Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Blanche Swore the Slush Fund Was Dead. So Why Is His DOJ Fighting to Revive It?
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on August 2 that he’d rescinded Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis took him at his word and voted to confirm Trump’s former personal lawyer. On Friday, that same Justice Department filed a notice of appeal in Miami federal court, fighting the ruling that killed the fund. The filing says the government is “reserving all rights and waiving nothing.” The fund came out of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The settlement would’ve handed apologies and taxpayer cash to anyone claiming to be a victim of lawfare. Critics called it a slush fund for Trump’s friends. What did Cornyn and Tillis get for their votes? Nothing. When a promise to the Senate lasts six weeks, there’s no check left on this president.
Trump Yanks $25 Million From National Parks and Leaves Joshua Tree to Burn
The Interior Department has rejected more than 130 planned projects at national parks, freezing at least $25 million that Congress and federal programs had already approved. The Washington Post got the documents. Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion took hits. Joshua Tree got hit hardest, losing at least 10 agreements, including wildfire prevention and clearing hantavirus-carrying rodents out of historic buildings. Interior’s own memo warned the park won’t be able to fight wildfire. Denali lost funding for three workers who care for the sled dogs rangers use in winter. Interior spokesperson Aubrie Spady said the groups were “actively working against the best interests of the American people.” She wouldn’t say how. When a president can strangle money Congress already appropriated because he doesn’t like a nonprofit, the power of the purse is gone.
Hegseth Rewrites 9/11 History to Sell the Iran War. Did Iran Really Cheer That Day?
At the Pentagon on the 25th anniversary, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed Iran is an Islamic theocracy “that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11.” It’s a flat lie. On September 11, 2001, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami went on state television to condemn the attacks. A week later, 2,000 Iranians held a candlelight vigil in Tehran. 50,000 soccer fans observed a minute of silence at a World Cup qualifier. Khatami asked to visit Ground Zero and light a candle. The Bush administration said no. Now Trump’s war has run six months, killed about 8,000 people, and cost the average American household around $1,200. Two thirds of Americans oppose it. Nobody who lied us into Iraq ever paid a price. So the lying works, and it’s happening again.
Ireland’s President Looks Trump in the Eye and Tells Him War and Genocide Can Never Be Normal
Trump went to Dublin Saturday and got a history lesson. Irish President Catherine Connolly met him at her residence and, according to the Irish Examiner, told him his foreign policy runs against everything the Irish people believe. She said afterward that she’d told him “the normalisation of war and genocide can never be accepted.” She reminded him that Ireland has lived through famine, colonization and the Troubles, and knows the long road to peace. Then she handed him a poetry collection that included Michael Longley’s “Ceasefire.” The photo of Trump walking ahead of her, stone faced, went viral. Remember, this is the president who tells us the world respects him again. Our oldest friends are telling him to his face that they don’t.
A Crowd Calls for Democrats to Be Shot. Why Didn’t Ted Cruz Say a Word?
On the first anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Republicans gathered in Dallas to warn about violent rhetoric. Then Ted Cruz took the stage. He blamed the hate that killed Kirk on communists and Islamists inside the Democratic Party. As he named New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a voice in the crowd shouted “He should be shot!” Three names. Three times. Cruz never paused, never objected, never said a word. Neither Cruz’s office nor the RNC has responded. El-Sayed leads Republican Mike Rogers by three points in a race that could decide the Senate, and Rogers, to his credit, condemned it. When a party mourns one political killing while its crowd calls for three more, that’s not grief. That’s a warning.
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, September 14, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
