventy-eight defendants built shell companies and phantom sites; barely a quarter of the money has been recovered.
The Money, by the Figures
$29B
EPA grants flagged or blocked
$250M
Feeding Our Future fraud
$4M
Rockefeller Bros. to anti-Israel groups
The Reckoning at Justice
Blanche Says Jack Smith Files Turned Up in a Room of Burn Bags
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Sean Hannity’s podcast that the Justice Department found a room of documents from Jack Smith’s Trump investigation stored in burn bags. Their placement, he said, suggested an honorable FBI agent had tried to preserve rather than destroy them, echoing earlier discoveries by Kash Patel and Dan Bongino.
A Bar Complaint Targets a Biden DOJ Prosecutor’s License
Days after a progressive group moved against Blanche’s law license, a conservative group filed a bar complaint against the Biden Justice Department prosecutor behind its FACE Act cases against abortion protesters, calling the official a hyper-partisan ideologue who engaged in illegal conduct. The fight over lawyers’ licenses now runs in both directions.
The University on the Block
Heritage Makes the Case That Higher Ed Is Worse Than You Think
David Randall | Minding the Campus
David Randall reviews Heritage’s new collection, Higher Education in America: It’s Worse Than You Think, nineteen essays sorted into the economic model, the bureaucracy, the leftist monoculture, and where reform goes next. He judges it an accurate survey for newcomers, strongest where it turns from finance to culture.
The Accreditation Racket, and How to End It
Jonathan Butcher & Madison Marino Doan | The Daily Signal
Drawing on the same Heritage volume, Jonathan Butcher and Madison Marino Doan argue that accreditation, once a voluntary peer review, became a federal gatekeeper that buries colleges in paperwork and enforces ideological conformity. Trump called it a secret weapon for reform; the authors explain how to make it measure quality again.
Radicals and Their Backers
Two Communist Millionaires Feud, and Expose Their Network
Stu Smith reports on a public feud between two financiers of the American radical Left: Cox media heir Fergie Chambers and Shanghai-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham. Chambers’s complaint that Singham’s network smothered his direct-action campaigns offers a rare map of how foreign-linked money steers protest movements toward the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
An Iranian Agent Mapped a Manhattan Synagogue for Attack
Tal Fortgang examines the arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a Kata’ib Hizballah commander tied to the IRGC whom prosecutors say mapped a Manhattan synagogue while directing roughly twenty plots abroad. He was undone by an agent posing as a Mexican cartel member, a reminder of what a porous border can carry.
The Border and the Blue City
ICE Keeps Finding the Criminals Democrats Pretend Don’t Exist
David Manney tallies the criminal illegal aliens ICE arrested over the Memorial Day stretch, citing Homeland Security records: men convicted or charged with murder, child sexual abuse, drug trafficking, and violent assault. The arrests proceeded even as anti-ICE rioters assaulted federal agents in New Jersey.
At Delaney Hall, Democrats Stand for the Detainees
Christopher Tremoglie | Washington Examiner
Christopher Tremoglie watches Democrats rally at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall detention center against the facility that holds criminal illegal aliens, and reads it as a party that reserves its outrage for enforcement rather than for the crimes enforcement answers.
Seattle’s Library Cancels Its Drug-Paraphernalia Classes
Jonathan Choe | Fix Homelessness
Jonathan Choe reports that the Seattle Public Library canceled the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance’s drug-paraphernalia workshops after his recording exposed them, and after the library handed out free Narcan needle kits within easy reach of children. The classes simply moved to a nearby Episcopal church.
The Data and the Long View
Nearly Two-Thirds of Voters Say They Are Spending More
Scott Rasmussen | Napolitan News Service
Scott Rasmussen finds that 64% of registered voters say they are spending more than a year ago, including 26% who say much more. Only 20% report spending less. The squeeze crosses party lines and reaches even postgraduates and the most politically engaged.
The Tax Gimmick That Built New York
Kevin Hawickhorst | Foundation for American Innovation
Kevin Hawickhorst tells the odd story of how public finance, not just law, built modern New York: the 1890s consolidation of independent boroughs into one city, and the tax maneuvering that made the merger pay. A reminder that the machinery of government is older and stranger than the headlines.
