Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Who’s Running The Justice Department Now, Big Oil?
Robert Levy, an executive counsel who spent seventeen years inside Exxon Mobil, is walking straight into Trump’s Justice Department. His first day is the thirteenth of July. He’ll be senior counsel in the division that used to be called the Environment and Natural Resources Division. Trump’s team just renamed it the Energy and Natural Resources Division. Read that again. The office that’s supposed to police polluters now answers to a man who spent his career defending one of the biggest polluters on earth. A watchdog group says the Big Oil takeover is now complete, warning the department will “work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet.” That’s the fox not just guarding the henhouse, but drawing up the blueprints. Clean air, clean water, a livable climate. All of it now sits in Exxon’s lap.
Does Trump Want A Bank Where Your Money Has No Rescue?
Trump’s own financial disclosure just showed his companies pulled in almost eight hundred million dollars from World Liberty Financial last year, his family’s crypto operation. Now that same operation wants something extraordinary. A federal bank charter. They’re asking regulators to bless a new outfit called World Liberty Trust Company, built around a digital coin called USD1. Here’s the catch. The filing admits the bank won’t carry deposit insurance. So if it collapses, the people holding those coins are on their own. No backstop, no recourse. And the man deciding whether to approve it, the Comptroller of the Currency, was appointed by Trump himself. He also signed off on the soft rulebook that would police it. A firm tied to the United Arab Emirates reportedly owns nearly half of it. The public can still weigh in through July twenty-fourth. After that, the door may close.
Platner’s Campaign Cracks...
In Maine, the Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is hitting pause. A Politico report detailed an allegation from a woman named Jenny Racicot, who says Platner entered her home uninvited about five years ago and forced himself on her while she told him to stop. Platner denies it and calls the accusation categorically false. But the ground gave way fast. Congressman Ro Khanna, once one of his fiercest defenders, yanked his endorsement, saying “sexual assault or violence against women is a red line.” Senator Ruben Gallego pulled his too. So did Elizabeth Warren, the state party, and the Senate campaign arm. Platner says he’s reflecting on the best path forward. He’s got until the thirteenth of July to withdraw so Democrats can name a replacement. There are rumors that the GOP has more damning info on Platner they were ready to drop after the Monday deadline.
Is Mitch McConnell’s Office Hiding The Truth? Is He Brain Dead?
Mitch McConnell, eighty-four years old, has been in a hospital since the fourteenth of June, when emergency crews responded to an unconscious person at his home and started CPR for cardiac arrest. Three weeks later, his office still won’t say whether he’s conscious, or whether he’s on life support. They keep repeating the same statement, that he’s recovering and working with staff. Nobody has seen him. Now a far-right Trump ally, Laura Loomer, claims a source told her McConnell is “officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.” That’s unverified, and it came from an influencer, not a doctor. But the silence is its own story. Daily Kos writers wonder aloud whether McConnell’s people are keeping the seat frozen to block a rival Republican from running in Kentucky. McConnell has already said he won’t seek reelection.
Why Is Trump Making It Easier To Arm Up?
The Trump administration is tearing up more than three dozen gun rules, and calling it freedom. The New York Times reported the rollback this weekend. The ATF already scrapped the zero-tolerance policy that let regulators pull the licenses of dealers who broke the law. Now a dealer basically has to admit they knew they were breaking it. Rules that kept guns from people with a history of mental illness? Weakened. Veterans deemed unable to manage their own finances can now stock up. The gun-show background-check loophole is coming back. You’ll even be able to mail firearms. Why now? Gun sales dipped, and the industry wants more customers. Even Gun Owners of America whined, saying “Gun owners would expect better from our Republican Justice Department.” More guns, fewer checks, and the body count is somebody else’s problem.
Did One Phone Call Bend The World Cup? And…Create Bad Luck?
Here’s how power really works. American striker Folarin Balogun got a red card in the U.S. win over Bosnia, which meant an automatic one-game ban. Trump didn’t like it. He picked up the phone and called FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a man he’d handed a so-called FIFA Peace Prize back in December. Hours later, the ban vanished, swapped for a year of probation. UEFA said FIFA had “crossed a red line.” Belgium was furious and tried to appeal. FIFA tossed the appeal out, saying Belgium had no standing. Belgium warned it’s leaving all options open. It’s the first time since nineteen sixty-two that a World Cup red card didn’t cost a player a game. And the punchline? Balogun played anyway, and the United States lost to Belgium four to one. Out of the tournament. Is Trump bad luck?
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, July seventh, twenty twenty-six. I’m Thom Hartmann.
