Commonwealth Report: Missouri Republicans Hint at Defying Courts

0:00I have several cherished sweaters in my closet from Quince that I wear on repeat. You know, I run cold sweaters for sweaters often and that's one of the things that Quince does best. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos and breathable active wear. Quality basics designed to work across your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and therefore they cut out the middlemen to your pain for high quality and not brand markup. And as such as clothing, Quince brings that same approach to everything they make from hotel quality bedding and bath and kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash Tom THOM. If free shipping on your order in 365 day returns now available on Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash Tom. Quince.com slash Tom.

1:00When was the last time you woke up actually feeling rusted? Or got through a day without feeling totally stressed out? Yeah, over 50% of adults say they'd feel better if they got more sleep and stress is off in the biggest barrier. That's why CBD from CBD distillery makes so much sense. CBD distillery has natural solutions for sleep and stress that can help break that vicious, stress-sleep cycle. And everything from CBD distillery is premium quality, third party tested and free from artificial dyes or fillers. They're the source I trust and so do two million other happy customers. You can shop by benefit whether you want better sleep, less stress, improve focus, pain relief after workouts or even something for your pets. It's all right there. The sleep gummies are a must have for me. So if you're ready to start sleeping better, stressing less and just feeling good again, check out CBD distillery. Visit CB distillery.com and use my code Tom, DHOM for 25% off that CB distillery.com code Tom, CB distillery.com specific product availability depends on individual state regulations.

2:00Missouri Republicans hint at defying the courts. Golf states are re-improve their economies. Groceries grow less safe. Our Republican Senator jailed his patients, affordable units sit empty, cop's fear, metaglasses. Good day. This is the Commonwealth Report news for the public. Not the powerful. You can receive this every day in your inbox for free at Commonwealth Report.News. Well, Missouri Republicans do fire their own Supreme Court to keep a rigged map. Missouri's redistricting war just went from ugly to lawless. Last year, Donald Trump's urging Republicans carved up Democratic Congressman Immanuel Cleaver's Kansas City District to hand the GOP a seven to one edge in a state that's only about 55% Republican. That map already ran the August primary. Then last week, the state's own Supreme Court unanimously threw it out for November, restored the old lines and Senator voters as a referendum. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway lost her bid to pause that ruling,

3:02so she raced to Washington with an emergency appeal. And her own brief tells the justices that county election officials are now left to make their own decisions on whether to follow the state court or keep using the Republican map. The political reporter Mark Maxwell says that's a signal officials could simply defy the court system, which would be absolute chaos, he says. A lawyer for people not politicians called it open defiance. Candidates don't know which district they're running in. Cleaver, who's represented Kansas City for 20 years, says he has no idea where he'll land. The US Supreme Court could act within days with control of the House on the line. When a party treats court rulings as optional, whenever it loses, that's not redistricting. That's the end of the rule of law. Golf nations build wars against Iran as Trump's war grinds on. Across the Persian Gulf, America's allies have stopped waiting for Washington to finish this stupid war. They're building their own defenses and their own escape routes around the street of hormones.

4:03Officials gathered at a hill for him and Abu Dhabi this week said the region can't keep living in a state of neither war nor peace. The UAE's top diplomatic advisor, Anwar Gargash, put it plainly. He said, quote, geography gives us no alternative to engagement with Iran. Here's what that looks like on the ground. The UAE has rushed a $3 billion pipeline to Fuzhira on the far side of the street and wants it online by mid next year. Saudi Arabia is pushing oil to the Red Sea where Iran's Houthi allies are now attacking tankers. Iraq is working on pipelines through Turkey and Syria and Gulf states are shopping for radar and missile defense systems trying to knit their air defenses into one network. One Gulf official told reporters there are ran proofing their economies. Think about what that means. The countries closest to this fight have concluded their won't end soon and they're spending billions to live with it. That's the bill for Trump's war. The Americans are paying for it at the gas pump and will continue to.

