AI, Technology & National Security
Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 on June 5, directing the military and intelligence community to accelerate AI adoption and terminate contracts with vendors that restrict government use of their products. The directive already had teeth: Anthropic lost parts of a $200 million Pentagon contract after refusing to remove restrictions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, while eight competitors — including SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft — are now cleared for the government’s highest-classified networks. One week after signing, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ordered Anthropic to suspend its two most advanced public models within hours, citing a national security jailbreak concern.
The AI arms race runs on electricity and water. U.S. data center power demand hit 41 gigawatts this year and is projected to reach 66 gigawatts by 2027, with grid interconnection requests already exceeding total U.S. electricity consumption in 2023. In areas of high data center concentration, electricity prices have climbed 267 percent over five years — and the bill lands on residential customers, not tech companies.
On June 12, Elon Musk rang the Nasdaq opening bell as the world’s first trillionaire, with SpaceX’s IPO raising $75 billion — triple the size of any prior offering — and shares closing their first day 19 percent above the offering price. The same week, Jeff Bezos watched Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explode on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral during an engine test, grounding the company’s only heavy-lift vehicle indefinitely and putting NASA’s Artemis lunar timeline at risk.
Trump’s Political Machine
Trump-endorsed candidates have won 118 consecutive contested Republican primaries in 2026 — 101 House races, nine Senate contests, and eight gubernatorial primaries — with the one loss coming by less than one point in Iowa, in a race Trump himself said he was pushed into endorsing. Two Republican senators and a House member have already been ousted. Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, who backed one of those ousted members, is now on notice: a source close to Trump told the New York Post a primary challenge is a “next-cycle thing” for 2028.
Inside the Capitol, that party unity has a visible crack. Twenty House Republicans broke with Speaker Mike Johnson on June 9 to pass the Faster Labor Contracts Act alongside every House Democrat, forcing the vote through a discharge petition that bypasses leadership entirely. The bill — backed by the Teamsters and championed by Sen. Josh Hawley — would impose binding arbitration if union contract talks stall past 120 days, a direct response to employers running out the clock on workers who voted to organize years ago.
Government, Fraud & Accountability
Nine defendants were charged in Ohio this week in Medicaid fraud schemes totaling more than $42 million, part of a federal crackdown that followed a $90 million takedown in Minnesota last month. A single building at 6161 Busch Boulevard in Columbus houses 94 companies that recently billed Medicaid $66 million; seized assets included six Mercedes-Benz, a Bentley, a BMW, a Jaguar, a Maserati, and a McLaren. The DOJ also announced a new data-sharing agreement with Ohio’s Secretary of State to track ownership links between shell clinics — infrastructure it intends to replicate nationwide.
The May jobs report showed 172,000 jobs added — more than double forecasts — but the second-largest sector gain came from local government, up 55,000 on the back of record property tax collections. DOGE cut over 300,000 federal positions in the past year; local governments absorbed displaced workers and sent the cost to local taxpayers instead of federal ones.
Congress voted in January to keep funding a federal mandate requiring anti-impairment surveillance systems in every new car sold in America — with no opt-out for buyers — even after NHTSA told lawmakers in February that no technology exists that can perform the function accurately. At 99.9 percent detection accuracy, the math produces millions of false positives annually. A Massie amendment to defund the program failed 164 to 268. The mandate does not expire.
Crime, Courts & Public Safety
A federal judge ruled June 9 that Decarlos Brown Jr. — accused of stabbing 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death on a Charlotte commuter train last August — is mentally incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to a federal medical facility for treatment. Brown had 14 prior cases in Mecklenburg County, a prior armed robbery conviction, and a court-ordered forensic evaluation signed 25 days before the killing that was the last action in his case before August 22. North Carolina passed Iryna’s Law within weeks of her death; the federal trial is now on hold.
A federal judge cleared the UFC’s White House South Lawn fight card Friday, dismissing a last-minute lawsuit on standing without ruling on whether the administration broke federal law in hosting it. The legal questions — whether the UFC qualifies under the only applicable NPS exception, whether a 600-ton steel structure required congressional authorization, and whether NEPA required an environmental assessment — remain unresolved. Judge Mehta noted that blocking the event would cause “substantial harm” given the $60 million production cost already committed.
A flesh-eating livestock parasite eradicated from the United States in 1966 returned June 3, spread 400 miles across Texas and into New Mexico within nine days, and triggered emergency responses from USDA, the CDC, and the State of Texas. Nine cases are confirmed. The only proven eradication tool — sterile fly release — is constrained by a production facility that won’t be operational until fall 2027. Governor Abbott is pushing to accelerate that by six months: “We can’t make it through a second summer.”
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