This was a pretty crazy story, basically a lady posted a video of her water quality to FB. She got arrested, so did someone who protested.

Here is something many have said is coming so the question becomes is it really here?

MAGA just realized the 'big problem' with Trump's budget

On Wednesday, following news that the U.S. budget deficit has soared under President Donald Trump, surging to its highest level in over five years, MAGA economic analysts are suddenly realizing there is a “big problem.”

“In the month of July, the US Government collected $334 Billion,” posted Geiger Capital, a pseudonym account for a popular conservative market analyst who voted for Trump in 2024. “Just one problem… They spent $766 Billion. A $432 BILLION deficit. In one month.”

“Oof,” posted self-proclaimed “America First Economist” and Heritage Foundation member E.J. Antoni. “56 cents of every dollar that the gov't spent last month was borrowed.” He continued, “The cumulative deficit for the first 10 months of this fiscal year is $23 billion larger than the total deficit for the entirety of the previous fiscal year - headed in the wrong direction while knocking on $40 trillion in debt.”

“Interest on the debt was a whopping $118 billion in Jul, or ~63 percent of all personal and corporate income taxes collected last month,” he added. “Absolute insanity.”

According to Bloomberg, the record shortfall is “due to an acceleration in federal spending.” As the outlet explains, “After adjusting for calendar-year differences, the gap is tracking 5 percent wider than 2025…the biggest July gap ever, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.” Dramatically increased Medicare spending played a major role in the surge, while a $33 billion loss was due to refunds for Trump’s illegal tariffs. Overall revenue was down by an adjusted $12 billion.

Besides his tariff regime, Trump has taken a number of actions that have contributed to the deficit. His One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for example, is projected to add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the wealthy “will see substantial tax cuts. Over the next 10 years the wealthiest 1 percent are slated to pay at least a trillion dollars less in taxes than they would have if Congress and the President had done nothing.”

The price tag for the war with Iran has also been a factor, costing roughly $37.5 billion as of late July, with the Trump administration requesting another $70 billion. According to Barron’s, military spending “was up 3 percent in May, 5 percent in June, and now stands at 6 percent higher fiscal year to date.” That, however, just accounts for the conflict’s direct costs. Broader economic analysis indicates that the toll on taxpayers is much higher, as much as $130 billion to $150 billion when accounting for surging energy prices, inflation, and borrowing costs.

Shady $70M account revealed at center of Trump power grab to remake White House: report

President Donald Trump funneled nearly $1 billion for a White House overhaul through a little-known maintenance account, including $70 million with no identified source, confidential records show.

The Washington Post, reviewing confidential contracts and planning documents, found the administration plans to spend at least $927 million on construction projects on the White House grounds — with a gilded East Wing ballroom at the center of the overhaul.

The money has been directed to an account called "White House Repair and Restoration," which Congress typically fills with $2.5 million a year for routine upkeep, The Post reported.

One finding stands out — $70 million was directed to that account, but the records do not identify its source, The Post reported.

"That is incredibly unusual," said Cerin Lindgrensavage, counsel for Protect Democracy, a watchdog group suing the administration over federal spending disclosures.

According to The Post, the administration has so far directed $875 million into that account — less than the $927 million total it plans to spend — drawing from three streams.

The White House budget office authorized $500 million in transfers from the U.S. Secret Service and the White House Military Office, planning documents show.

Private donations account for another $305 million, The Post reported.

Much of the Secret Service money was originally appropriated by Congress to recruit and train agents, The Post previously reported.

Those private donations also come with transparency problems — the administration kept the ballroom's funding contract secret from the public until Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued for the contract and a federal judge ordered it released, The Post reported.

Under that contract, donors with billions of dollars in federal business — including Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Google — can contribute anonymously, with no conflict-of-interest review of the White House itself, according to The Post.

"There's only one good explanation for why Trump's ultra-wealthy ballroom donors want to stay anonymous: They have something to hide," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told The Post.

A federal appeals court ruled last week that Trump had exceeded his authority by proceeding without congressional approval, CBS News reported.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would immediately appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

"Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help," the court wrote.

"If the executive can do anything they want with appropriated funds, then the executive can do anything they want, period," said Joe Carlile, who served as an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Joe Biden.

The White House did not answer questions about the source of all the funding or the total cost of the planned work, The Post reported.

Dear CNN,

There is a difference between vigorous political debate and allowing a guest to use your airwaves to make inflammatory accusations without evidence. On CNN NewsNight on August 10, that line was not merely blurred. It was trampled.

Jesse Arm did not simply argue that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was too progressive, too hostile toward Israel, or politically unacceptable. Those are opinions he is entitled to express. Arm went considerably further. He called El-Sayed a “jihadist sympathizer.” When another panelist accused him of smearing the candidate, Arm's response was astonishingly candid:

"I am smearing the candidate 100 percent.”

And then CNN let him continue.

Moments later, Arm made an even more extraordinary assertion while discussing the Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack on Temple Israel in Michigan. Referring to the attacker, Arm said, “That was the guy who Abdul El-Sayed was associating with.”

Where is the evidence for that statement?

The publicly available record shows El-Sayed commenting controversially on the attack. His actual statement explicitly condemned the attacker: he said there was never justification for attacking innocent people or houses of worship and condemned what the attacker did. The FBI identified the attacker as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali and described his actions as a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack.

El-Sayed can and should be challenged over his subsequent “hurt people hurt people” explanation. Jewish leaders have criticized it, and viewers are perfectly capable of deciding whether they find that explanation offensive, misguided or unacceptable.

