Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Supreme Court Unleashes Third-Country Deportations as UN Warns of Torture
In a one-page order Tuesday, the Supreme Court cleared Trump to resume shipping immigrants to countries they’ve never seen. The justices didn’t rule on whether it’s legal. They froze a lower court ruling that required notice and a chance to say, I could be tortured there. The three liberal justices dissented. Monday, two dozen UN human rights experts begged America and 35 partner countries to stop. “The harms caused by this US government scheme are no longer hypothetical,” they said. Monitors count more than 25,000 people sent to at least 29 countries, including South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Witnesses say two men dumped in Equatorial Guinea this month were bound, hooded and beaten. Attorney General Todd Blanche called it entirely lawful. When a court lets government disappear people without a hearing, nobody’s rights are safe.
Why Did Senate Republicans Block a Probe Into Nine Americans Killed?
Monday night more than 100 Israeli settlers stormed the West Bank village of Jalud. Israel’s own High Court had ordered the army to bring the Tubasi family home. Instead the mob blocked roads, burned tires, stoned soldiers and torched the family’s houses. The army gave up, and the world’s press finally noticed. Then our Senate voted 47 to 51 against Chris Van Hollen’s measure ordering the State Department to investigate the killings of at least nine American citizens by settlers or Israeli forces since 2022. One was a 14-year-old from New Jersey. Fifty Republicans voted no, joined by Democrat John Fetterman. Only Rand Paul crossed over. “Republicans blocked us, but we won’t stop until we get justice,” Van Hollen said. A government that won’t ask who killed its own citizens has forgotten who it works for.
Is Hegseth Gutting the Generals While America Fights a War?
Pete Hegseth is about to swing the axe again. Fox News and others report he’ll announce a 20% cut in slots for generals and admirals today, during his State of the Force address at Quantico, Virginia. It hits every rank from one star to four. That doubles the 10% goal he set last year. And it lands seven months into the war with Iran, after a long line of top officers have already quit or been pushed out. Hegseth says the brass is bloated. “We won World War II with seven four-star generals,” he’s argued, against 44 now. But a purge in wartime isn’t reform. Officers swear an oath to the Constitution, not to one man. A military whose leaders are picked for loyalty instead of judgment is a danger to the republic it’s supposed to defend.
The Big ICE Lie About Shooting a DoorDash Driver in the Back?
Wilber Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan, was delivering DoorDash in North Austin on September 20 when an ICE officer shot him in the upper back. Prosecutors have charged him with assaulting a federal officer. He faces up to 20 years. But the affidavit never interviews the shooter. It relies on a phone call where he told his partner that Garces tried to hit him with the car. The shooter wore no body camera. His partner switched his off. A bystander’s Facebook livestream, analyzed by CNN, appears to show the agent standing behind and beside the car as shots ring out. Two bullet holes mark the rear passenger window. “These people must be trained to lie,” wrote the Cato Institute’s David Bier. When armed agents can shoot first and write the story afterward, we’re all at risk.
Why Is Trump Begging Europe to Bail Out His Diesel Disaster?
Diesel recently topped $6 a gallon, the midterms are five weeks out, and the White House is asking Europe for help. Reuters reports Trump’s team urged the European Union to drain its emergency diesel stockpiles to pull prices down. Energy Secretary Chris Wright scolded the allies. “We urge every member country to fulfill its commitments,” he said. EU energy chief Dan Jorgensen says they’ve discussed another release with the International Energy Agency, but nothing’s decided. Trump’s weighing a ban on American diesel exports, which would hammer those same Europeans. Tuesday his administration offered up to 40 million more barrels from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Prices exploded after America and Israel struck Iran on February 28. Farmers and truckers are paying for it. Trump started this fire, and now he wants the neighbors to bring the water.
Trump Quietly Surrenders and E. Jean Carroll Keeps Her $5.6 Million
The man who never backs down just backed down. Trump has dropped his last challenge to the $5.6 million paid to writer E. Jean Carroll. He agreed to dismiss his appeal with prejudice, which means he can never bring it again. He gave up trying to force her to hand the money back. A jury found in 2023 that he sexually abused Carroll in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s and then defamed her. The Supreme Court refused to hear him in June and again in August. “It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in July. Trump’s still asking the justices to erase a separate $83.3 million verdict. But on this one a woman took on the most powerful man alive and won.
And that’s the way it is, Today is Wednesday, September 30, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
