Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did California Just Hand Hollywood to Trump’s Billionaires?
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a settlement Monday that clears the road for David Ellison’s Paramount to swallow Warner Bros. Discovery. That’s CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros. Pictures in one $111 billion megamerger controlling nearly 30% of American movie distribution and basic cable. Bonta touted concessions. They’re hollow. The film pledge only requires distributing 30 movies a year, not making them. The so called independence board for CNN and CBS News gets appointed and paid by Ellison himself. Former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya put it plainly. “Billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top.” States had already beaten Paramount in court. Then the Ellisons threatened to leave California, and Gavin Newsom and Bonta folded. When one Trump-aligned family owns CNN, CBS, and the movies you watch, that’s not a business story. That’s the end of an independent press.
Is Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Backfiring Before Election Day?
The New York Times reports Republicans are hanging their midterm hopes on Trump’s signature law, the One Big Beautiful Bill. Its tax cuts were supposed to answer voters’ pain over prices. But to partly pay for more than $3 trillion in giveaways, the law cut Medicaid, health care subsidies, and food stamps. And those cuts are biting before a single vote is cast. SNAP enrollment has dropped 11% since the law passed. Over four million people have lost food aid. Medicaid work requirements hit next year. The Times puts it simply. How you see this law “depends largely on which side of the federal ledger” you’re on. Millionaires got a check. Working families got a bill. Republicans made that choice. In November they answer for it.
Why Did ICE Try to Deport the Man They Shot?
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez is a 28 year old DoorDash driver in Austin. Sunday an ICE agent shot him in the back of the neck. He was discharged four hours later with the bullet still lodged near his spine, then jailed in an ICE detention center. By Monday he couldn’t move his left arm. Hospital, morphine, then back to a cell with Tylenol. Tuesday a federal judge blocked his deportation and ordered him in court September 30. More than 100 members of Congress wrote that “DHS must not obstruct or otherwise interfere with this investigation.” Garces Perez entered legally, held a work permit, and got a removal order only because a hearing notice went to an old address. Shoot first, deport the witness, and hope nobody asks questions.
Super El Niño Set to Kill 450,000 People in Six Months
Scientists at the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab say the super El Niño now heating the planet will cause more than 450,000 heat deaths between now and February. That’s on top of deaths already driven by the climate crisis, before counting floods, droughts, and wildfires. Nigeria, Indonesia, and India get hit hardest. The United States is in the top 20, with 3,500 projected deaths. Monday it broke the all time El Niño temperature record, months before its peak. Researchers call it “a postcard from our future,” the heat that becomes normal in 20 years. Cooling centers and worker protections can save lives now. What’s missing is a government that treats 450,000 dead as an emergency, not a rounding error.
Is RFK Jr. Quietly Cutting Off Covid Shots for Half of America’s Kids?
The Trump administration is withholding Covid vaccines from the Vaccines for Children program, which covers 52% of American kids, the uninsured and kids on Medicaid. In 11 states plus American Samoa that buy every childhood vaccine through the program, no child can get the shot. This is happening during a Covid wave, with infant hospitalization rates second only to seniors. HHS says there’s no deadline. Former CDC official Daniel Jernigan calls it “death by a thousand cuts” and warns other vaccines are next. Kennedy claims he’s preserved access. He’s blocking shots for America’s poorest children. A government that decides which kids deserve protection isn’t practicing public health. It’s practicing cruelty.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, September 23, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
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