Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report. News for the public, not the powerful.
Will The Supreme Court Hand The GOP A Half-Billion-Dollar Midterm Cash Bomb?
A ruling out of the Supreme Court could land any day now that’d let political parties spend unlimited cash in lockstep with their candidates. The case is called NRSC v. FEC, and one of the plaintiffs who launched it back in 2022 is now Vice President JD Vance. If the court’s hard-right majority strikes down coordinated party expenditure limits, Republicans could pour hundreds of millions into races, working hand in glove with their nominees. Senator Cory Booker warned in his amicus brief that Citizens United already “opened the floodgates to billions in dark money.” Now the same court is poised to blow the doors off. Party committees would suddenly rival super PACs as the favorite landing pad for billionaire cash, with a ruling expected just months before voters head to the polls in November.
Vance Yanks Medicaid Money From California In Naked Political Hit Job
Vice President JD Vance announced yesterday he’s freezing one-point-three billion dollars in Medicaid payments to California, the largest deferral the federal government has ever made. He claims it’s about fraud. California’s leaders aren’t buying it. Governor Newsom’s office shot back, “We hate fraud. But that’s NOT what this is.” They say Vance and Oz are targeting in-home services that keep seniors and disabled folks out of nursing homes. The administration already pulled the same stunt on Minnesota, and the CMS itself admitted to using errant figures to justify another fraud probe in New York. They’re threatening every blue state next. This isn’t fraud enforcement. It’s federal extortion, weaponizing healthcare to punish states that refuse to bend the knee.
Are Missouri Republicans About To Soak Working Families With A Tax Bait And Switch?
Missouri voters are being asked to gut their own state income tax this year, and experts say the math is devastating. The state pulls roughly sixty-five percent of its general revenue from income taxes. Eliminate it, and lawmakers get sweeping new power to jack up sales taxes on everything from gasoline to home repairs to prescription drugs. The Missouri Budget Project estimates working families would pay about five hundred dollars more every year, while the state’s eight billionaires walk away with massive tax breaks. House Minority Leader Ashley Aune called it a game pushed by “the bootlickers in the Missouri GOP.” She warns the plan blows a nine-billion-dollar hole in state revenue. If it passes, schools, roads, and seniors take the hit. The billionaires write the menu.
Why Did John Fetterman Just Hand Trump Two Massive Wins In One Day?
Yesterday, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman cast the deciding vote to kill a war powers resolution that would’ve reined in Trump’s illegal war on Iran. It’s the seventh time he’s broken with his party on Iran since the bombing began. Three Republicans crossed over to back the measure. Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against it. The resolution failed 49 to 50, by a single vote. His vote. Hours later, Fetterman joined every Senate Republican to confirm Kevin Warsh as the new Federal Reserve Chair. Senator Elizabeth Warren said Trump nominated Warsh “to be his sock puppet” so he can crank down interest rates from the Oval Office. Fetterman claims he’d make a lousy Republican. His voting record says otherwise. He’s the senator Trump openly calls his favorite Democrat, and Pennsylvania voters are watching.
Why Is Wall Street Partying While Working America Drowns?
Despite the Iran war, Trump’s chaotic tariffs, inflation climbing past three-point-eight percent, and gas prices crushing family budgets, the stock market keeps hitting new highs. The S&P 500 is up roughly thirty percent since Trump’s election. Why? Because corporate profits are surging on the backs of consumers paying more for everything, while AI investment floods Silicon Valley. Working people see prices climb, paychecks shrink, and confidence collapse. The richest investors see record returns. This is what oligarchy looks like in plain daylight. The Dow doesn’t measure how Americans are doing. It measures how much wealth is being funneled to the top while everybody else gets squeezed.
Russia Bombs American Factories And Trump Doesn’t Say A Word
The New York Times reports Russia’s been systematically striking facilities owned by American companies inside Ukraine since last summer. Cargill, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Mondelez, Philip Morris, Bunge. Seven Russian drones slammed into a Cargill grain terminal in southern Ukraine in just three minutes back in April. Andy Hunder, who runs the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, says Moscow wants to “stop American business coming into Ukraine.” But Trump’s White House has stayed silent. Not one public condemnation in 2026. When Ukraine hit a Russian oil terminal with American investor stakes, the State Department fired off a formal protest demanding Ukraine knock it off. American factories get bombed by Putin, and our president looks the other way. Senator Jeanne Shaheen said the White House response amounts to “complete silence.” That’s not strength. That’s surrender.
And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, May 14, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
