Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Does The Pentagon’s New Iran Plan Buy Us a Forever War?
Axios reports Central Command has handed the White House a plan for repeated limited strikes on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. One official described the goal as mowing the lawn, keeping Iran from rebuilding radar, air defenses and anti-ship missiles. Pete Hegseth backed the plan and sent it to Trump days ago. The White House had been leaning against it until Iran hit American bases in Jordan Sunday. Analyst Trita Parsi didn’t mince words. “To periodically bomb a country is to fight a forever war.” Trump promised voters he’d end endless wars. Now his Pentagon is drawing up a permanent bombing schedule for a country of ninety million people. Every one of those strikes costs money that could’ve built schools here, and every one creates the next generation of people who hate us. That’s not a strategy, just an endless war….
Army Secretary Quits And Blows Open Hegseth’s Purge
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned Monday night after 18 months on the job. Trump accepted it. The White House praised him and refused to say why he’s leaving. Everybody in Washington knows why. Driscoll spent months fighting War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s fired or forced out more than two dozen senior officers, including Army Chief of Staff Randy George in April with no explanation. The Navy secretary walked in April. The Army’s commander in Europe stepped down in June. Hegseth also ordered Driscoll to remove his own top adviser. Reuters reported Driscoll raised concerns that Hegseth was blocking Army readiness by firing the generals running it. Driscoll was a Yale law classmate of JD Vance and Trump’s own envoy on Ukraine. If he can’t survive Hegseth, nobody can. That’s how you hollow out the military and make it weak.
Did Bari Weiss Order A Headline That Smears A Muslim Candidate?
CBS News ran a story Monday tying Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, to the September 11 attacks. The evidence? Two deleted posts. In one he compared the Covid death toll to the nearly 3,000 killed on 9/11 and called for the same national mobilization. In the other he mourned everyone who died in the War on Terror that followed. He has denounced those attacks again and again. Oliver Darcy reports CBS editor Bari Weiss praised the piece in the morning meeting and personally directed the headline to mention 9/11. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari called it an “insane, blatantly racist headline.” Rashida Tlaib said the targeting is coordinated. Staffers complained to standards and got nowhere. This is what happens when a billionaire hands a newsroom to an ideologue. Cronkite’s network is now running opposition research on a Muslim candidate.
Supreme Court Clears Trump’s Ballroom Its Own Chief Calls Unlawful
The Supreme Court ruled five to four Monday that Trump can keep building his ballroom on the ruins of the East Wing. The majority didn’t say the project’s legal. They said the National Trust for Historic Preservation has no standing to sue. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented along with the three liberals, writing that construction of the ballroom is likely unlawful because Congress never approved it. Federal law bars building on that parkland without congressional authorization. The price tag runs somewhere between $300 to $400 million dollars, and every lower court that looked at it called the project unlawful. Trump celebrated on social media. A watchdog put it plainly. “The White House belongs to the people.” Trump tore down a piece of it anyway, and five justices decided nobody has the right to object. Sad
Do Trump’s Secret Drug Deals Actually Cut Your Prescription Bill?
Trump stood in the Oval Office Monday and announced nine more drug pricing deals, bringing the total to 26 companies. He called it the largest price reduction in the history of medicine. Here’s what he didn’t say. The deals are voluntary. The terms are secret. They mostly cover Medicaid, where deep discounts already exist, and states can choose whether to participate. Public Citizen found that all 16 companies in the first round turned around and raised list prices on 272 drugs this year. Peter Maybarduk called the new deals a distraction from a failed plan. Merith Basey of Patients for Affordable Drugs said what’s needed instead. “Patients need systemic reforms that will lower drug prices.” Americans still pay roughly four times what other wealthy countries pay. Holding press conferences in the Oval Office doesn’t change that.
Trump Carves Off A Piece Of Yosemite For A Developer
For more than a year the National Park Service has been quietly working to hand a quarter-mile strip of Yosemite to a Nevada developer. NOTUS reports Kingsbarn Realty Capital wants a road for direct park access to the 83 acres it owns next door. Abraham Lincoln signed a law in 1864 saying Yosemite would be inalienable for all time. Rebecca Solnit writes that the country’s being sold for parts. She’s right. Trump’s also funneling park money to his own projects in Washington while spending outside the capital fell 68% this fiscal year. Public lands are the one thing every American owns together, rich or poor. Once a piece of Yosemite has a price tag, so does everything else. Our “commons” Yosemite should not be on the chopping block.
And that’s the way it is, Today is Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
