Buffett Calls It Gambling, The Middle Seat Is Dead & $188K Stolen From Kids

Good morning. Grab your coffee.

A man's suing his bank to wipe out the $3.85 million he still owes on a $5.5 million cliffside mansion — the one just bulldozed before it could fall into the ocean — claiming buying it wasn't his fault, it was "mania."

Quick housekeeping: Next Sunday we're launching the Red State Finance Community — a place to talk back, argue, and say what you actually think without getting flagged by a robot. More details next week.

Let's get into the good stuff — and stick around till the end, because the Red State Rant is asking the question nobody else will: Is America Bored of MAGA?

Trump gave yet another address reviving 2020 election fraud claims — this time alleging China stole 220 million voter files and Venezuela rigged voting machines, with the "Deep State" covering it all up. Intelligence agencies concluded years ago that no foreign actor touched vote counts or tabulation, and voter registration data is often just... publicly available. Six years. Sixty failed lawsuits. Zero votes ever proven fake. At some point, "the election was stolen" needs hard evidence — or a retirement.

A Trump-backed bill to lock in year-round Daylight Saving Time cleared the House Rules Committee 6-4. Trump's behind it. Now it just needs the rest of Washington to agree on something for once.

The Supreme Court torched Trump's blanket tariffs, and June's refund checks show it: $49.1 billion sent back to businesses, blowing past the $23.6 billion collected that same month. Even the government can't out-earn its own mistakes.

Trump also shrank two Utah monuments by 90% — Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears go from 3 million acres to 300,000. Clinton and Obama drew the lines; Trump erased most of them. "They took the land from the people," he said. "We're giving it back."

Inflation actually cooled in June — consumer prices dropped 0.4% for the month, the biggest one-month decline since April 2020, though prices are still up 3.5% for the year. Energy prices led the retreat as the Iran war calmed down. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Wall Street's getting nervous about Oracle. Shares are down almost 50% since June, its credit rating just got downgraded to one notch above junk, and one analyst thinks it could be the first domino in a tech market collapse. Bet the farm on AI, they said. It'll be fine, they said.

Gas is headed back toward $4 a gallon. Oil prices climbing, refining capacity shrinking — the math writes itself.

Social Security's next raise could be its biggest in years — but don't spend it yet. The Senior Citizens League is projecting a 3.8% COLA for 2027, which would push the average monthly benefit above $2,000 for the first time. It's not official until October, and it's still just playing catch-up with prices that already went up.

Volkswagen may need to cut another 50,000 jobs on top of the 50,000 already agreed to, putting the total as high as 100,000. Europe's biggest automaker says it's running 20% less efficient than its rivals. Turns out you can't build cars and bureaucracy at the same time.

Dairy Queen is closing dozens of locations nationwide, with Alaska, Montana and Texas already losing longtime stores. Even the Blizzard can't outrun this economy. 7/11 is also planning on closing 645 stores.

Federal regulators are warning banks that lending to workers without legal work authorization could carry consequences. Novel concept: know who you're lending to.

IBM shares cratered more than 23% Tuesday after the company admitted its AI spending isn't paying off fast enough. Wall Street bet big on the robots. The robots sent an invoice instead.

California's rolling out a new packaging law that shifts recycling costs onto manufacturers — and manufacturers are already warning it'll show up on your grocery receipt. Shocking absolutely no one.

Last Week:

Last week we asked readers what they think birthright citizenship should look like. For the first time ever, we got a tie.

44% said no — citizenship should require at least one parent here legally. Another 44% said no, scrap birthright citizenship altogether. That's 88% of you ready to rewrite the rulebook, splitting almost evenly on how far to go.

That leaves 12% still standing with the Constitution as written. A brave little minority, holding the fort while everyone else argues about how to redecorate it. Democracy's messy like that.

This Week:

We've got thoughts on this one — and they're waiting for you at the bottom of this email. But first, we want yours. One question, three brutally honest options. Pick the one that actually matches your gut, not the one you're supposed to pick.

Wall Street just bet billions on a small collection of stocks.

And after a volatile first half of 2026, it looks like they’re about to shift even more.

MarketBeat’s updated 10 Best Stocks to Own in 2026 report reveals the 10 names attracting fresh capital right now.

Send My Free Report

Winners:

Pasta Lovers:
Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Pass is back. $100 gets you 13 weeks of unlimited pasta, sauce, toppings, soup, salad and breadsticks. 10,000 lucky passes were up for grabs.

Florida Treasure Hunters:
Divers off Key West just pulled a 22.5-pound silver bar from the Atocha shipwreck — the first find like it in almost 30 years. Some people fish. Real Floridians hunt treasure.

Losers:

Job Seekers on LinkedIn:
Texas is investigating LinkedIn over "ghost jobs" — fake listings dangled in front of Premium subscribers paying to apply for openings that were never real. Great business model: charge for access, sell them nothing.

