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Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Will Trump Choose End of War or Give Netanyahu What He Wants?
A US and Iran ceasefire deal is set to be signed Friday in Switzerland, and it’s supposed to end the war. But Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops aren’t leaving Lebanon. He told reporters, “We will stay in the Lebanon security buffer zone for as long as necessary.” Israel occupies about two hundred square miles of Lebanese land, and its war with Hezbollah has killed more than three thousand people. Iran’s foreign minister says any Israeli troops left in southern Lebanon, or any new strikes, break the deal. The signing happens Friday at a resort near Lucerne, and the deal is supposed to extend the ceasefire sixty days, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and start nuclear talks. Even Trump denounced Israel’s latest strikes on Beirut, calling the threat small and meaningless. So now Trump has a choice. End the war he keeps bragging about, or hand Netanyahu the power to blow it all up. Working people pay for these wars in blood while the powerful posture.
Are Republicans Hiding a Secret Plan to Gut Your Social Security?
Senator Elizabeth Warren and a group of Democrats are pressing Trump to come clean. They want to know if his administration plans to raise the Social Security retirement age, which is just a benefit cut wearing a disguise. Every single year you add to the age slashes benefits by about seven percent. Warren sent a fresh letter Sunday night, warning the trust fund runs short in late twenty thirty-two. And House Speaker Mike Johnson? He says Republicans will release their new Social Security plan, quote, next year, conveniently after the midterms. As one Democratic spokesman put it, Johnson “won’t show the American people his secret plan.” Here’s what they won’t tell you. Warren and Bernie Sanders have a bill that would keep Social Security solvent for seventy-five years by making income over two hundred fifty thousand dollars pay the payroll tax. The money is there. The rich just don’t want to chip in. They’re hiding the ball because they know you’d vote them out if you saw it.
Did Trump Lie About Who Pays for His Ballroom?
You bet he did. The Washington Post got hold of a contractor summary showing Trump’s giant White House ballroom will cost six hundred million dollars, and taxpayers are on the hook for more than half. Trump received that estimate in early March. Then, three weeks later, he stood in the Oval Office and said, “This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up ten cents.” The records tell another story. One hundred fifty-five million from the Secret Service. One hundred forty-nine million from the White House Military Office. The money grab was so brazen that seven Republicans joined Democrats in early June to block public funding. Even Susan Collins said Trump’s promise to donors should hold. They tore down the historic East Wing for this vanity project, lied about the price, and now they’re reaching into your pocket. And days ago he threw himself a sixty-million-dollar cage fight on the White House lawn for his eightieth birthday. Must be nice.
Russia Burns a Thousand-Year-Old Monastery to the Ground
Overnight Monday, Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s biggest cities. The strikes set fire to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a UNESCO World Heritage site nearly a thousand years old. Flames poured from its Dormition Cathedral. At least eleven people died across Ukraine. In Kharkiv, five rescue workers were killed by a second strike while they fought a fire from the first one. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it only hit “targets within the defense-industrial complex,” then ran a disinformation campaign blaming Ukraine for the blaze. The attack knocked out power to about one hundred forty thousand households in northern Kyiv. Zelenskyy pointed out Putin launched the assault right after congratulating Trump on his birthday, and he begged the world for a real response before this week’s G7 summit. This is what Putin does when American leaders treat him like a friend instead of a war criminal.
Trump Guts the Education Department Again
The Trump administration said Tuesday it’s shipping two of the department’s biggest jobs out the door. Special education programs go to Health and Human Services. Civil rights enforcement goes to the Justice Department. That special ed office protects disabled children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a law that guarantees them a real public education. The civil rights office defends students from discrimination based on disability, race, gender, and national origin. Trump campaigned on closing the Education Department, and he can’t do it legally on his own, so Education Secretary Linda McMahon is gutting it piece by piece from the inside. The civil rights office has already been whipsawed for months by staff cuts and reversals. The administration says shuffling these offices around will somehow serve vulnerable kids better, but disability advocates aren’t buying it. One advocate called it, quote, another vindictive attempt to undermine public education. The kids who lose the most are the ones who need help the most.
Crazy Alert. MAGA Blames the Left for Pool Algae
Here’s one to make you laugh and cry at the same time. Trump spent more than thirteen million dollars renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and had it painted a deep blue. About a week later, it turned swamp green, choked with algae. Now, a normal person sees that and thinks, well, that renovation was a flop. Not MAGA world. Conservative host Grant Stinchfield stood beside the murky green water, stared into the camera, and cried, “Sabotage. Vandalism? I believe it is.” He’s convinced the left poisoned the pool to embarrass Dear Leader. Here’s the not-so-secret truth. Chemists will tell you a giant unchlorinated pool baking in the sun is an algae magnet, and dark paint only makes it worse because dark colors soak up heat, and heat feeds algae. On Tuesday, park workers were spotted dumping gallons of bleach into the thing to hide the mess, using a concentrate strong enough to burn skin and maybe harm the ducks. And get this. The price tag started at one point eight million dollars and climbed to nearly fifteen million. The New York Times found the filter pipes keep cracking under the soil, and the renovation just ignored them. The only conspiracy here is the war these MAGA folks keep waging on eighth-grade science.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
