Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump’s War Just Hand America The Highest Diesel Price In History?
Diesel hit $5.85 a gallon on Friday. That’s the highest price ever recorded in this country, beating the old record set in June of 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Diesel is up nearly 60% from a year ago, and it’s the fuel that moves everything you buy. Regular gas hit $4.15, up from $3.20 last year, and AAA says gas has never been above $4 on Labor Day. What changed? Trump and Israel started bombing Iran in late February, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and crude shot into the $90 range. Brown University figures the war has already cost the average household more than $741 in fuel alone. Some businesses are already tacking fees onto online orders and packages, and grocers say produce and meat get hit first. Trump told a rally you should happily pay “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline.” JD Vance said be grateful it isn’t worse. Economist Dean Baker put it simply. Trump did it. Every grocery bill in America now carries the cost of a war nobody voted for.
Is Trump’s Iran War Turning Into America’s Next Forever War?
Leon Panetta ran the Pentagon and the CIA under Barack Obama. And this weekend he told the Guardian that Trump’s war with Iran, now more than six months old, is likely to grind on for another six months with no resolution in sight. He compared it to Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it another failed war in the Middle East. Panetta spoke just days after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll abruptly quit amid reports he’d clashed with Pete Hegseth over a wave of firings. Panetta warned that adversaries are watching the turmoil at the Pentagon and “see weakness in terms of our ability” to defend the country. He also pointed to the USS Abraham Lincoln, which finally pulled into port in Thailand after more than 260 days at sea without a single port visit, amid reports of crumbling morale on board. His bottom line? You don’t deploy people endlessly into a war zone without a rotation plan. Most Americans, he says, now call it a mistake. When the man who ran the bin Laden raid says you’re losing, you’re losing.
Why Is Xi Jinping Suddenly Racing Around The World Before His Trump Dinner?
Xi Jinping barely leaves China. Before this month, his only foreign trip all year was a June visit to North Korea, his first in seven years. Now he’s on his busiest stretch of foreign travel in more than seven years. He was in Kyrgyzstan last weekend for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Then Cairo, where the Egyptian president greeted him on September 1. Next comes a likely BRICS summit hosted by India’s Narendra Modi. And on September 24 he lands in Washington for a state dinner with Donald Trump, the return leg of Trump’s Beijing visit in May. The pitch Xi is making at every stop is simple. China is the stable one. China honors its agreements. America under Trump starts wars, slaps tariffs on its friends, and renames lakes out of spite. It’s a sales job, and it’s landing, because Trump keeps writing the ad copy for him. For 80 years American leadership rested on being predictable. Trump threw that away, and Beijing is picking it up off the floor.
Have Voters Just Delivered Trump The Worst Party ID Numbers Since 2008?
Gallup’s latest quarterly numbers are out, and they’re brutal for Republicans. Forty-nine percent of Americans now say they’re Democrats or lean Democratic. Just 39% say Republican. That’s a 10 point Democratic edge. Compare that to the fourth quarter of 2024, the quarter Trump won and Republicans swept Congress, when Republicans led by 4 points. That’s a 14 point swing in less than two years. The New York Times says it’s the biggest Democratic advantage since 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected. The movement isn’t coming from people suddenly registering as Democrats. It’s coming from independents, now a record 455 of the electorate, who are asked which way they lean and increasingly answer, not Republican. Trump took office in January 2025 with a 52% approval rating. He’s spent it on a war, record gas prices, and a trade war with our closest neighbor. Party identification is the tide the midterms float on. With November two months away, the tide is running hard against the people in power.
Did Trump Just Turn America’s Best Friend Into An Enemy?
A new Leger poll out this weekend finds 41% of Canadians now call the United States an enemy country. Only 22% call us an ally. In June of 2025 the enemy number was 26%. Up 15 points. Why? Trump’s tariffs, which 63%of Canadians expect to hit their own wallets. Trump’s endless talk of a 51st state, which 85% of Canadians reject outright. Trump renaming Lake Ontario, Lake America. Trump declaring last weekend that he doesn’t want Canadian cars, parts, or anything. And 74%of Canadians back their government hitting back with retaliatory tariffs, even knowing it’ll cost them. But here’s the tell. Sixty-four percent say their view of America would change if Trump were no longer president. Leger’s Andrew Enns said “he can move public opinion like nobody’s business.” Canadians don’t hate America. They hate what one man is doing to it. Two centuries of friendship, the longest undefended border on Earth, and Trump lit it on fire over a tariff tantrum.
Who Speaks For Public Health When The CDC Goes Silent?
Every fall, the CDC runs a campaign telling Americans to get their flu, COVID, and RSV shots. This year, nothing. With flu season weeks away and updated vaccines on pharmacy shelves, the Trump administration under Robert F. Kennedy Junior hasn’t said a word. So the doctors did it themselves. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America all released their own vaccine guidelines this week. Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the AMA said there’s been “a lot of confusion and chaos regarding vaccine recommendations.” Flu shots cut hospitalizations among seniors by 31%and deaths among children by 80%. RSV vaccines cut hospitalizations by up to 83% for people over 60. Pediatricians say they still don’t know whether the Vaccines for Children program will cover the shots for families who can’t afford them. When the government that’s supposed to protect you goes quiet on purpose, it’s not neutrality. It’s a choice, and kids pay for it.
Crazy Alert. Trump Floats Renaming New Mexico. Is “New America” Next?
Donald Trump isn’t done with the map. On Sunday he posted on Truth Social a picture of New Mexico with the word Mexico crossed out in red and replaced with America. New America. Probably a troll. With this president, who can tell? It comes a month after he signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario, Lake America, in retaliation for a collapsed trade deal with Canada. Google and Apple changed their maps. A Reuters Ipsos poll found just 14%of Americans liked the idea. The Trump Store is selling $55 Lake America hats anyway. He posted a video of machine gun toting Canadian geese guarding the lake, which he called “Donald Ducks.” He posted an AI clip of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and doing the YMCA dance. Diesel’s at a record, the war’s a stalemate, our neighbors call us the enemy, and the president is spending his Sunday doodling on maps. That’s a man with a Sharpie and nothing better to do.
And that’s the way it is, Today is Monday, September 7, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