5:04Who got in the food inspectors while your grocery bill kept climbing? The average American family now spends more than $10,000 a year on groceries. Prices are up more than 18% since 2022 and two-thirds of Americans say they're paying too much. Now Axios reports the food you're on you're overpaying for is getting less safe to eat. The FDA just hit a record 19 outbreak investigations running at the same time covering everything from infant more formula to jalapenos. Why? Because the Trump administration pushed out thousands of workers at the CDC, the FDA and the USDA and federal officials admit they do fewer inspections. Cornell economist Christopher Barrett said the idea that those cuts won't hurt food safety is demonstrably false. When inspectors stop showing up, more contaminated product goes out the door and companies pass the cost of recalls right back to you. Food and water watch analyst Lauren Borsheim says the administration quote has really just dismantled many of the fundamental protections that keep our food safe.

6:05Add corporate consolidation where one supplier's mistake becomes a multi-state panic like the cyclist's spora outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce and a multi-billion dollar company. And you've got a system built to fail. Inflation makes groceries hard to afford. Gutting the watchdogs makes them hard to trust. Working families are getting hit from all sides. Did a Republican senator have his own patients thrown in jail over their medical bills? Kansas senator Roger Marshall spent 25 years as an obstetrician and brags on his website about his passion for the sanctity of life. Now the New York Times has gone through Kansas court records and found that Marshall sued more than 700 of his own patients over unpaid bills, some as small as $101. 81 of them were arrested. Joe Vazquez and his wife were hauled off over Easter weekend in 2007 as they got ready for an egg hunt with their grandkids over a $4,500 bill from her emergency hysterectomy. They spent two days in jail before relatives scraped together the bail.

7:05Misha Zimmerman owed $3,500 for an emergency C-section. It ballooned past $7,000. She was arrested in front of her two-year-old. She said, I asked them quietly, can you not handcuff me in front of my daughter? Marshall is worth up to $9.8 million. He spoke when women says judges issue warrants not doctors. Tell that to the mother who had to choose between her electric bill and $50 a month to a doctor who didn't need it. This is what happens when we treat healthcare as a business instead of a right. Why are thousands of affordable apartments sitting empty while people sleep in shelters? Matthew Davis lives in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas. He earns a few hundred dollars a month donating blood plasma. Even a $450 a month tying home with no running waters out of his reach. Meanwhile, more than 4,500 units that Austin calls affordable, nearly 16% of them sit empty. Here's why. The federal low income housing tax credit pays developers to keep rents low. But most of those units go to people earning 50 to 60% of the area's median income.

8:08In Portland, a 60% unit rent, a unit rents for $1,400, barely below the $1,581 market rate. So the working poor skip the paperwork and rent market rate and the poorest can't afford either. Austin promised 20,000 units for its poorest residents. It billed $543. Davis says, quote, I want to shut the door at night and be able to sleep. There are 11 million extremely low income writer households in America and only 4 million units they can afford. We're subsidizing developers to build apartments. Nobody in a shelter can rent. That's not a housing policy. That's a giveaway with a nicer name. Police panic over metaglasses that'll let the public watch them back. And finally, the surveillance status discovered it doesn't like being surveilled. The Guardian obtained a dozen memos showing police remained to California, worried about Rayband Meta smart classes, the ones with tiny cameras and microphones. In January, the NYPD's counterterrorism unit called them a security and counterintelligence threat

9:09in order to offer us to inspect all I wear allowed in jail cells. After videos shot inside police facilities showed up on social media. Maine's Homeland Security Fusion Center warned in June that the glasses can run facial met recognition and could be used to docs officers. Similar memos came from fusion centers in San Diego, Tennessee, Virginia, and New York. And in August, ICE banned its own employees from wearing them in federal workplaces calling them the equivalent of body cameras. Ryan Shapiro, the transparency group property of the people, which obtained the documents, put it perfectly. When only the government is allowed to hold the camera, that's not security. That, he said, is impunity. His agency's run facial recognition on all of us every day turns out the only object to a camera when it's pointed at them. And that's the way it is today Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. I'm Tom Hartman.