Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump Just Hand Putin a Gift While American Drivers Get Nothing?
Donald Trump just cut a deal with Vladimir Putin. On Friday he announced Russia will ship 300,000 tons of diesel right away, 500,000 more in November, then a million, then another three million after that. His Treasury Department eased sanctions on Russian diesel into April 2027. This comes one month after Trump signed a law meant to choke off the oil money that pays for Putin’s war. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy called it a gift to Putin and warned, “Russia will repay the diesel with further terror and perfidy.” And energy experts say it probably won’t lower prices much. Diesel’s sitting at $6.28 a gallon, driven up by Trump’s own war with Iran. So Putin gets cash for his war machine, Ukraine gets more bombs, and American truckers and farmers get a press release.
Are Trump’s Tariffs Crushing the Very Factories He Promised to Save?
Ask Doug Rende. He runs Shapes Unlimited, an aluminum products maker in North Jackson, Ohio. Trump’s aluminum tariffs climbed from 10% to 25% to 50%, and Rende says they’re costing him “upwards of $4.5 million to $5 million” this year alone. Shipping surcharges tied to the Iran war run as high as $6,500 a container. So he’s stopped hiring and he’s buying robots instead. Over in Warren, countertop maker Sam Miller pays tariffs on materials from Asia and can’t expand into Canada, where trade talks collapsed in August. Canada buys a third of everything Ohio exports. The Supreme Court struck down many of these tariffs. Trump put them right back. Tariffs were sold as a gift to working people. They’ve turned into a tax on the folks who actually make things.
Will Texas Politicians Now Decide What Every Professor Is Allowed to Teach?
The Atlantic reports the state now controls what professors can teach. Under a law written by former Republican state senator Brandon Creighton, regents picked by Governor Greg Abbott hold power over the curriculum. Texas A&M and Texas Tech restricted teaching about race, gender and sexual orientation. A&M shut down its women’s and gender studies degree. University of Texas regents voted to limit what they call “unnecessary controversial subjects.” One A&M philosophy professor says he wasn’t allowed to teach Plato. Another was fired after a lesson on gender identity, and she’s suing. A new state office now investigates complaints about professors. A government that picks which ideas are legal in a classroom is training obedience, and democracy can’t survive on that.
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How Many More Maternity Wards Will Close Before Republicans Admit What They Did?
The Guardian reports 52 maternity wards have closed since July of 2025, when Trump’s big, beautiful bill became law. Another eight have announced they’re closing, according to the group Protect Our Care. That bill cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, and Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in America. Hospitals in Virginia and rural Georgia pointed to the coming cuts when they shut their units for good. The March of Dimes says 31 more rural hospitals are at risk, and if they go, 96 counties lose their last place to deliver a baby. Senator Ron Wyden warned this summer, “Maternity wards across America are shuttering their doors.” And the worst of it, including work requirements, doesn’t even start until January. They took health care from mothers and babies to pay for billionaire tax cuts. Remember that in November.
JD Vance Tells a Black Senate Candidate She Doesn’t Belong in America
At a campaign stop in Lakeland, Florida on October 1, the Vice President went after Angie Nixon, the Democratic nominee for US Senate. The Florida Phoenix reports he said she doesn’t belong in America, and C-SPAN video shows him telling her to get the hell out of the country if she’s a socialist. Nixon is Black. Her family’s been in Florida for generations. She fired back Friday, “I don’t need JD Vance’s permission to belong here.” And she pointed out that the senator at Vance’s side, Ashley Moody, was never elected. Moody was appointed in 2025 to Marco Rubio’s seat. Nixon called the attack a desperate distraction from rising insurance, rent and health care costs. Telling Black Americans to leave is one of the oldest and ugliest tricks in our politics. It deserves an answer at the ballot box.
Trump Rages at Norway After the Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Someone Else
The Nobel Peace Prize went Friday to Navi Pillay, the 85-year-old South African jurist who defended anti-apartheid activists, judged the Rwanda genocide trials and later ran human rights for the UN. Donald Trump didn’t take it well. At a rally in Syracuse, New York, he called her a mystery person and warned that we will not forget, Norway. Then he posted that he should’ve won eight Nobel Peace Prizes, one for each war he claims he settled, and called the decision an indelible stain on Norway. Small problem. Norway’s government doesn’t pick the winner. An independent committee does. Pillay got the news at a conference in Nuremberg and told the cheering room, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.” A man who threatens a country over a trophy has told you everything about why he didn’t get it.
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, October 12, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
