Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Who Does Mike Johnson Think the Military Is For?
House Speaker Mike Johnson wants Congress to hand the Pentagon another three hundred fifty billion dollars, on top of a record one point one trillion dollar military budget. Here’s how he justified it. He said we’re “fighting communism on our own shores.” Think about that. The Speaker of the House says the American military needs more money to fight Americans. This comes as Trump has threatened to deploy troops against what he calls the enemy within, and just reposted a video declaring democratic socialism must be criminalized and its leaders deported. Reuters counted Trump invoking communism at least eighty-one times in two weeks since progressive candidates won primaries across the country. The money would move through a GOP-only reconciliation bill, no Democratic votes needed. When politicians start calling their opponents enemies of the state, and then arm up to fight them, that’s not national security. That’s how republics die.
Your Tax Dollars Are Bankrolling Europe’s Far Right
The State Department has posted a formal funding notice offering grants of one to three million dollars to build what it calls “civilizational bonds” in Europe. The Financial Times reports the program is designed to fund Trump-aligned think tanks and organizations across the continent. Officials running it have already met with Nigel Farage’s Reform party, Germany’s far right AfD, and groups tied to Viktor Orban. The grant language talks about mass migration, Western identity, and fighting supranational overreach. Foreign Policy reports the money must be spent by September, and critics warn new front groups could spring up just to grab it. Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. Washington spent decades condemning Russia for funding extremist movements inside other democracies. Now your tax dollars are doing exactly the same thing to our own allies.
Did RFK Junior Break the Law to Rig the Midterms?
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has filed a complaint alleging Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior violated the Hatch Act by personally calling Libertarian candidates in two Iowa congressional races and pressuring them to drop out. Why? Because third-party candidates might siphon votes from Republicans in a midterm year where control of Congress hangs in the balance. In a recorded call, Kennedy told one candidate, “If this seat flips, it’ll make my life hell.” He even dangled a federal job, which Wyden says amounts to an illegal quid pro quo. A watchdog at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics called it a clear violation. Notice the pattern. Republicans clear spoilers off the ballot for themselves while the DSA surges on the left. Voters are supposed to pick their leaders. Cabinet secretaries aren’t supposed to delete candidates from the ballot.
Should Trump’s Personal Lawyer Run the Justice Department?
Today Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces his Senate confirmation hearing, and Robert Reich has laid out the case against him. Blanche was Trump’s private defense lawyer, and Reich argues he still treats Trump, not the United States, as his client. The record is staggering. Blanche’s department admitted violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act with improper redactions, and keeps stalling court orders to release the records. He’s prosecuting Trump’s enemies, from John Brennan to James Comey, who was indicted over a photo of seashells. He signed a settlement that would immunize Trump and his family from future prosecution. Just this week a federal judge called his handling of Trump’s IRS settlement “untenable” and referred him to the New York bar. Over a quarter of the department’s lawyers have fled. The Senate switchboard is open. Reich says call today.
Why Are Your Flights Getting So Bumpy?
If your last flight felt rougher than you remember, you’re not imagining it. Scientists at the University of Reading found that severe clear-air turbulence has soared fifty-five percent over the North Atlantic since nineteen seventy-nine, and forty-one percent over the United States. The culprit is climate change. Warmer air is supercharging wind shear in the jet streams, creating turbulence invisible to radar and nearly impossible for pilots to dodge. Atmospheric scientist Paul Williams says the evidence shows “the increase has already begun,” and projections indicate injury-level turbulence could double or triple in the coming decades. Every additional degree of warming makes it worse. The next time the seatbelt sign snaps on at thirty-five thousand feet, remember, that’s not bad luck. That’s fossil fuel pollution shaking the whole plane.
Trump Opens the Door to Killing Grizzly Bears
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stood with three Republican governors in Montana yesterday and announced a proposed rule handing grizzly bear management back to the states. The bears stay listed as threatened, but Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming would get far more flexibility to kill them. Fewer than two thousand grizzlies survive in the lower forty-eight, occupying just six percent of their historic range. Andrea Zaccardi of the Center for Biological Diversity said “Grizzlies shouldn’t be killed at the whim of the livestock industry” while it profits off our public lands. Conservationists note the last time states got control, Wyoming immediately planned a trophy hunt. A thirty day comment period is now open. These bears belong to all of us, not to the cattle lobby. Once they’re gone, no rule change brings them back.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, July 15, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
