Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Why Is Canada Slapping 50 Percent Tariffs on American Cheese and Toilet Paper?
Canada struck back Tuesday. Ottawa hit about $20 billion of American goods with retaliatory tariffs, matching Trump’s rates dollar for dollar. More than 700 US products made the list. Steel and aluminum duties double to 50%. Furniture, clothing and apparel get 50% too. Cheese, fish, seafood and appliances take 25%. Machinery parts and rubber molds take 15%. It all starts September 8th. Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne didn’t blink. “We stand united in fighting for Canada,” he said. Prime Minister Mark Carney killed a trade deal Friday after Washington demanded terms he called unfair and uneconomic. Canada’s also spending $5.4 billion US propping up its own workers. Remember, tariffs are taxes to you and me. American farmers, steelworkers and shoppers pay this bill. Remember! the midterms are ten weeks away.
Did the Supreme Court Just Hand Trump a Weapon Against Your Mail Ballot?
On Monday the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s block on Trump’s mail-in ballot order. Now states have to scramble before an election that’s already underway. Alexis Romero, an economic justice attorney, wrote in Slate that the twisted part is what this ruling does alongside the court’s recent election law rulings. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson caught it in her dissent. She wrote that the decision “lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare” the court’s been building for years. Here’s how the trick works. The government controls when it releases draft rules and final rules. So it can stall or sprint depending on what argument it needs that day. Romero calls it a gotcha game built to dodge accountability. And it’s aimed straight at an election Trump expects to lose.
Consumer Confidence Just Cratered to Its Lowest Level Since Trump’s Iran War Started
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index dropped again in August, down to 89.4. That’s two straight months of decline and the worst reading since January, the month before Trump launched his war on Iran without a vote from Congress. Americans told the survey they’re worried about oil and gas, and they expect inflation and interest rates to climb. Gas now averages $4.09 a gallon, up from $3.16 last year. Since the war started, Americans have spent $71.5 billion more on fuel, roughly $604 per household. Kendall Witmer of the Democratic National Committee put it plainly. “Americans are begging for some breathing room,” she said. Meanwhile Trump’s own stock holdings in oil and gas companies gained millions. Working people got the bill. He got the big bucks.
Why Did Federal Agents Kill an ICU Nurse Who Was Only Holding a Phone?
Alex Pretti was 37 years old and worked in intensive care. Seven months ago in Minneapolis, federal immigration agents restrained him and shot him dead while he recorded them on his phone. On Tuesday his family broke their silence on Good Morning America. His father Michael pushed back hard on the idea that Alex was a protester. “He was an observer. That’s why he had his phone,” Michael said. Alex’s sister Micayla told George Stephanopoulos she wants to be like her brother, because he always stood up for what he believed. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation. Seven months later, it’s still open, and nobody’s been charged. When agents can kill a nurse on video and face nothing, the video is not evidence - it’s a warning.
Trump Puts a $103,000 Price Tag on Hiring a Skilled Worker
Homeland Security posted a proposed rule Monday charging employers $103,265 for every H-1B visa petition. Trump tried this last September with a $100,000 proclamation. In June, Judge Leo Sorokin threw it out, ruling that only Congress can levy a tax like that. So the administration came back through the rulemaking door instead. Universities, nonprofits and research institutions are exempt this time. Private employers aren’t. David Bier of the Cato Institute points out the first fee cut filings by almost 90% and lost the government $28 million. The government’s own lawyers called it “arguably prohibitive” in court. Comments close in 30 days. This isn’t about protecting American wages. It’s about squeezing a hundred grand out of a hire and daring the courts to stop it. Will they
Whose Plane Landed in Moscow, and Why Won’t Anyone Say Who Was on It?
Early Tuesday morning, a US military C-17 lifted off from Riga, Latvia. Seventy-four minutes later it landed in Moscow. Hours later, it was gone. No announcement. No flight manifest. Just a transport plane slipping into a hostile capital and back out. CBS News and Axios both report that Trump’s CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was in Moscow that day. Neither outlet can say who he met. Neither can say what was discussed. The CIA won’t comment at all. The Kremlin says nothing happened. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about talks with American envoys. “No, there are no such plans,” he said. Asked about the military plane, he claimed he had no information. But Axios reports Washington warned Kyiv in advance and asked Ukraine to hold its fire until the Americans were out. So somebody knew. If confirmed, it’s the first sitting CIA director in Moscow since 2021. And we still don’t know why.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, August 26, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
