Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is the Country Trump’s to Liquidate?
A new report from the American Economic Liberties Project and Groundwork Collaborative lays it out in painful detail. They call it “The Price of Corruption,” and it shows how Trump’s pay-to-play government is jacking up costs for working families while padding his own pockets. The report says TrumpRx, sold as a way to get cheaper drugs, is really a scheme funneling more money to big pharma. Tariff rates that shift after gold bars change hands. Enforcement actions dropped after seven-figure donations. A pardon for a health care fraudster right after his mother wrote a check at Mar-a-Lago. Morgan Harper of Economic Liberties put it plainly. “The country is not Trump’s to liquidate.” Groundwork found three-quarters of voters want accountability. When government becomes a grift, you and your family pay the bill.
Why Is America’s Biggest Hate Group Doubling Every Year?
Internal documents leaked to USA Today expose Patriot Front, one of the nation’s largest white supremacist groups, growing fast. You’ve seen them, rows of identical men in blue shirts and white masks. More than 540 members now, in every state but Hawaii. The group’s roughly doubled in size every year since 2018, and pulled in over half its ranks in just the past two years. A source inside handed over a 72-page roster and step-by-step recruitment manuals. They run fight clubs where young men train in mixed martial arts and sign up new recruits. The 27-year-old leader, Thomas Rousseau, wants 600 members by July 4th. These aren’t foreign agents. They’re American men who saw an organized hate movement and decided they wanted in. That should keep all of us up at night.
Four Republicans Break Ranks to Stop Trump’s War
The House voted Wednesday to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran. The tally was 215 to 208, and for the first time, just enough Republicans crossed the aisle. Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett, and Warren Davidson joined every single Democrat. This Iran war’s dragged on more than three months, blew past the 60-day legal deadline, and Congress never authorized it. Speaker Mike Johnson fought the vote, even sent members home early to kill it. It didn’t work. The resolution’s mostly symbolic, and it faces a tough road in the Senate and a likely Trump veto. Republican Brian Mast brushed it off as a “stupid political vote.” But it’s the clearest rebuke yet. Congress is supposed to declare wars, not rubber-stamp a president who starts them alone.
Who Speaks for the Palestinians on Trump’s Board of Peace?
At the first meeting of Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, he pledged ten billion dollars from the United States and announced seven billion more from other countries for Gaza. Forty nations showed up. Orban and Milei got red MAGA hats. FIFA threw in 75 million for soccer fields. Trump even renamed the Institute of Peace after himself. But here’s what’s missing. There’s no Palestinian voice on the Gaza board. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem called it a “colonialist operation,” others deciding for the Palestinians. Britain, France, Norway, and even Pope Leo all turned down the invitation to join. A peace plan built without the people it claims to save isn’t peace. It’s somebody else carving up their land and calling it a generous gift to the world.
Did Trump Really Compare a Pool to a Skyscraper?
And finally, in the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump held up a giant chart titled “Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers.” He was comparing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation to the Willis Tower, the Empire State Building, and One World Trade Center. Lay it on its side, he said, and it’d take two or three skyscrapers to fill it. The width, he bragged, is almost 200 feet. Now, pools are flat. Skyscrapers are vertical. Journalist Aaron Rupar gently pointed that out. The MeidasTouch Network was blunter, summing it up in a single word. “Unwell.” This is the man holding the nuclear codes, spending his afternoon proving a puddle beats a tower. Laugh if you want. Then remember he runs the country.
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, June 4th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
