Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Can Half Of America Even Afford Groceries Anymore?
A brand new Harris poll for the Guardian paints a grim picture, and it isn’t pretty. About half of all Americans say they’re struggling to afford the basics, gas and groceries, the stuff you can’t do without. Fifty-seven percent now believe the economy’s getting worse. Back in February, that number was forty-six. And the folks who think things are looking up? They’re down to just sixteen percent. This crosses every party line. Half of Democrats, half of Republicans, half of independents, all saying they can’t keep up. The poll found people having “trouble affording everyday necessities like gas and groceries.” Why? The Strait of Hormuz got shut down, gas shot toward five dollars a gallon, and inflation climbed to four point two percent while wages actually fell. June added just fifty-seven thousand jobs when Wall Street expected one hundred fifteen thousand. Republican confidence in the economy collapsed from forty-nine percent back in February to just twenty-seven percent now. Two-thirds of Americans, including nearly half of Republicans, have given up on Washington fixing any of it. That’s not a bad month. That’s a country losing faith in the people who are supposed to be looking out for them.
Does Trump Really Think He Can Take Greenland?
He said it again. In Ankara, Turkey, right as NATO leaders gathered for their summit, President Trump stood next to Erdogan and declared Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.” Then he threatened to yank every American soldier out of Europe. Think about that. Denmark’s a founding NATO ally. Greenland’s their territory. And the President of the United States is talking about taking it, the same island he wouldn’t rule out seizing by force back in January. He claims it’s surrounded by Chinese and Russian ships, a claim experts on Greenland flatly deny. Danish leaders are so rattled they’ve quietly started preparing to defend the island militarily. NATO officials warned that if America grabs Greenland by force, it’s the end of the seventy-seven-year-old alliance. This is how you turn friends into enemies. A President who treats allies like real estate, and treaties like something to bully your way through, is playing a dangerous game with the whole Western world watching.
Trump Declares War On America’s Own History
On Sunday, the White House released a report going after the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. They titled it “Saving America’s Story.” What they actually want is to erase it. The report claims the museum’s been captured by ideology and is destroying, quote, “our heritage.” The White House rapid response account went further, calling the museum “a vehicle for Radical Left propaganda and degeneracy.” Now, that word, degeneracy, has a history. The Nazis used it to justify their crusade against Jewish people. What’s got this administration so angry? Exhibits acknowledging transgender people, gay people, and the documented fact that Mickey Mouse traces back to racist minstrel shows. They’re mad the museum tells the truth about slavery and the Founding Fathers. They want the contributions of Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, and LGBTQ Americans scrubbed out. A country that can’t face its own past can’t fix its future. This is a war on reality, and they’re not even hiding it.
Can ICE Come For You Over An Email?
Here’s one that should scare every American who’s ever spoken their mind. David Streever, a US citizen in Rochester, New York, sent a furious email to the acting ICE director after two people were killed by federal officers in Minneapolis. Strong words, sure. Five months later, ICE agents showed up at his door. They handed his wife a warning notice. Then they tracked down his travel plans and turned up at his hotel late at night, where he was on vacation with his young daughter, just to wake him up. Streever’s now suing with the help of a free speech group. Their lawyer says this is “ICE trying to intimidate an American into silence.” And he’s not alone. Another citizen got the same treatment for naming an officer in a video. The government’s even subpoenaing Reddit to unmask anonymous critics. When federal agents come knocking because you criticized the government, that’s not law enforcement. That’s the First Amendment under attack.
Republicans Are Sweating A Seat They Thought They Owned
Iowa was supposed to be a lock. Trump carried it by thirteen points just two years ago. But the race to replace retiring Senator Joni Ernst has turned into a real fight. A late June Fox News poll shows Democrat Josh Turek ahead of Trump-backed congresswoman Ashley Hinson, fifty to forty-six. Turek’s a Paralympic gold medalist who uses a wheelchair, born with spina bifida tied to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Iowa analyst Laura Belin put it plainly, saying “Republicans are sincerely worried about Ashley Hinson in that Senate race.” Trump’s approval in Iowa is underwater. The forecasters moved the race from likely Republican to lean Republican. Republicans still hold a voter registration edge near two hundred thousand, so this is no sure thing. But when a state Trump won by thirteen is suddenly up for grabs, it tells you something. Working people are noticing who’s actually fighting for them, and who’s just riding coattails.
What Is Todd Blanche Still Hiding In The Epstein Files?
The coverup keeps unraveling. A federal judge just rejected acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s latest attempt to kill a lawsuit over the Epstein files. Judge Emmet Sullivan already ruled Blanche broke the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law Trump himself signed back in November. The judge ordered Blanche to unredact emails, including disturbing ones sent to Epstein, and to hand over FBI notes from a woman who says Trump assaulted her as a minor after Epstein introduced them. Trump denies it. But here’s the pattern critics keep pointing to. The victims’ names got exposed, while the powerful men around Epstein got protected. Blanche told Fox News in April, “We have released everything.” The court says otherwise. The judge found Blanche effectively admitted he was breaking the law. Journalist Katie Phang’s team files their next response by the middle of July. Powerful people have spent years keeping these files buried. The only reason we’re getting anywhere is one judge who won’t look away, and a journalist who won’t back down. That’s what accountability looks like when the most powerful office in the country is fighting to keep the truth in the dark.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, July seventh, twenty twenty-six. I’m Thom Hartmann.
