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Trump’s War is Burning Holes in Your Wallet at the Pump
You remember how Trump promised he’d cut your energy costs in half. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts just ran the numbers, and what he found is infuriating. His office calculates that the average American driver will pay $1,096 more for gasoline in 2026 alone, thanks to Trump’s war in Iran. Gas was under three dollars a gallon before Trump and Israel launched that war back in February. Now the national average sits at $4.14 a gallon, and diesel is pushing $5.64, nearly matching its all-time record from 2022. The Energy Information Administration projects gas could peak at $4.30 a gallon by the end of April. Markey said it plainly: America’s small businesses, workers, and families are really feeling pain at the pump, all thanks to Trump’s illegal war on Iran. And he’s right. A Pew poll this week found that gas prices are the number one concern Americans have about the Iran conflict, ahead of casualties, ahead of terror threats, ahead of everything.
Did House Republicans Just Sell Out the Constitution to Protect Trump’s War?
While most of Congress was still on Easter recess, a handful of House Democrats returned to Washington and tried to force a vote on a war powers resolution to end Trump’s conflict in Iran. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland attempted to invoke unanimous consent during a brief pro forma session. Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, presiding, gaveled the session shut before Ivey could even speak. Democrats erupted. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says they need only a few Republican crossovers to pass the resolution and are in active talks to get them. A fresh Economist/YouGov poll shows 53% of Americans oppose this war, and just 15% support sending ground troops, which Trump has seriously considered. Congress returns next week. Republicans who keep blocking these votes will own every casualty, every spiked gas price, and every dollar this war costs.
Trump’s DOJ Wants Americans to Believe Biden Was Hunting Christians
The Trump administration is finishing a report that brands the Biden Justice Department as anti-Christian, and it’s exactly as political as it sounds. The report comes from an executive order Trump signed in February 2025 creating a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. It attacks the Biden DOJ for enforcing the FACE Act, the 1994 law protecting abortion clinics from blockades and violence. Trump already pardoned those protesters. The report also drags up a retracted FBI memo from Richmond that flagged radical-traditionalist Catholics as potential threats, a memo publicly disavowed by both former FBI Director Chris Wray and former Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Interfaith Alliance found no evidence of widespread anti-Christian bias in America. This report carries zero legal weight. It’s a campaign document wrapped in a DOJ letterhead, designed to brand Democrats as enemies of the faithful heading into a midterm election year.
Are Republicans Using the EPA to Sneak a Back-Door Ban on Abortion Pills?
This one slipped under the radar while the war dominated the news. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently flagged pharmaceuticals as a priority group on the agency’s draft Contaminant Candidate List, which tracks unregulated substances in public drinking water. Anti-abortion groups, led by Students for Life, immediately moved to get mifepristone added, the pill used in more than 60% of all U.S. abortions. The Guttmacher Institute is unambiguous: there’s no scientific evidence mifepristone harms drinking water. Ibuprofen, blood pressure medication, all of it shows up in trace amounts in wastewater. This isn’t about clean water. It’s about finding a back-door legal weapon to restrict abortion access in a country where direct abortion bans keep losing at the ballot box.
Racist Alert: Trump Posts Snuff Video of a Murder to Stoke His Race War on Immigrants
We’ll close this morning on something that should permanently disgrace this presidency. Yesterday, Donald Trump posted raw snuff video footage on Truth Social of a woman being beaten to death with a hammer at a Florida gas station. The victim was Nilufa Easmin, a Bangladeshi immigrant, a gas station clerk, and a mother of two. Rolbert Joachin, a Haitian national whose Temporary Protected Status had expired. That’s the point. This is the same president who told America that Haitians were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. He’s been stoking a race war against Black and Brown immigrants since day one. Using snuff video of a real woman’s murder to drive hatred of Haitian immigrants and demand the rollback of immigrant protections isn’t law enforcement. It’s race-baiting, and the sitting president of the United States is doing it for votes. Can Trump sink any lower? Sadly, he probably can.
And that’s the way it is, Today Friday, April 10, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.











