Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report. News for the public, not the powerful.
Will Republicans Face Daily War Votes as Polls Collapse?
House Democrats are done playing nice on Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran. They’re rolling out an aggressive new strategy. Introduce a war powers resolution every single day the House is in session until one passes or Trump ends this reckless war. The plan came out of a Progressive Caucus lunch Thursday and got traction even with centrist Democrats. And here’s why. A CBS poll shows 60 percent of Americans disapprove of this war. 64 percent disapprove of how Trump is handling it. Gas is pushing five bucks a gallon in Nevada. Republicans are sticking with Trump for now, but with the 2026 midterms looming, that wall could crack. Congress has a constitutional duty to rein in a reckless president. That’s the whole point.
AIPAC Democrat Sinks War Powers Resolution by a Single Vote
And here’s the outrage. The House War Powers Resolution to end Trump’s Iran war failed Thursday by one vote. 213 to 214. Every Democrat voted to end the war except one. Jared Golden of Maine. The same Jared Golden who has pocketed over 817 thousand dollars from AIPAC during his career. He sided with Republicans to let Trump’s war grind on. And this happened the very same day Democrats were vowing to force a vote on this every single day the House is in session. Golden claimed the resolution would “weaken our hand.” What it would do is bring our troops home. One AIPAC Democrat stood between Congress and a constitutional check on presidential war powers. That’s what bought politicians look like.
Will ICE Finally Face Real Accountability?
Something historic just happened in Minnesota. A Hennepin County prosecutor criminally charged an on-duty ICE agent with two counts of second degree assault. Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. allegedly pulled a gun on two civilians in broad daylight during a road rage incident on Highway 62 back in February. County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed the charges Thursday. A nationwide warrant is out for his arrest. This is the first state criminal prosecution of a federal immigration agent since Trump’s Operation Metro Surge began. ICE shot three people dead in Minneapolis. Zero charges, until now. Moriarty said worrying about federal blowback is “not a concern of ours.” Her job is to enforce state law. When an administration acts like it’s above the law, one county attorney with a spine can change everything.
Is Our Global Food System Teetering on Collapse?
Trump’s Iran war didn’t just spike your gas prices. It’s threatening to crash the global food supply. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade. Since the February 28 bombing, tanker traffic through that strait has collapsed by more than 90 percent. Fertilizer prices have jumped 20 to 40 percent. The World Food Program warns up to 45 million people could face life threatening hunger. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says we have a three month window before planting decisions get locked in for the whole season. Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, Sri Lanka, all of them staring down a food emergency. Here at home, American corn farmers are switching to soybeans because they can’t afford the fertilizer. Your grocery bill is about to get a whole lot uglier. That’s what reckless war does.
Trump Thumbs His Nose at RFK Jr. with CDC Pick
Donald Trump threw his own health secretary under the bus Thursday. He nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz to run the CDC, a former deputy surgeon general described by her ex-boss as “really wicked smart, and not subject to rumor and conspiracy theories.” Translation. Unlike Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Schwartz would be the fourth person tapped to run the CDC during Trump’s second term. Kennedy fired the last confirmed director, Susan Monarez, after she refused to play along with his anti-vax agenda. A federal judge last month ruled Kennedy’s vaccine schedule changes were “arbitrary and capricious.” Measles is surging. Americans are dying of preventable diseases. And Trump, for once, seems to be quietly admitting that his own health secretary is a walking public health disaster.
Has Trump Got Dementia or Is He Just Morbidly Rich?
And finally this. At a Las Vegas tax event Thursday, Donald Trump stopped mid-speech to ask what a corner store is. Quote. “What is a corner store? I’ve never heard that term. Who the hell wrote that?” Let that sink in. The President of the United States has never heard of a corner store. He then said poor people “don’t think in terms of deductions” because, well, they don’t have any. Meanwhile gas is over four dollars a gallon and pushing five in Nevada, and he called the Iran war “a little diversion.” So the question today. Is Trump suffering from dementia, or is he just so morbidly rich that he’s completely disconnected from how ordinary Americans live? Either way, he’s steering the country, and that should terrify all of us.
And that’s the way it is, Today Friday April 17, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