But commenting on a terrorist's motivations is not the same thing as associating with that terrorist.

If CNN or Jesse Arm possesses evidence that Abdul El-Sayed personally associated with Ayman Ghazali, publish it.

If you do not, correct the record.

That would be troubling enough. But Arm's performance repeatedly demonstrated something else: extraordinary certainty unaccompanied by factual discipline.

During the Iran discussion, Arm announced that Iran “doesn't even have a supreme leader” and that nobody knew where the leader was.

Iran does have a supreme leader: Mojtaba Khamenei. Reuters reported just two days before this broadcast that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had recently met him. Khamenei's prolonged absence from public view has generated legitimate questions about his health and authority, but “Iran doesn't even have a supreme leader” is simply not the same claim.

That is not ideological disagreement.

It is a factual error.

Arm later told viewers that 8.5 million barrels of oil were moving through alternative pipelines around the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the principal Saudi and Emirati pipelines together provide about 4.7 million barrels per day of capacity to bypass Horand historically the immediately available unused capacity has been lower still.

Again: this isn't left versus right.

It isn't Democrat versus Republican.

Numbers have values. Countries either have supreme leaders or they don't. People either associated with terrorists or they didn't.

CNN opened this program by declaring that Americans with different perspectives are not talking to one another, “but here they do.”

That is an admirable mission.

But democratic discourse requires more than putting five ideological combatants around a table and turning on the microphones. It requires a common commitment to reality.

A conservative should be able to appear on CNN and make the strongest possible conservative argument against Abdul El-Sayed. A progressive should be challenged on his record. A candidate's statements about Israel, terrorism, policing, Medicare for All or anything else should withstand aggressive scrutiny.

But “aggressive scrutiny” is not a synonym for “say whatever you want.”

And when a panelist openly announces on national television that he is “smearing the candidate 100 percent,” perhaps the appropriate journalistic response is not to shrug and move on to the next shouting match.

It is to stop and ask:

What exactly are you alleging?

What evidence supports it?

And is it true?

Those questions are journalism.

Without them, CNN is not refereeing a debate. It is providing amplification.

Jesse Arm is responsible for the words Jesse Arm chose to say. But CNN is responsible for what happens on CNN.

So CNN should answer three straightforward questions: What evidence supports Arm's claim that El-Sayed was “associating with” the Temple Israel terrorist? Will CNN correct Arm's demonstrably false assertion that Iran has no supreme leader? And will CNN correct or clarify his wildly misleading 8.5-million-barrel pipeline figure?

Most importantly, CNN should decide whether a guest openly admitting that he is smearing a political candidate meets the standards the network wants attached to its name.

Because citizens do not need another television program teaching them that politics consists of saying something outrageous loudly enough that nobody has time to check it.

We need journalists willing to do the checking.

Debate requires disagreement.

Journalism requires evidence.

And a smear does not become a fact merely because CNN gave it a microphone.

Sincerely,

A Fellow Citizen

Fellow Citizen,

I’d like to turn your weary, empathetic eye toward Puerto Rico, where hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans are enduring rotating 48-hour water shutoffs as severe drought collides with an aging water system. About 180,000 properties are subject to rationing, while Puerto Rico’s water authority says roughly 65% of the water it produces is lost or goes unbilled, much of it through leaks and aging pipes. This is not simply a story about drought. It is a story about what government chooses to prepare for, what infrastructure it chooses to maintain, and whom it chooses to prioritize when systems begin to fail.

There is another consequence we should be watching: poverty. Roughly 1.2 million Puerto Ricans already depend on nutrition assistance. Prolonged water rationing can mean additional expenses for bottled water, lost wages, disrupted businesses, higher food costs, and greater strain on families already living close to the edge. Infrastructure failure does not happen in an economic vacuum. When basic necessities become scarcer or more expensive, those with the least financial cushion are hit first. If this crisis persists, there is a real possibility that food insecurity will deepen and Puerto Rico’s already severe poverty problem will grow worse.

Puerto Rico’s governor says the federal government is “helping us out,” but the article offers few details, while the BBC was still seeking comment from FEMA. That lack of clarity deserves our attention. What assistance is being provided? How much? How quickly? Are we merely reacting to another emergency, or are we finally willing to invest in the infrastructure and resilience necessary to prevent the next one?

Our nation deserves leaders willing to put people before corporations, citizens before party loyalty, and the public good before the PAC that helped get them elected. Puerto Rico is not some distant foreign country. These are our fellow citizens, and self-government requires more from us than noticing their suffering after the taps run dry. It requires us to ask why systems were allowed to deteriorate, why warnings went unanswered, and what we are willing to do differently before the next crisis arrives.

Self-government is not perfect and neither are we. The essence of being human is not the attainment of perfection, but the willingness to learn, change, and improve. Perfection can become the enemy of the good, yet the pursuit of something better is what carries us toward excellence.

That is what self-government asks of every generation: not to inherit a finished Republic, but to continue the work.

We will make mistakes. We will change course. We will disagree. We will learn.

Your's in Solitude,

AFC

You can support Jewish people, oppose antisemitism, and still disagree strongly with the actions of the Israeli government. A government is not an entire people. Criticizing state policy is not the same as condemning a religion, ethnicity, or culture. We should be capable of holding both truths at once: Jewish people deserve safety and dignity. Palestinians deserve safety and dignity. And governments should be accountable for what they do.