Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Have Senate Republicans Traded Their Spines For Rubber Stamps?
Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen aren’t mincing words about the Republicans who run Congress. Warren says they’ve had their spines surgically removed. She calls them “gelatinous blobs that kind of make it through the United States Senate.” Van Hollen says they’ve contracted out their constitutional responsibilities to Donald Trump and turned themselves into rubber stamps for an illegal war. Here’s what they’re rubber stamping. The US-Israel war on Iran started in February. It’s cost tens of billions of dollars. Hundreds of American service members have been wounded and 18 are dead. On Thursday another war powers resolution died in the Senate, 49 to 50. The House has passed one twice. The Senate keeps killing it. And only 29% of Americans approve of how Trump’s handling Iran, while 69% disapprove. Congress has the sole power to declare war. It just won’t use it.
Why Did Republicans Just Hand Trump A Free Pass On His Taxes?
Thursday the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment that would’ve banned the IRS from cutting audit immunity deals with a sitting president, his family, or his businesses. The vote was straight down party lines. Every single Republican said no. This deal started in May. Trump sued the IRS after a contractor leaked his tax records to the New York Times. The administration offered to settle by exempting Trump and his family from audits, and by creating a $1.8 billion fund for anybody claiming political persecution. Elizabeth Warren cast the lone vote against the underlying bill. “No other taxpayer, ever, has gotten this kind of a deal,” she said. She called it corruption on steroids. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis both say they oppose the immunity deal. Then they voted to protect it.
Two More Courts Just Told Trump He Can’t Cage People Without A Hearing
Two federal appeals courts ruled against Trump’s mass detention policy on Thursday. The 9th Circuit and the 7th Circuit both rejected the administration’s claim that a 1996 immigration law requires locking up every undocumented person with no chance at bond. The 9th Circuit vote was 2 to 1, and the majority opinion was written by Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee. The court said mandatory detention was meant for people caught right at the border, not for people who’ve lived here for years building families and businesses. That makes 6 federal appeals courts ruling against this policy. Only 2 have sided with Trump. Pramila Jayapal called it a big win, saying immigrants “who contribute to our communities and have lived here for years deserve dignity.” This is headed for the Supreme Court. Due process shouldn’t depend on which circuit you get arrested in.
Should A Dying Cancer Patient Have To Prove She’s Too Sick To Work?
Under a new Trump administration rule, a terminal diagnosis isn’t enough to get you out of Medicaid work requirements. Cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s, none of it counts by itself. You’ve also got to document that your illness “significantly impairs” your ability to work 80 hours a month. Democratic attorneys general from 25 states and the District of Columbia sued to stop it. Thursday a federal judge in Massachusetts refused to block the rule, so it moves ahead. The work requirements hit in January. Remember where this came from. Last year’s Republican tax and budget bill shoveled over $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 1%, then helped pay for it by making sick poor people fill out forms. More than 4 in 10 cancer patients over 50 burn through everything they own within 2 years. Now they get homework, too.
More Communism From Trump? Who Really Owns These Companies Now?
The Commerce Department slipped out an announcement this week. It’s handing $874 million in CHIPS Act money to seven companies, and in exchange the federal government takes a minority ownership stake in every one of them. GlobalFoundries gets up to $300 million. Kepler gets up to $245 million. Multibeam gets up to $140 million. The rest goes to Extropic, Thintronics, OBSIDIA Semiconductors, and Aeluma. Commerce says the stakes will improve the return for American taxpayers. Howard Lutnick says the administration is “accelerating America’s innovation engine.” Add it up and Washington now holds positions in roughly 30 companies, including 10% of Intel. Republicans spent decades and decades screaming that government owning private industry is socialism. Now they’re doing it one quiet press release at a time, with no vote in Congress and no rules about who gets picked.
Geeky Science. Why Are Sea Snakes Heading For California?
A monster El Niño is building in the Pacific, and forecasters say it could rank among the strongest ever recorded. Marine biologist Chris Lowe says it’ll create a whole different ocean off the West Coast. Warm water drags tropical animals north into places they’ve never been. Scientists expect more white sharks off California, plus hammerheads, tiger sharks, bull sharks, rays, tropical fish, strange seabirds, and yes, venomous sea snakes. Douglas McCauley at UC Santa Barbara expects “all kinds of weird tropical things come up with this warm water.” He calls it a double whammy, because this El Niño is piling heat onto an ocean already cooking from climate change. Squid and sardines get shoved north. Fishing boats come back empty. Seabirds starve. The ocean is rearranging itself, and this is a problem we don’t yet fathom.
And that’s the way it is, Today Friday, July 31, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann
