Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump Just Save Us From a Depression He Created?
Donald Trump signed a fourteen point agreement with Iran this week and called it a major win for America. Then he told us what we’d been spared. He said the alternative was “a worldwide depression.” Here’s what he left out. Trump is the one who started this war back in February. His bombs and his blockade are what devastated the world economy and shut down the Strait of Hormuz in the first place. This war has cost thousands of lives and gutted the global economy for months. Now he wants a medal for ending the very fire he set. And look hard at the terms he agreed to. He’s letting Iran enrich uranium, he’s dropping his demands on their missiles, and he’s handing back billions in frozen Iranian assets. A legal scholar named Jack Goldsmith says the sanctions waivers flat out break American law. Trump didn’t avert a catastrophe. He manufactured one, then cashed in.
Most Think the American Dream is Dead For Working People Now
A new Gallup survey out this week found that fewer than half of Americans now believe everyone in this country can reach the American Dream. Most folks still think they can climb personally, but they’ve lost faith that the system is fair for everybody. And no wonder. Tariffs and war have driven up the price of groceries, gas, and health care. Then came the housing report from Harvard, released the same day. It said “persistent affordability challenges are hurting housing markets.” Home sales are at thirty year lows. Eleven million of the poorest families are fighting over fewer than four million affordable apartments. One in four renters now hands over half their paycheck just to keep a roof overhead. The Dream isn’t fading on its own. It’s being priced out of reach.
Should Rape Victims Have To Prove It To a Republican Politician?
In Georgia, the Republican running for governor is a billionaire named Rick Jackson. He just spent over a hundred million dollars of his own money to beat Trump’s hand picked candidate. And on leaked audio, when a voter said “if a woman is raped, she needs to prove it,” Jackson agreed. Now his campaign is scrambling, claiming his words were taken out of context. But think about what that means in practice. Georgia already bans abortion at six weeks. The only rape exception requires a police report, and two out of three survivors never report. Women have already died under this law. Amber Thurman and Candi Miller couldn’t get the care they needed in time. Forcing a traumatized woman to prove her own assault isn’t pro life. It’s cruelty dressed up as policy.
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Trump Cheering Being Compared to Hitler? Surprised?
This one you have to hear to believe. Somebody sent Donald Trump a letter comparing him to history’s most brutal conquerors. Alexander the Great. Genghis Khan. And then Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. The letter said the only difference is that Trump has more power and more global reach than any of them, which makes him the most powerful person who ever walked the planet. So how did the President of the United States respond? He shared it with the whole world and wrote “Sounds good to me.” Let that sink in. A sitting American president saw himself lined up next to Hitler and Stalin, and his reaction was delight. He posted it just hours after signing his Iran deal. When a leader tells you who he wants to be, believe him the first time.
This Administration is Paying Companies Two and a Half Billion Tax Dollars to NOT Build Wind Farms. Say What?!
Alright, hold onto something, because this is pure stupidity. America is staring down an energy shortage. We need more power, not less. So what is this administration doing? It’s paying companies two and a half billion of your tax dollars to NOT build wind farms. You heard that right. They’re bribing developers to walk away from electricity we desperately need. The newest deal hands one company seven hundred and sixty five million dollars to kill projects off California, New York, and Maine. And the money gets funneled straight into oil and gas instead. Seven states are suing, because those canceled wind farms would have powered over a million homes. Why is Trump doing this? Because he’s nursed a grudge against windmills ever since one spoiled the view at his Scottish golf course. Congressman Jared Huffman calls it a “scam.” That’s putting it politely.
Who Fires the People Fighting a Flesh Eating Parasite?
And finally, a flesh eating parasite called the screwworm is spreading through Texas and New Mexico. Its larvae burrow into living animals and eat them alive. It’s the first outbreak in this country since nineteen sixty six. So you’d think the government would throw everything at it. Instead, Politico reports the Trump White House sat on warnings from career experts, stalled the money for a facility built to fight the pest, and delayed a hundred million dollar research program. Elon Musk’s DOGE had already axed the monitoring program that cost just fifteen million a year. Now, even as the bugs spread, the administration is firing and relocating thousands of the very workers who’d contain it, ordering them to move across the country or lose their jobs. Over the past year the USDA has already shed roughly twenty thousand employees. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal calls it “peak incompetence.” Ranchers could go bankrupt and your beef could climb even higher, all because they gutted the agency that keeps us safe.
And that’s the way it is, Today, Thursday, June 18th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
