Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Six Months To Stop A Hunger Catastrophe? Will We?
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued an urgent warning yesterday from Rome. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t a temporary shipping problem. It’s the start of what the FAO calls a “systemic agrifood shock” that could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to twelve months. Here’s why. Roughly one third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer moves through that strait. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran can’t get their urea and ammonia out. Sixteen million tonnes of annual capacity is trapped behind a naval blockade and a war zone. FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero put it plainly when he said “the clock is the key.” Farmers in Africa and Asia are making planting decisions right now without the inputs they need, and the FAO Food Price Index has already climbed for three straight months. The agency is begging governments for alternative trade routes, restraint on export bans, and protection for humanitarian shipments. If we don’t act, working families everywhere pay the price in empty grocery aisles and broken household budgets. Hunger is a policy choice, not an accident.
Trump Becomes the High Prices President
A scathing piece in Reason magazine this morning lays it out cold. Trump is now the high prices president, and voters know exactly who to blame. Three of his signature policies, the war with Iran, the immigration crackdowns, and the on-again, off-again tariffs, are all executive actions. He owns them. And they’ve delivered the highest inflation in three years. His approval on the economy has cratered, dropping thirty points or more in multiple polls. Even his Labor Department admitted that deporting immigrant workers threatens domestic food production and prices. Trump’s own Justice Department proposed cutting beef tariffs because meat prices hit record highs. He’s the arsonist holding the gas can and asking who started the fire. Working people see it. They feel it every time they fill a cart or a tank. And they’re done pretending otherwise.
Will Capitol Cops Stop Trump’s Slush Fund For Insurrectionists?
Two heroes of January sixth filed suit yesterday to block one of the most outrageous schemes of Trump’s second term. Officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, who defended lawmakers from the mob, are going to court to stop a one-point-eight billion dollar fund Trump created to pay off the people who attacked them. Here’s how the scheme works. Trump sued his own IRS, then settled with himself, creating a slush fund for anyone allegedly “weaponized” against by the government. That includes the nearly 1,600 people charged with the Capitol attack. JD Vance was asked point blank if rioters who beat cops could collect. He said yes, anyone can file a claim. Nearly 100 House Democrats also filed motions to block it, arguing Trump can’t manufacture a fund without Congress. Dunn told MS NOW he’s already getting fresh death threats just for speaking up. This isn’t governance. It’s organized crime with a presidential seal.
Did Trump’s Massie Win Actually Hand Him A Loss?
Trump’s allies are celebrating in Kentucky after seven term Republican Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday to Trump-backed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. It was the most expensive House primary in American history. Thirty-two-point-six million dollars spent, with AIPAC and pro-Israel groups pouring in over fifteen million to take Massie down. Why? Massie voted against military aid to Israel, against Trump’s tax bill, and he led the fight to force release of the Epstein files. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even traveled to the district to campaign, possibly violating federal law against Cabinet officials politicking in their official capacity. Trump called Massie a “moron,” a “nut job,” and a “major sleazebag.” But here’s the catch the Guardian flagged this morning. Trump’s allies risk scraping false hope from this victory. His base is fierce, but it’s shrinking. He still commands cult-like loyalty inside the GOP primary electorate. Out in the country, his approval is in the thirties. Crushing your last internal critic isn’t strength. It’s the sound of a movement narrowing toward its end.
Most Expensive Summer At The Pump In Years? Is it a Betrayal?
GasBuddy dropped its summer forecast yesterday and the numbers are brutal. The national average will hit four dollars and forty-eight cents per gallon on Memorial Day. That’s up one dollar and thirty-four cents from a year ago. Summer average could land at four eighty per gallon, breaking the previous summer record of four forty-three set in 2022. If the Strait of Hormuz stays closed much longer, GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan says we could hit five dollars a gallon next month and set new all-time records. Even after the Strait reopens, sub-three-dollar gas isn’t coming back for a year, maybe more. So what did Trump say about this? He told reporters Tuesday “this is peanuts.” Peanuts. He insisted he doesn’t “even think about” gas prices. Americans will pay billions more this summer to get to work, to visit family, to take a vacation many can no longer afford. The president calls it peanuts. The country calls it a betrayal.
Could An Alien Announcement Crash The Banks?
And finally this morning, a story straight out of science fiction with a very real warning attached. Former Bank of England senior financial security analyst Helen McCaw is urging central banks to prepare for a financial crisis triggered by official confirmation of alien life. She wrote to Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and warned, “If banks start failing, the payment system will collapse, and you’ll have rioting.” She calls it “ontological shock,” a sudden break in our basic assumptions about reality. McCaw warns of market panic, bank runs, a flight to gold or Bitcoin, and a collapse of public trust in government. Her bigger point isn’t really about aliens. It’s about how brittle our financial and political systems have become. A single announcement could topple the whole thing. Maybe the real lesson is that any system this fragile needs fixing right now, whether or not anyone ever lands on the White House lawn.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, May 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
