June 26, 2026
Vol. 15, No. 2310

GET OUT!: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority  handed down two big wins for President Trump yesterday, broadly increasing his power over immigration. 

  One decision allows the government to turn way migrants seeking asylum at the border with Mexico and the other lets the Trump administration end humanitarian protection, temporary protected status,  permitting  people from Haiti and Syria to live and work legally in the US for more than 10 years. The decisions were both divided 6-3 along the court’s ideological lines as the conservatives continue to bolster the president. 

  That second ruling could allow the administration to expel hundreds of thousands of people from the country, emptying out whole immigrant communities that have taken root.

  Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent that the court has endorsed the administration’s decision to “slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution.” She also said Trump’s motives are racial, repeating his statements that Haitians in Ohio were “eating the dogs … . They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people.”

  Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller said on Fox News that, “This is a victory ten years in the making,” and “We can finally remove these Haitian illegal migrants from the United States.”

EARTHQUAKE: The number of dead in Venezuela’s double earthquake has risen to 235 and is certain to climb higher. Search and rescue crews from around the world are pouring in but the airport in Caracas was severely damaged, hindering the arrival of people and supplies.

  The two severe quakes toppled high-rises and pancaked other buildings. Aerial video shows that the damage is widespread and severe. Hundreds of people are missing or trapped in the rubble.

THE WAR ROOM:  Iran attacked a container ship yesterday and reasserted that it has control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz while the end of the war remains unresolved.

  Iran’s foreign ministry said that a provision of the US-Iran temporary deal calls on Tehran to arrange safe passage for commercial vessels.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM: New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 to freeze the rent for rent-stabilized apartments in New York, delivering on one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promises. The order affects 40 percent of apartments in New York’s five boroughs, about one million units.

THE KING’S TAXES: King Charles III  became the first reigning British monarch to disclose his personal taxes, breaking the tradition of keeping the peasantry out of the royal financial business.

  Charles pays his taxes in British pounds, but he has enriched the treasury by the equivalent of $40 million since taking the throne in 2022. That sounds like a lot, but the king did not reveal his total income or where it comes from. Still, he’s not required to pay taxes at all.

  The official business of being king is paid for by the annual Sovereign Grant, taxpayer funding from the government which has reached $182 million.

INFINITE SCROLL: 

— Vice President JD Vance said during an appearance for the Richard Nixon Fondation that the late president who resigned in disgrace had been taken down by the “deep state” and that the Watergate scandal today would be “a 12-hour news story.”

  Vance said, “It’s not all that different from what the same institutions, the same group of people tried to do to Donald Trump in his first term.”

  Nixon tried to subvert Democracy and so did Donald Trump.

— A federal Judge in Massachusetts yesterday blocked portions of President Trump’s executive order that would limit who is eligible to vote by mail. The Constitution clearly says that the states run elections,

  Trump claims he is intent on election security while attacking methods of voting more popular with Democrats.

— President Trump’s “Great American State Fair” on the Washington Mall features a plywood mockup of the 250-foot victory arch he plans to build.

— Former President Barack Obama told two podcast hosts that President Trump is obsessed with him. “Look, you got to ask him what it is — the obsession,” Obama told former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “I obviously, you know, have a room in his head — a suite — in his head.”

THE GURU SPEAKS:  The Washington Post ran an investigative story revealing that Former National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard while she was a member of Congress followed word for word the instructions of a Hare Krishna guru presiding over  Hawaii religious cult called the Science of Identity Foundation.

  The Post was leaked hundreds of confidential memos that reveal the man, 78-year-old Chris Butler, directly guiding and instructing Gabbard about media appearances, social media posts, and legislation when she served in Congress as a Democrat.

  The Post found several instances in which Gabbard delivered nearly word for word in public appearances what she had been instructed to say. She also put up verbatim posts in Twitter at the time.

  Post reporter John Swaine wrote that he and a colleague looked at Gabbard’s public appearances, finding that, “On 24 occasions, Gabbard used language in the memos almost verbatim. In the eight other instances, Gabbard used different words but promoted some of the same ideas.”

THE OBIT PAGE: David Clayton-Thomas, once a homeless runway in Toronto who went on to become the lead singer of the blues-inspired band Blood, Sweat & Tears, fronting the songs “Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” died on Wednesday in Toronto. He was 84.

THE SPIN RACK: Florida’s vaunted “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center for illegal immigrants will close, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Detainees and even former guards have said conditions there were miserable. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Federal Emergency Management official Gregg Phillips, who claims he was once teleported to a Waffle House, has been asked to step down because of the way he’s perceived. He has not said whether he’s walking or teleporting out of the office.

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