Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report. News for the public, not the powerful.
Trump’s Iran War is About to Cost You Five Bucks a Gallon
The White House is in a full-blown panic. Reuters reports that Trump’s own aides are scrambling because gas prices are climbing past four dollars and fifty cents a gallon, and seven states have already crossed the five dollar line. The political fallout from Trump’s Iran war is hammering American drivers, and consumer sentiment just hit a record low. Inflation in April clocked in at three point eight percent, the highest in nearly three years. Trump’s now floating a suspension of the federal gas tax to shave off eighteen cents, a move his own team once called unnecessary. One White House adviser told Reuters, “We made gas prices the Achilles’ heel for Biden, and now it’s our own.” With midterms looming in November, Republicans see the writing on the wall. They told Reuters affordability is their single biggest vulnerability. Working Americans are paying the price for Trump’s foreign adventure, and the bill keeps growing.
Who’s Bankrolling the Right-Wing Media Empire You Watch?
According to the Guardian today, two Texas billionaires named Dan and Farris Wilks made their fortune fracking the planet, and they’ve pumped that money into the conservative media machine for over a decade. The brothers sold their fracking company for three point five billion dollars in 2011, then turned around and dumped at least eight million dollars into PragerU. Farris Wilks personally seeded Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire with four point seven million dollars in startup cash. Their goal, according to one Notre Dame historian, is to “gain control of levers of power and control information.” These billionaires fund climate denial videos that get pushed into classrooms in states like Florida. They bankrolled Ted Cruz’s super PAC with fifteen million dollars. They’ve bought up hundreds of thousands of acres in Idaho and Montana, blocking public access to public lands. The next time someone tells you the right-wing media is grassroots, remember whose oil money paid for the megaphone. It’s not the public. It’s the powerful.
Trump’s Cuba Blockade Just Created a Humanitarian Disaster - What Can Be Done?
Cuba says it’s run out of fuel. The island’s energy minister announced this week that diesel and crude oil reserves are gone, with only natural gas from local wells keeping anything running. Sixty-five percent of Cuban territory went dark on Tuesday. Havana’s enduring blackouts of more than nineteen hours a day. Garbage piles up in the streets because trash trucks can’t run. Hospitals and water systems are buckling. Protests broke out in neighborhoods around the capital. Trump’s blockade, imposed in January, has choked off Mexican and Venezuelan oil shipments, threatening tariffs on any country that dares send fuel. Now dozens of House Democrats, led by Illinois Representative Delia Ramirez, have written Trump warning that a military attack on Cuba would be “unlawful, deeply destabilizing, and catastrophic.” Trump’s openly mused about taking over the island. We’ve seen this script before. Manufactured crisis, then invasion. And Cubans and Americans both pay the bill in blood.
Will Trump’s Commerce Secretary Resign Over His Epstein Lies?
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is in deep trouble. Last week he spent four hours behind closed doors with the House Oversight Committee, and Democrats came out furious. Lutnick had claimed he’d never be in the same room with Jeffrey Epstein again after one creepy visit to Epstein’s townhouse, where he saw a dedicated massage room. But records show he visited Epstein’s island years later. When pressed, Lutnick said he’d meant only him alone with Epstein, not when his wife and kids were there too. Arizona Democrat Yassamin Ansari called Lutnick “a pathological liar.” Virginia’s James Walkinshaw said Lutnick was trying to redefine the word “I.” Multiple Democrats are demanding his resignation. The transcript dropped this week. The Epstein scandal isn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard the Trump White House tries to bury it.
Looks Like Kash Patel May Be Cooking the FBI’s Books
It appears FBI Director Kash Patel has been padding his arrest numbers. That’s the bombshell from MS NOW reporters Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig, who talked to half a dozen law enforcement sources, including agents inside the FBI itself. Patel’s been stuffing the FBI’s Most Wanted list right before arrests so he can claim credit. Four fugitives caught under Patel were added to the list just a month before being taken in. Two others got added within twenty-four hours of arrest. One was added about an hour before capture. The bureau’s also crediting itself for arrests made by other agencies, especially ICE, whenever an FBI agent happens to be standing nearby. That’s how Patel claims violent offender arrests have doubled since Biden. They haven’t. He’s making it up. This is the same man who’s now suing The Atlantic over reports about his drinking on the job. The man Trump put in charge of federal law enforcement is lying to the country, and he wants you to believe his statistics.
How the Palm Beach Airport Became a Trump Cash Machine
Palm Beach County commissioners voted four to three to rename Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. Then they handed his family company exclusive control over trademarks, licensing, and merchandising. The Guardian reports Trump’s likely to net millions through his Delaware company DTTM Operations. He picks the vendors. He approves every photo and biographical reference. He can sell branded merchandise off-site through his own online store. He can license the trademark to any third party he chooses. California Democrat Mike Levin called it what it is. “This is not an honor bestowed as much as it is a shakedown.” County staff reportedly warned commissioners that refusing would put state funding at risk. The sitting president of the United States is now personally monetizing a public airport. Every traveler who walks through that terminal is funneling cash into his pocket. The emoluments clause died a long time ago. So did shame.
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, May 14, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
