Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Mitch McConnell’s Senate Seat Being Held Hostage?
Eighty four year old Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for nearly four weeks, and nobody will tell you why. Here’s what matters. Under Kentucky law, if he’s declared unfit before August third, voters get a special election. After that date, the seat sits empty until whoever wins in November is sworn in on January third. Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reports congressional Republicans don’t want a special election, because they’re afraid their own voters would nominate a MAGA candidate. Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, has asked McConnell’s office for a health update, eyeing an interim appointment of his own. Meanwhile McConnell has missed more than twenty votes, including one to curb Trump’s war powers over Iran. An independent reporter published emergency dispatch audio in which a dispatcher reports cardiac arrest. Fewer than five percent of patients McConnell’s age survive one of those outside a hospital. Senate Republican leaders say they’ve spoken with him by phone and everything’s fine. His former aide Scott Jennings shrugged the whole thing off. “These officeholders, they’re in charge of their own operations,” he said. They’re in charge. Not the four million Kentuckians paying their salaries. That’s not representation. That’s a hostage situation in a nice suit.
Who’s Really Paying For Trump’s Tariffs?
The small business coalition We Pay the Tariffs just released a state by state analysis, and the number is brutal. American businesses and consumers have shelled out more than three hundred seventeen billion dollars in tariff costs since March of two thousand twenty five. The group’s executive director, Dan Anthony, called it “a damning indictment of tariffs’ impact on the US economy.” The trade deficit is up. Manufacturing jobs are down. Inflation is at its highest in years. And it’s about to get worse, because the ten percent surcharge expires July twenty fourth and Trump plans to replace it with permanent tariffs that almost never get repealed. Here’s the part that ought to make you furious. The New York Fed says nearly half the companies that paid tariffs still plan to raise your prices again. Economists call it a trickle up strategy. Boil the frog slowly so you don’t notice the water. The Dallas Fed found core inflation hit three point two percent in March, the highest in three years, and without the tariffs it’d sit near two point three percent. Last year Americans swallowed nearly ninety percent of the cost. Trump promised foreigners would pay. You’re paying. And the receipt keeps growing.
Greenland: Licensed To Drill, Or Just Making It Up?
On June tenth, a Texas oilman named Robert Price stood in a remote Greenland village of three hundred people and told them he had permits to drill for oil. Greenland’s resources ministry says that isn’t true. There are no active permissions for exploration, or even to prepare for it. Price runs Greenland Energy, which wants to spend sixty million dollars sinking two wells into Jameson Land, where he claims a trillion dollars of crude is waiting. Those wells would go into wetlands protected by an international conservation treaty. Greenland quit issuing oil licenses in two thousand twenty one because the environmental damage was too great. Look at who’s behind this. Billionaire Ken Griffin bought nine percent of the company. A new board member’s firm builds Trump’s Golden Dome missile system. Dr. Phil is producing a documentary about it. Halliburton runs the logistics. And Trump’s envoy to Greenland, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, went on Fox News promising two million barrels a day. Greenland’s minerals minister said the company’s statements “do not always reflect the actual situation.” On a private Telegram channel, shareholders have a name for the presidential plug they’re praying for. They call it a Trump pump. Colonialism now comes with a stock ticker.
Who Gets To Pick Maine’s Next Senator?
Graham Platner is out. The oyster farmer who won seventy two percent of Maine’s Democratic primary on a blunt working class platform ended his Senate campaign Wednesday night, after Politico reported a sexual assault allegation from a woman he once dated. Platner says the allegation is categorically false. It didn’t matter. Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, Ruben Gallego and Bernie Sanders all yanked their endorsements, and the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm said flatly it wouldn’t spend a dime in Maine if he stayed on the ballot. So the state committee has voted to hold a nominating convention. Five hundred delegates chosen by county committees, plus the committee itself. Six hundred people picking a nominee that primary voters already picked in June. The meeting where they decided this was closed to the press, though party leaders promise “transparency is of the utmost importance.” The clock is vicious. Platner files his withdrawal Monday. Maine must name a replacement by July twenty seventh. And Susan Collins, running for a sixth term, is watching every minute. Democrats needed this seat to win back the Senate. Now they need a miracle in eighteen days.
What Is Trump Hiding About Air Force One?
Trump flew home from the NATO summit in Turkey this week. He didn’t fly the four hundred million dollar jet Qatar gave him. A New York Times reporter asked why. Trump said the plane was headed to Europe so soldiers could see it, because it’s truly magnificent. Leon Panetta, who ran the CIA and the Pentagon, went on television and said what everybody was thinking. “This is a cover story of some kind,” Panetta said. He pointed out you don’t get maintenance problems on a brand new plane, and Turkey sits right next door to Iran, where Trump’s been dropping bombs. Then officials told MS NOW the rest. The Qatari jet can’t refuel in midair. It lacks the missile defenses. It lacks the command and control gear that turns Air Force One into a flying situation room. It was built as a passenger plane in two thousand twelve. One former national security official said it was built for aesthetics, not the mission. So Trump took a foreign king’s gift, spent your tax dollars making it shiny, and then refused to climb aboard. Surprised?
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, July ninth, two thousand twenty six. I’m Thom Hartmann.
