Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Why Is Trump Posting Fake War Videos While Oil Blows Past 91 Dollars?
US forces hit two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday, the first strike on Iran in a month. Central Command said Revolutionary Guard troops were preparing to mine the strait. Iran’s Guards said the strike killed and wounded soldiers, then fired ballistic missiles at two American bases in Jordan. Jordan’s military says it intercepted eight of them. Then the president posted an AI generated video of Iran’s Kharg Island going up in flames. “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens,” he wrote. Kharg wasn’t touched. It handles about 90% of Iran’s oil exports and sits 400 miles from the actual fighting. The head of Iran’s state oil company called the post laughable and said work there never stopped. He followed with a second fake video, then a clip of himself golfing. Traders took it seriously even if he didn’t. Brent crude shot past $91 a barrel. The Washington Post reports the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force warned Pete Hegseth in a classified August 14 assessment that this war has run too long and is wearing the force down. When the president publishes cartoons of bombings that never happened, nobody can tell what’s real. Not our allies, not Tehran, and not the families waiting on troops.
Amnesty Demands Congress Halt a Yearlong Killing Campaign at Sea
Wednesday marks one year since Trump started bombing boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Amnesty International USA marked it Monday by calling on Congress to act. The group says more than 225 people are dead, and the most recent four were killed just six days ago. Amanda Klasing, the group’s national director for government relations, says the killings break international and American law. Amnesty wants the people who ordered these strikes investigated and prosecuted, naming Trump, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. Klasing calls it “this ongoing policy of murder” and says Congress needs to do its job. The military has confirmed 68 bombings with at least 227 deaths and three survivors. Nobody’s been charged. The victims mostly haven’t been named. Republicans control both chambers narrowly and have refused to let war powers resolutions come to a vote. Southern Command has since expanded the campaign into a new operation aimed at defeating all threats across Latin America. Here’s the thing about extrajudicial killing. Once a government decides it can blow up people it merely suspects of a crime, with no evidence and no trial, the only question is where the line sits. So far it’s been the water. Congress could move tomorrow - but - It just won’t.
Why Did Vought’s Watchdog Let Bilt Wreck 1,900 Credit Reports?
ProPublica reports Russell Vought bragged to Congress in July about his new approach at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After courts blocked him from shutting the agency down, he tried something else. He made it friendly. The bureau pledged humility and cooperation with the companies it’s supposed to police. His example was a rent payment startup called Bilt, valued above $10 billion with seven million customers. Earlier this year Bilt botched a card transition. Customers had rent paid twice, paid late, or not paid at all. Complaints to the bureau jumped 1,300 percent in a single month. Vought’s team didn’t open an investigation. No examiners, no subpoenas, no consent decree. They met with executives, took the company’s word for it, and posted a press release saying Bilt was back on track. Two weeks later, nearly 1,900 Bilt customers got debt collection notices for money they never owed. Credit scores dropped. One man watched his fall 50 points overnight. “The press release just looks like they’re providing air cover for the company,” said a former bureau lawyer. That agency exists because in 2008 the banks blew up the economy while nobody watched. The watchdog still has teeth. This administration just decided not to use them.
Will Tarrant County Close 92 Polling Places Before November?
Tarrant County, Texas, is home to Fort Worth, two million people, and one of the tightest Senate races in America. On Tuesday its commissioners vote on a plan to run the November midterms with 92 fewer polling places than the county used in 2022. Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico went to Arlington Sunday to fight it. He said the county’s most powerful people “don’t want us to be able to vote easily.” County Judge Tim O’Hare, a Republican, says the cuts eliminate wasteful sites across the street from each other, and voters will still have more than 200 places to vote. Many of the locations on the chopping block serve poorer and minority neighborhoods. An earlier version of this plan was worse. It would’ve cut Election Day sites to 176, down from 316. Commissioner Alisa Simmons, running against O’Hare, says don’t compare this to the worst proposal. Compare it to the access Tarrant County voters actually had four years ago. Talarico is running against Ken Paxton and leads in most polls. No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994. If Democrats flip the Senate in November, the road runs through this county. Which is why the doors are closing.
ICE Ships Afghan Allies Into One of Africa’s Most Dangerous Countries
CBS News obtained internal government documents showing that over 10 days, ICE flew more than 100 deportees to eight African nations. Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Not one of the people on those planes was a citizen of the country where they were dropped. They came from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Nepal, Turkey and Venezuela. One is a 24-year-old Afghan named Khalil whose family helped American forces. An immigration judge granted him withholding of removal last year, which means a court found it’s too dangerous to send him home. So the government sent him to the Central African Republic instead, a country torn by armed conflict and crawling with Russian mercenaries. More than 30 countries have signed these third country deals. The terms are secret. Many of the deportees have no criminal record beyond crossing a border. A Venezuelan man who sold cars and delivered food in Texas is now stranded in Liberia. This isn’t deportation. It’s banishment. Exile to a place you’ve never seen, picked by a government that doesn’t have to explain itself to anyone. A judge said don’t send this man home. So they sent him somewhere else.
What Happens to Your Grocery Bill When Two Wars Hit the Farm?
Axios reports the pressure on food prices is stacking up from every direction. The Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars have driven diesel up, which raises the cost of running farm equipment and trucking food to stores. The Iran war also snarled fertilizer, since much of the world’s supply crosses the Strait of Hormuz. Corn and wheat just hit three year highs on bad weather and disrupted exports. Wheat is in almost everything in your pantry. Corn feeds the animals. When those climb, meat and dairy and eggs follow. Instant coffee is up 15.8% over the year. Beef roasts, 13.5%. Tomatoes, 12.8. In a recent Economist and YouGov poll, three-quarters said grocery prices are still rising where they live. J.P. Morgan analysts warn global food inflation could hit 5 percent early next year, nearly double this year’s rate. Farmers aren’t cashing in. The head of the National Corn Growers Association told Axios he won’t be profitable this year. The war raises the price of your food, and nobody in the chain comes out ahead except the people selling fuel.
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, August 31, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
