Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is the World About to Crash as Trump Holding the Match?
Economists are sounding alarms loud enough to shake the rafters. A new Guardian analysis warns the world is sliding toward a financial crisis, and Washington couldn’t be more poorly positioned to stop it. The trigger could be the AI bubble popping, or a sell-off of US Treasury bonds spooked by Trump’s tariff chaos and his war on Iran. When investors ran for the exits after the April 3rd tariff shock last year, bond prices briefly tumbled. Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF’s former chief economist, put it bluntly when he said the political fundamentals are really bad. Trump might lean on the Fed to print money, but that just stokes inflation and crashes the dollar. Meanwhile his cabinet deregulates Wall Street and guts the very watchdogs designed after 2008 to keep shadow banks from torching the economy. Working people will pay the price. They always do.
One in Six Sentences Sucking Up to the Boss
A blistering New York Times analysis just dropped, and the numbers are jaw-dropping. The Times reviewed more than a dozen hours of footage from ten Trump cabinet meetings between February 2025 and March 2026. The finding? At least one out of every six sentences spoken by cabinet officials is dedicated to praising Donald Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the pack as the chief flatterer. Vice President JD Vance spent one in six sentences attacking political enemies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth repeated three times that global wars never would’ve happened under Trump. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed on five separate occasions that Trump achieved the impossible. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump saved the country. This isn’t governing. It’s a court of trembling courtiers performing loyalty rituals for a king. And while they bow and scrape, the country burns.
Did Trump Just Quietly Gut Social Security?
He promised to protect it. He swore he wouldn’t touch it. But Trump has indirectly broken that promise in two devastating ways. First, his Big Beautiful Bill cut the payroll tax revenue feeding Social Security, speeding up the timeline to benefit cuts that experts warn could slash payments by 33 percent by 2030. Second, his DOGE operation slashed 7,000 Social Security Administration staff and shuttered local offices nationwide. 70 million Americans are now stuck on hold for hours just trying to access the money they paid in their whole working lives. The Trustees say the trust fund runs dry by 2034. Trump’s response? Make it worse. This is the wealthiest country on earth telling seniors to wait two hours on the phone for a benefit they earned. It’s cruelty dressed up as efficiency.
Why Are Women Veterans Erased from Arlington’s Website?
This Memorial Day, families searching the Arlington National Cemetery website couldn’t find their loved ones. Marine Sergeant Nicole Gee, a Purple Heart recipient killed in Afghanistan in 2021, credited with helping save 124,000 lives, has been delisted from the site. Trump himself laid a wreath at her grave during the 2024 campaign. Now her page is gone. Cemetery officials confirmed they unpublished dozens of pages on Black, Hispanic, and women service members to comply with orders from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth targeting race and gender content. Notable graves of politicians, athletes, and even foreign nationals remain prominently featured. But the women who bled for this country? Erased. Memorialize whites only. That’s the message. And it’s a stain on every uniform and every grave at Arlington.
Sweden Just Crushed Big Tobacco
OK - some good news from across the Atlantic. Sweden has officially become a smoke-free country. Under five percent of Swedes now smoke regularly, hitting a public health target decades in the making. Daily smoking rates collapsed from 16 percent in 2003 to just 4.8 percent in 2025. How’d they pull it off? Strong government action. Cigarette taxes jacked real prices up 45 percent. Advertising bans. Quit-smoking support. Aggressive prevention campaigns. The lead researcher called it an incredible development. Imagine what America could do if Washington wasn’t owned by tobacco lobbyists, fossil fuel barons, and Wall Street bandits. Sweden proves that when government actually works for people instead of profits, public health wins.
What’s the Real Sleep Sweet Spot for Living Longer?
A massive new study tracked half a million people and measured how 23 organ systems age. The verdict? The sleep sweet spot for healthy aging is 6.4 to 7.8 hours a night. Less than six hours speeds up aging, raising risks for depression, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. More than eight hours also accelerates aging, often signaling underlying illness. The takeaway is simple. Sleep affects every organ in your body. It’s not just rest. It’s maintenance. So if you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, your liver, your immune system, your brain, they’re all paying the price. Take care of yourself out there. The fight for democracy needs you rested.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
