Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Why Are We Arguing About Socialism Instead Of Fixing Capitalism?
Michael Tomasky writes in The New Republic that everybody’s panicking over socialism polling in the high 30s. Nobody wants to talk about capitalism’s numbers. Gallup had socialism at 39% approval last fall. Capitalism got 54%. That’s barely half the country that invented it. Among Democrats it’s even lower. Tomasky says it’s deserved. He lists four problems. It’s inefficient, wasting kids in Appalachia and Detroit who’ll never get the schooling they need. Monopoly power is out of control, and FDR knew that’s a perversion of capitalism, not a feature. The fortunes are obscene. Elon Musk was worth $13.9 billion in 2015 and briefly became the world’s first trillionaire. And algorithms now let corporations nickel and dime you with hidden fees and surveillance pricing. As Tomasky puts it, “Anyone who’s interested in stopping socialism needs to work on fixing capitalism.” Are young folks reading Marx or reading their paychecks?
How Many Recalls Does One Trump-Linked Farm Get?
Taylor Farms is at it again. The Trump-linked produce giant behind this summer’s cyclospora outbreak announced Sunday it’s recalling a dozen prepared products, including jalapeños, salsas, and guacamole, over salmonella. The peppers traced back to a distributor sourcing from a grower in Sinaloa, Mexico. That’s on top of a separate Salmonella outbreak tied to Mexican jalapeños that’s sickened at least 345 people in 27 states and put 36 in the hospital. Chipotle and Qdoba dropped the peppers. Meanwhile cyclospora has hit at least 18,517 people across nine states, and two people died in Michigan. The New Republic calls it “an explosive diarrhea epidemic.” Remember why. DOGE cut the screwworm monitoring program and gutted the CDC team that would’ve handled this. Fire the food safety cops and the food gets dangerous. When food gets dangerous Americans are screwed.
RFK Jr. Aims At The Food Loophole He Can’t Actually Close
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rolled out a proposed rule Monday aimed at the GRAS loophole. Since 1958, companies have been allowed to declare their own chemical additives generally recognized as safe and put them in your food without ever telling the FDA. Thousands of substances got in that way. Kennedy said industry “drove a convoy of chemical trucks through it.” His fix requires companies to notify the FDA and show their work. It doesn’t require approval before the chemical hits the shelf. Acting FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas admitted it doesn’t create premarket review. Congress would have to change the 1938 law for that. Food safety advocates say it ignores the thousands of chemicals already in the pantry. Kennedy asked Congress to give the FDA more power. Don’t hold your breath. So now we have a notification system instead of a safety system. That’s what happens when profits are more important than your health.
Is Trump Ending The Arctic Report To Stop The Bad News?
The Trump administration is pulling NOAA’s support for the Arctic Report Card, the peer-reviewed assessment the agency has published every December since 2006. Politico broke the story. Scientists got the word in a Monday afternoon meeting, with no reason given. More than 100 researchers around the world contribute to it. NOAA supplied the coordinating editor, the hosting, and much of the data. Zack Labe, an author since 2020, called the decision “truly devastating.” NOAA’s spokeswoman says the data will still be collected and stay public, but the report won’t be a NOAA product this year. This is the same administration that stopped the billion-dollar disaster database, fired the National Climate Assessment authors, and froze climate.gov. The Arctic’s warming faster than anywhere on Earth. Not looking doesn’t slow the melting. It does, however, make you blind to the coming disasters.
Zuckerberg’s 300 Million Dollar Yacht Couldn’t Be Bothered
Last Monday night off southeast Alaska, a 21-foot skiff put out a call for help. The Alaska Beacon reported it Friday. The Coast Guard picked up the call just before 10 o’clock and radioed the nearest big vessel, Mark Zuckerberg’s 390-foot, $300 million yacht Launchpad. According to a passenger on a nearby cruise ship, the yacht “repeatedly refused to respond.” So the UnCruise Adventures ship, which was farther away, steamed past the Launchpad and towed the skiff into Farragut Bay. Passengers booed when the captain told them what happened. The law of the sea is older than Meta, and it says you help. There’s a name for the guy with the biggest boat who won’t turn the wheel and it isn’t captain.
Geeky Science. 5 Words That Can Cool Down Any Political Argument
And finally, some free advice for surviving the dinner table. Parade talked to psychologists about how to disagree without making enemies, and one licensed psychologist, Cashuna Huddleston, offered five words. “I like your opinion. However.” That’s it. You acknowledge the person, you keep your spine, and you keep the conversation going. Huddleston says it shows you can respect somebody’s view even when you think they’re wrong. The catch is you have to mean it. Say it with a smirk and it lands as an insult. Other therapists suggest saying you’re not sure that’s right, or that’s a valid point, but. None of this is hard. It’s just out of practice. We’ve spent 10 years learning to fight online and forgetting how to argue in person. Let me know how it plays out when you try these five words when you disagree with MAGA uncle Ralph.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, August 11, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
