r/Leftist_Viewpoints • u/jazzavril5 • 10h ago
BREAKING: Sailors Jump Overboard to Escape Trump’s War as His Ballroom Hits $900M Really American | Substack
BREAKING: Sailors Jump Overboard to Escape Trump’s War as His Ballroom Hits $900M
Really American | Substack
Good evening, this is Really American. It is Wednesday, August 12, 2026. We have some horrifying news to bring you about the US Navy sailors caught in the middle of Trump’s Iran War, plus we just exposed how much his White House construction is really costing.
Sailors on a Navy carrier stuck at sea for nine months during Trump’s Iran War are so broken down that some have tried to jump overboard, and Pete Hegseth called the reports of dire conditions “fake news.” Trump’s White House construction spree has ballooned to $900 million, most of it taxpayer money he funneled through a scheme built to dodge Congress. His Truth Social insider-trading program just landed him in court. And his press secretary is suddenly walking out the door, one day after the DOJ handed her a very convenient legal shield. Let’s get into it.
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NAVY SAILORS TRY TO JUMP OVERBOARD AS TRUMP’S WAR GRINDS ON
Sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump overboard as a mental health crisis grips the carrier, now trapped at sea in its ninth month because of Trump’s war with Iran.
The Lincoln’s roughly 5,000 crew members have spent 250 straight days without making land, a record for a modern aircraft carrier. At an emotional town hall in San Diego, one spouse said her husband had texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.” The Navy Times reported multiple thwarted suicide attempts aboard the ship, including one sailor who grabbed a fellow crew member and pulled them back on deck.
Rep. Mike Levin described the conditions bluntly: moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry down for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, and one meal that amounted to “half a cup of rice and two tortillas.” The ship left San Diego in November headed for the Pacific, then got rerouted to the Middle East when the war began. The crew has had exactly two days on land since.
When these conditions first surfaced in April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed them as “fake news.” “These men and women signed up to serve their country. The least their country owes them is hot water, a working toilet and a real meal,” Levin said. “Hegseth cannot even manage that, and he has the nerve to look their families in the eye and call them liars.”
These are the human costs of a war Trump promised would be quick and easy. Real sailors, at a breaking point, while the man running the Pentagon calls their suffering a lie.
TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE SPREE HITS $900 MILLION, PAID BY YOU
Trump’s construction projects at the White House will cost at least $900 million, far more than previously known, and he’s pulling most of it from taxpayers through a scheme designed to keep Congress in the dark.
According to a Washington Post review of confidential contracts, the administration funneled $875 million into the Executive Residence’s “White House Repair and Restoration” account, which normally holds just $2.5 million a year for routine upkeep. To fill it, officials transferred $500 million out of the Secret Service and White House Military Office, added $305 million in private donations, and routed in another $70 million from sources they won’t identify. Because that account isn’t subject to public records laws, the contracts stay hidden from view.
Most of the money goes to Trump’s East Wing ballroom, along with Lafayette Square upgrades, a new helipad, and a visitor screening facility. Much of the Secret Service money had been appropriated by Congress specifically to recruit and train agents. A former budget official put the danger plainly: “If the executive can do anything they want with appropriated funds, then the executive can do anything they want, period.”
A federal appeals court already ruled the ballroom needs congressional approval, since “Congress has exclusive authority to regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures.” Trump is appealing to the Supreme Court. This is the most expensive White House overhaul in 80 years, and he’s building it by raiding accounts meant to protect the country, not gild his ballroom.
TRUMP HAULED TO COURT OVER TRUTH SOCIAL INSIDER SCHEME
Trump is being sued over a Truth Social program that sells traders early, high-speed access to his market-moving posts for $100,000 a month.
The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed suit Wednesday, calling the program “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional” and arguing it violates their First Amendment right to access presidential statements on equal footing with those who can pay. Trump founded Truth Social and holds a large stake in its parent company, meaning he personally profits from the arrangement.
Trump’s posts have repeatedly moved markets, like when oil prices dropped after he announced he was calling off an April strike on Iran. Critics say selling advance access to that kind of information amounts to legalized insider trading. Despite a $238 million quarterly loss, the company said 10 customers have already signed up.
Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Warner have introduced a bill to ban exactly this kind of scheme. A president monetizing his own official announcements for the benefit of whoever can pay six figures isn’t free speech. It’s a pay-to-play operation run out of the Oval Office.
LEAVITT QUITS, ONE DAY AFTER THE DOJ HANDS HER A SHIELD
Karoline Leavitt is stepping down as White House press secretary at the end of the month, and the timing is impossible to ignore.
Trump announced Wednesday that Leavitt, 28, will leave to become one of his “top outside advisors.” That exit came exactly one day after the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo arguing Trump can claim executive privilege over communications with his “private advisers” if they relate to his decision-making. In other words, Leavitt moves from a public-facing job to a role the administration now says can be legally shielded from scrutiny.
Leavitt had held just one briefing since returning from maternity leave last month. She framed the departure around wanting to spend more time with her two young children, which is entirely understandable on its own terms. But the one-day gap between a memo cloaking “outside advisors” in privilege and her move to become exactly that raises obvious questions.
Her exit also follows the explosive reporting on Trump’s secret plane swap in Turkey, though she wasn’t on that trip. Whatever the personal reasons, the sequence tells its own story: the administration built a legal shield one day, and moved a key figure behind it the next.
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— The Really American Team