Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump’s Team Try to Turn the Government’s Own Cyber Cops Into Election Hackers?
ProPublica reports that early in Trump’s second term, political appointees at Homeland Security asked CISA, the agency that protects our voting systems, to secretly buy a voting machine, hack it, and report back to the White House. They were told not to warn the manufacturer about any flaws. One former official said, “This goes against everything CISA represents.” The request only died because DOGE had already laid off the experts who could’ve done it. The administration has since pushed out more than 1,000 CISA employees, a third of the agency, and Trump’s budget would cut another $700 million. State election officials say CISA simply vanished during midterm planning. Arizona’s Adrian Fontes told the new acting director to his face he didn’t trust him. Fire the referees, recruit the hackers. That’s not election security. That’s a setup
Is the Justice Department Building a Pretext to Toss California Ballots?
The Justice Department charged 28 green card holders in California Monday with registering or voting illegally. Eleven have been arrested. The felonies carry up to five years. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter says all 28 came from a list of 20,000 “likely noncitizens” the feds handed California last week, demanding the state set aside their mail ballots. California refused, calling the demand illegal and noting the DOJ never explained how it built the list. So the DOJ sued, and it won’t rule out prosecuting election workers who process those ballots. Election law expert Rick Hasen says the charges are meant to make noncitizen voting “look like a bigger issue than it is.” Noncitizen voting has never been found to be widespread. Twenty-eight cases out of 22 million voters isn’t a crisis. It’s a pretext. Watch what they do with it.
Why Is Trump Waiting Until After the Election to Garnish Your Paycheck?
The Washington Sun reports the Trump administration is preparing to unleash private debt collectors on nearly 10 million Americans in default on federal student loans, garnishing wages and seizing tax refunds starting next year. Treasury could hire collectors as soon as November. But the announcement waits until after the midterms because, as one source put it, “It would be politically insane to do this before the midterms.” Staffers warned that plenty of those borrowers voted for Trump. Economist Marshall Steinbaum notes these are overwhelmingly people whose debts would’ve been erased by Biden’s cancellation plan before Republican states killed it in court. Michael Pierce of Protect Borrowers calls what’s coming a catastrophe for families. One strategist’s advice to Democrats? Get loud. If they’re hiding the plan until after you vote, that tells you who it’s for.
The news you need. Twice every weekday.
Can Forty Multimillionaires Shame the Billionaires Into Paying Up?
More than 40 California multimillionaires signed an open letter backing Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on wealth over a billion dollars, funding health care programs gutted by Republican Medicaid cuts. They say fears of billionaires fleeing are overblown. In their words, “We have no intention of leaving our beloved Golden State.” The letter lands as billionaire opponents pour millions into killing the measure. California has more than 200 billionaires holding over $2 trillion, and economists estimate the tax raises about $100 billion. It’d be the first billionaire tax anywhere in the world. When the merely rich tell the obscenely rich to pay their share, something’s shifting. November 3rd is the test.
What Is the Pentagon Hiding About the True Cost of Trump’s Iran War?
Five Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren wrote CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper demanding the Pentagon publicly release its estimate of the damage Iranian strikes did to American bases. The Pentagon told Congress the war cost $43.6 billion as of September 3rd, but that figure leaves out base damage entirely. Lawmakers saw that number in a classified briefing, and the senators say “there is no rationale for classifying that cost estimate.” The Pentagon’s own inspector general found Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of structures across eight countries. More than 50,000 troops deployed. At least 21 killed, 865 wounded, and the Pentagon has repeatedly undercounted casualties. They want unclassified answers by November 2nd. A war Congress never authorized, with a price tag they won’t show you. That’s not national security. That’s hiding the bill from the people paying it.
Crazy Alert. Melania Dodges Trump’s Kiss...
At a Rose Garden ceremony Monday where Trump signed an executive order on women’s health, he leaned in to kiss the First Lady, and Melania turned her head so far his lips landed in her hair. Journalist Aaron Rupar posted the clip and it blew past 100,000 views. The Tennessee Holler wrote, “She turned like his lips were tasers.” Keith Olbermann piled on. Trump then handed her a pen and wondered aloud whether her signature meant anything, after joking that she’s not so easy to please. Melania’s reply? His was the one that mattered. Mario Nawfal summed it up as marriage at the White House sounding exhausting. The man who can’t land a kiss on his own wife wants control of your ballot, your paycheck, and your future.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
