Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump Just Hand America Its Worst Defeat Since Vietnam?
Here's a gut punch to start the day. A Georgetown University expert says Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran has done more damage to American power than Vietnam ever did. Paul Musgrave, writing in Foreign Policy, lays it out plain. Vietnam dragged on for years and killed far more people, but America walked away with its global standing mostly intact. Not this time. Musgrave says we're "inarguably in a weaker position than when it began this war of choice." Think about that. We spent one trillion dollars on the military last year, and we still couldn't knock out most of Iran's missiles. The wonder weapons ran dry. The credibility's gone. A national security writer in the New York Times put it even sharper, warning the war exposed the limits of American firepower to bend weaker nations to its will. When the most powerful nation on earth picks a fight it can't finish, every adversary takes notes, and the whole world starts to recalculate what America's word is even worth. The bill for this blunder won't come due in a week. It'll haunt us for a generation.
Why Did the New Fed Chair Refuse to Show His Cards?
Over at the Federal Reserve, something strange just happened. The new chairman, Kevin Warsh, held interest rates steady, right where they've sat, between three and a half and three and three-quarters percent. But the Fed's own projections now point to a rate hike coming in twenty twenty-six. That's a reversal. Back in March they figured rates would drift down. Now nine of eighteen officials see them climbing. And here's the kicker. Warsh flat out refused to submit his own forecast. He told reporters, "I have refrained from offering any projections of my own." The man running the show won't say where he thinks it's headed. Markets slid on the news. For working families already drowning in high prices, a rate hike means a pricier mortgage, pricier credit, pricier everything, while the man in charge keeps his cards face down.
Is Protesting ICE Now a Federal Crime in Trump’s America?
In Minnesota, federal prosecutors just charged fifteen people for protesting ICE. And listen to how they're doing it. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen unveiled an eight-count indictment and invoked National Security Presidential Memorandum Seven, the order Trump signed last year that openly targets left-wing protesters and their beliefs. The charge is conspiracy to impede federal officers. But when reporters asked Rosen whether a single officer was actually hurt, he wouldn't answer. One defense attorney called it exactly what it is, "This is a fascist prosecution." Remember, this comes after the government already dismissed more than a third of its earlier cases from the very same crackdown. That same memorandum was sold to the public as a tool against terrorism. In practice it labels ordinary protest as a national security threat. When the state starts prosecuting people for showing up, blowing whistles, and watching what their own government does, that's not law and order. That's a warning shot fired at everyone who'd dare to dissent, and it's exactly how a free country slides into something far darker.
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What Do Peter Thiel and His Secret Society Know That We Don’t?
Now this one's strange. Billionaire Peter Thiel, the Palantir chairman bankrolling so much of the new hard right, co-founded a secret society called Dialog. For twenty years it hid its members behind a private door. Then a hacktivist cracked the website's code and out spilled the names. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Senator Ted Cruz. More than a hundred of the powerful and the connected. Their upcoming retreat reportedly features sessions on surviving World War Three and building your own cult. And Thiel himself? He's moving his family to Argentina. This is the same man who once said, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." So when the people who own the data, the money, and the artificial intelligence start meeting in secret and quietly planning their exit, you've got to ask what they see coming that the rest of us don't.
It Wasn’t the Left Who Plotted to Bomb Trump’s UFC Party
When the FBI busted a plot to attack that UFC event on the White House lawn, the right-wing echo chamber went hunting for leftists to blame. They came up empty. The five men charged weren't antifa. Investigators say they followed accelerationism, a fringe extremist ideology tied to white-supremacist thinking that wants to speed up the collapse of society. The plan was chilling. Explosive drones over the crowd, then snipers picking off the people who ran. And here's the part nobody on cable wants to dwell on. The targets they named were Republican senators. The teenage ringleader told the FBI he wanted to "jump-start a revolution." His own mother is the one who turned him in. So the next time somebody tells you political violence only ever comes from one side, you remember exactly who planned to attack Trump's own party.
The Republican Wall on Trump’s War Is Starting to Crack
And finally, a crack in the dam. For months, Senate Republicans marched in lockstep behind Trump's Iran war. Not anymore. On Tuesday, four of them, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, and Bill Cassidy, joined Democrats to try to force an end to the fighting. The measure still came up short, failing by a single vote, because Democrats needed one more Republican and Pennsylvania's John Fetterman crossed the other way. Schumer didn't mince words. "Trump's Iran war blunder can't end soon enough," he said. And here's the tell. Cassidy only broke free after he lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger. It says something when senators only find their spine once they've got nothing left to lose. But four is more than zero, and a wall that cracks once tends to crack again. Every senator now has to choose between a president who lost this war and the constituents paying for it at the gas pump. The wall is cracking, and the country's watching which way it falls.
And that’s the way it is, Today is Wednesday, June 17th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
