Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report. News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump Just Ask China and Russia to Help Him Gut a War Crimes Court?
The Financial Times dropped a story that should stop you cold. At last week’s summit in Beijing, Donald Trump reportedly floated an idea to Xi Jinping. He wants the United States, China, and Russia to team up against the International Criminal Court. That’s the one court on Earth that can prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity. And here’s the kicker. Trump’s close ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by that very court for crimes against humanity, including using starvation as a weapon. The President is allegedly trying to dismantle the world’s only war crimes court to protect a friend. Three nuclear powers ganging up to kill accountability isn’t diplomacy. It’s a wrecking ball aimed at the rule of law.
Is This the Biggest Insider Trading Scheme in American History?
Here’s a story the media is barely whispering about. Trump’s own disclosures show he personally ran thousands of stock trades in three months, worth between 220 and 750 million dollars, while he’s signing executive orders, threatening wars, and moving markets with a single Truth Social post. He bought Dell stock in February. In May he stood at the White House and told America to go buy a Dell. The stock hit an all-time high. He did the same with Nvidia, Intel, Palantir, and Boeing, companies his own government regulates and pays. Every president since LBJ used a blind trust. Trump’s own Treasury Secretary said a private citizen who traded this way would have the SEC at their door. Martha Stewart did five months in prison for saving forty-five thousand dollars. Trump paid a two hundred dollar late fee. There aren’t two systems of justice anymore. There’s one for them, nothing for you.
Why Did Trump’s Own Lawyer Walk Out the Door?
Congressman Jamie Raskin says Donald Trump is building his own private militia with your tax dollars. On Monday, the Justice Department announced a 1.8 billion dollar Anti-Weaponization Fund. Trump sued the IRS for 10 billion dollars, then settled the case against his own government and created this slush fund to pay people who claim the Biden administration wronged them. That pool could include the roughly 1,600 January 6 defendants. Raskin called it pure fraud and highway robbery, noting no one can be plaintiff and defendant in the same case. And here’s the part that tells you everything. Hours after the fund was announced, the Treasury’s top lawyer, Brian Morrissey, resigned, just seven months into the job, a man who served Trump in his first term. When the people inside won’t put their name on it, that tells the rest of us all we need to know.
Will Trump Fire the Referee Because He Lost the Game?
Trump wants a giant ballroom built where the White House East Wing used to stand. He said donors would pay for it. Then Republicans tried to slip a billion dollars of taxpayer money for it into a budget bill. The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, a nonpartisan rules official, said the rules don’t allow it. So Trump called Senate Majority Leader John Thune and pressured him to fire her. Thune said no. The President didn’t like a neutral referee’s call, so he tried to get her fired. About 220 million of that money was tied directly to his ballroom. When a leader tries to fire the umpire for enforcing the rules, the rules aren’t his problem. They’re his obstacle.
Should the Church Be Running the Government?
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, the man who gave a benediction at Trump’s second inauguration, went on right-wing media this weekend and said the quiet part loud. He declared, “Jesus was a politician.” He said the founders believed the church should lead the state, and the separation of church and state should end. This wasn’t some fringe voice. This was a man Trump put on the inauguration stage, speaking at an event where Vance, Rubio, and Speaker Mike Johnson also appeared. The whole American experiment was built on keeping any one religion from running the government. When people that close to power say the church should lead the state, they’re not describing America. They’re describing a theocracy.
Are Your Dreams Real in Another Universe?
Let’s end somewhere else... A scientist named David Leong has a bold hypothesis. He thinks your dreams might be windows into other realities. The idea borrows from quantum physics, the notion that every choice creates a branching universe. Leong’s twist is that during sleep, your consciousness might briefly visit those other versions of you. The recurring dreams, the familiar places, the same faces. Maybe those aren’t random. Maybe they’re return visits. Now, mainstream science firmly disagrees. Most researchers say dreams are just your brain sorting memories or rehearsing danger. But here’s why it sticks with you. Sometimes a dream doesn’t feel imagined. It feels lived. Whether that’s storytelling or something we don’t grasp yet is still wide open.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, May 19, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
