Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Anthropic Building a Pre-Crime Machine to Hunt Its Own Critics?
The American Prospect reports that Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, is building a surveillance operation targeting activists who oppose the rapid rollout of AI. A job posting last month seeks an intelligence specialist, paid up to $230,000, to track threats including “activism,” and the Prospect says the company takes a “pre-crime” approach, predicting incidents before they happen and sometimes reporting people to police first. It tracked a protest in real time to reroute an executive. Last week the San Francisco Standard reported Anthropic turned a Claude user in to police over a chat, then refused to show officers the messages. One legal expert warned as AI companies grow more hated, they’ll over-report people who shouldn’t be targeted at all. When a private company gets to decide who’s a threat, dissent itself becomes the crime.
Trump Follows Project 2025 Playbook to Rig the 2030 Census
The Trump administration just formally proposed changes to the 2030 Census that could erase millions from the count. The plan would exclude anyone who isn’t a citizen or green card holder as of April 1, 2030 from the numbers used to apportion House seats. That means undocumented immigrants, but also visa holders, refugees, and asylum seekers. It also drops the questions on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. The 14th Amendment says House seats are apportioned by counting the whole number of persons in each state. New York Attorney General Letitia James said “Every person living in the United States, regardless of immigration status, must be counted.” She beat Trump on this in 2020 and vows to fight again. Census numbers also steer trillions in federal funding. Rig the count and you rig power for a full decade.
Did Trump’s Attacks on Female Reporters Help Fuel the Violence in Ohio?
Over the weekend an armed man lunged at Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic candidate for governor, at the Canfield Fair. He injured bystanders but never reached her, and he’s since pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges. Sherrod Brown, the former senator now running for Senate again, faced reporters this week and didn’t dodge. Anyone who commits political violence, he said, should be held responsible. Politicians at the highest levels of government are attacking people personally, he said, and the president keeps calling names, particularly female reporters, and “there’s just no room for that.” He says keeping staff and volunteers safe is his first job, but he won’t skip a single event. When the most powerful man in the country models contempt, some of his followers act on it. Words from the top land at the bottom.
Why Are Women Dying From a Condition That Should Never Kill Anyone?
ProPublica analyzed CDC data and found that deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled, from about 100 in 2014 through 2019 to almost 200 since 2020. Doctors say these deaths should never happen. Ectopic pregnancies can’t survive, and treatment means ending them. Nationwide the rate climbed, but in states with strict abortion bans it hit 13.1 deaths per million births, versus 7.1 in states without bans. Women describe being sent home from emergency rooms while their tubes ruptured. One Oklahoma woman was refused at three hospitals, one doctor telling her treatment could mean “10 years in the poky,” before she drove to Kansas for care. Meanwhile Trump gutted the CDC’s reproductive health division, so almost nobody is investigating. Republicans passed these bans in the name of life. Women are dying, and the government has stopped counting.
Will the Climate Train Run Us Over While Trump Serves Big Oil?
NOAA announced Wednesday that August was the hottest ever recorded in the lower 48, 3.5 degrees above the 20th century average, and June through August was the hottest summer in 132 years. The Dust Bowl summer of 1936 has now been matched or beaten twice in five years. Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler said it’s time to stop acting surprised, because this is happening exactly as scientists forecast decades ago. And a new study in Environmental Research Letters warns that thawing permafrost, warming wetlands, and bigger wildfires could amplify warming another 20 to 30% by 2100, feedback loops most projections ignore. Meanwhile Trump declared an energy emergency, quit the Paris Agreement again, and left workers without heat protections. One scientist calls it “unconscionable.” The physics doesn’t care who’s president. It keeps the receipts.
Chemical Giants Rewrite State Laws So Nobody Can Prove the Air Is Poison
Floodlight reports that since 2024, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Ohio have passed nearly identical laws, backed by chemical and manufacturing trade groups, that bar regulators from using community collected air data for enforcement unless it comes from EPA approved equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile government air monitors have fallen by nearly half in 20 years, and six in ten counties have none. For 71 of the 100 biggest polluters Floodlight examined, the chemical each releases most isn’t measured by any state monitor. Industry claims it’s about accuracy. But when West Virginia lawmakers offered a compromise requiring accurate monitors, a Chemours official wrote it “essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent.” The American Chemistry Council spent $22 million lobbying in 2024. You can’t fight what you’re not allowed to measure or know...
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, September 10, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
