Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Can Democrats Finally Break Trump’s Corruption Machine?
Three House Democrats are launching a brand new End Corruption Caucus this morning, and they’re aiming straight at the heart of Trump’s billion-dollar self-dealing operation. Representatives Jason Crow, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Mike Levin span the party from centrist to progressive, and they’re done playing nice. The caucus targets Trump’s planned $1.8 billion lawsuit settlement fund, his thousands of stock trades worth hundreds of millions, and the rot Citizens United unleashed on our democracy. Crow put it plainly. “Corruption is poisoning our politics.” Levin says we’ve never seen corruption this rampant in American history. The caucus is a preview of what House Democrats plan to do if they take back the chamber in November. Think real oversight. Real subpoenas. Real consequences. This is what democracy actually fighting back looks like. The question is whether voters reward it at the ballot box or whether we’ve gotten too numb to notice.
Schiff Moves to Block Trump’s $1.8 Billion Slush Fund
Senator Adam Schiff is dropping two bombshells in the Senate this week, both aimed at Trump’s so-called anti-weaponization fund. The Justice Department set up this $1.776 billion pot to pay Trump’s allies who claim they were politically persecuted. Anybody can apply, including January 6 rioters who beat Capitol Police officers with flagpoles. Schiff’s first bill bans payouts to Trump, Vance, lawmakers, political appointees, and campaign staff. The second blocks payouts from any lawsuit filed by Trump or Vance going back to January 2025. Schiff didn’t mince words. He called it “the most brazen act of self-dealing corruption we’ve ever seen.” Even Mitch McConnell called it utterly stupid and morally wrong. Republican Senator Thom Tillis asked aloud how absurd it sounds to compensate people who pled guilty to assaulting police. When McConnell and Tillis agree with Schiff, you know something’s deeply broken.
How Many More Children Must Die in Lebanon?
Israel pounded Lebanon overnight and into Tuesday with more than 100 airstrikes, killing at least 31 people, including six children, and wounding 40 more. Fourteen people died in a single attack on Borj El Chmali, just east of Tyre. Another 12 were killed in Mashghara, several from the same family. This is happening during a US-brokered ceasefire that’s been in place since April. Netanyahu went on television and announced he’s intensifying operations, expanding the buffer zone, and pushing troops deeper into Lebanon. Hezbollah is hitting back with first-person view drones using night vision. A Lebanese man in Beirut said it best. “I don’t know how long we can live like this.” Peace talks are scheduled for next week in Washington. The bombs keep falling anyway. American weapons keep flowing. And the people of southern Lebanon, who had nothing to do with any of this, keep burying their dead. Six children in one day. Remember that the next time anyone tells you this is about defense.
Is Canada Done With American Weapons?
Prime Minister Mark Carney walked into Canada’s biggest defense trade show yesterday and announced something that would have been unthinkable five years ago. Canada is dumping American weapons makers. Carney picked Sweden’s Saab GlobalEye early warning aircraft over Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail and L3Harris’s Aeris X. The planes will be built on Canadian Bombardier jets, and at least a third of the global fleet will be assembled in Canada over the next 15 years. That’s at least 40 aircraft built by Canadian workers. Carney said the assumptions defining decades of Canadian defense policy have been overturned. NATO already picked GlobalEye to replace its aging Boeing AWACS fleet. France ordered two. Poland and Germany want more. Trump’s trade war and his constant threats to annex Canada are blowing up American defense exports. The people who used to buy from us are walking away. And once those supply chains shift to Stockholm and Toronto, they don’t come back. Forever.
Why Did CBS Just Fire a Reporter for Telling the Truth?
Sharyn Alfonsi spent months reporting an explosive story for 60 Minutes about Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s brutal CECOT torture prison. The piece passed every internal check. CBS lawyers cleared it. Standards and Practices cleared it. Five separate screenings cleared it. Then new CBS News editor Bari Weiss yanked it two hours before air. Alfonsi called it political. She wrote that government silence is “a statement, not a veto.” Six months later, CBS just refused to renew her contract. Alfonsi told the New York Times this sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom. She said it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting. She isn’t resigning either. She told them if they want her gone, they’ll have to fire her. This is what authoritarianism looks like when it captures the press. Not bombs. Not jackboots. Just quiet phone calls, quieter firings, and a billion-dollar network that decided telling the truth was bad for business.
Could Balcony Solar Finally Break the Utility Monopoly?
Here’s a story the power companies don’t want you to hear. Americans are quietly bolting cheap solar panels to their balconies, decks, and fences, then plugging them straight into a wall outlet. No electrician. No permit in many states. No utility company permission. The whole thing costs between $500 and $1,500 and cuts electric bills by anywhere from $15 to $50 a month. In Germany, this technology exploded from 40,000 systems in 2017 to as many as 4 million today. You can buy a panel at Ikea over there for $235. Americans are now doing it stealth, hooking up what advocates call “guerrilla solar” systems without telling their utilities. Over a third of American households are renters, and they’ve never had access to rooftop solar. Now they do. Power companies see this as a threat to their monopoly, because it is. That’s exactly why it’s worth doing.
And that’s the way it is. Today Wednesday, May 27, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