Human Employees at Chase:
Jamie Dimon says AI already replaced up to 40% of workers in some roles at JPMorgan. Meanwhile the big banks just posted earnings that beat expectations. The machines are doing great. You, maybe not so much.

This week's video isn't another hot take — it's what everyday Americans are actually saying, and it's not pretty.

Layoffs. Rent nobody can afford. Debt that keeps climbing no matter how many corners you cut. We're not talking about it because it's trending — we're talking about it because it's real, and it's happening to people you know.

The mood in this country is shifting, and this video shows exactly why. We won't spoil it here — hit play and see for yourself.

Buffett told CNBC it's getting harder to find real value in a market that's chasing quick wins instead of good businesses. He's said it before — back in May he compared the whole thing to "a church with a casino attached." His point: when everyone's betting instead of investing, prices stop reflecting what anything's actually worth.

Translation: When the smartest investor alive says he can't find a good deal, maybe it's not him.

A new Urban Institute study found food costs have jumped 32% over five years, pushing more than one in four working-age Americans into credit card debt just to keep the fridge stocked. Worse: between 2023 and 2025, more of those people stopped making even the minimum payment.

Translation: When paying for milk and eggs turns into a debt spiral, "the economy is fine" starts sounding like a punchline.

The airline's new Economy Plus row on its A321XLR jets replaces the dreaded middle seat with a fixed table stretching armrest to armrest — extra elbow room for the window and aisle passengers, no third body wedged between them. It's exclusive to United's 50 new XLRs for now, with pricing coming later this year.

Translation: The middle seat finally earned its keep — as a table.

Builders say the real bottleneck is people — the industry is short roughly 250,000 workers every month, up to 400,000 during boom times. That gap is stalling projects, driving up costs, and choking off supply exactly when demand isn't slowing down.

Translation: We don't just need cheaper mortgages. We need someone willing to swing a hammer.

Governor Kathy Hochul signed the nation's first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, freezing construction for up to a year on facilities using 50+ megawatts of power. She says it's about protecting the grid, water supply and utility bills. Trump fired back on Truth Social, calling it a "terrible decision."

Translation: New York finally found a form of overreach it doesn't like — the kind that costs them jobs instead of freedom.

Jason Lottman pleaded guilty to wire fraud after stealing more than $1 million from couples and investors at Champagne Manor between 2023 and 2025. He took upfront payments for vendors and never paid them, and kept soliciting money even as the venue slid toward foreclosure. He faces up to 20 years.

Translation: He built a business on promises he never intended to keep — and the only thing that showed up on time was the indictment.

Denise Tisor and her boyfriend pleaded guilty to selling over $188,000 in fake Eras Tour tickets to 107 victims across Ontario — many of them parents saving up to give their kids a night they'd never forget. One mother said it plainly: her kids' dreams got taken. Instead of concert seats, families got empty inboxes and a couple who blew the money on online gambling.

Translation: She sold parents a memory for their kids and cashed it in on a slot machine instead.

CNBC ranked Tennessee, Texas, Indiana, Louisiana, Georgia, Utah, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma and Arkansas dead last on its 2026 quality-of-life rankings — criteria included reproductive rights and "inclusiveness of state laws." Meanwhile, Census data shows these exact states are the ones people are actually moving to.

Translation: CNBC found ten states losing points for freedom, and Americans still keep packing the moving trucks toward every single one of them.

Florida-based TikToker Robin, a former Royal Marine, says burglars look for four things before picking a target: a dark property, no visible security cameras, no security signage, and no dog on the property. Skip all four and you're basically a locked door with a welcome mat rolled up.

Translation: Turn on a light, put up a sign, and get a dog — America's cheapest home security system since the front porch.

The average credit card APR hit 19.6% in July, closing in on the all-time record. But LendingTree found 84% of cardholders who called and simply asked for a lower rate got one — with an average cut of 6.3 percentage points. Card issuers would rather negotiate than lose a paying customer.

Translation: The banks are betting you won't ask. Ask anyway.

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Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Report
July 22
Tesla reports Q2 financials after market close, following record delivery numbers.
Why You Should Care: Musk's numbers move markets. This one tells you if the hype matches the money.

Apollo 11 Moon Landing Anniversary
July 20
Marks the day America put boots on the moon in 1969.
Why You Should Care: A reminder of what this country can pull off when it actually decides to.

State Employment and Unemployment Report
July 21
BLS releases state-by-state jobs data for June.
Why You Should Care: See exactly which states are hiring and which ones are still handing out pink slips.

Let's not pretend the last year has been quiet.

The case for "yes, we're exhausted":

Chaos isn't a strategy, it's a symptom. The man promised no new wars and somehow found time for conflict anyway. He promised to drain the swamp and instead built a new wing onto it with his family's name on the door. Tariffs went up, prices went up, and now taxpayers are watching the government cut refund checks to businesses for duties courts already ruled illegal — nearly $80 billion out the door so far, more on the way. That's not a win column, that's cleanup.

Meanwhile the debt clock didn't get the memo about fiscal responsibility. It's closing in on $40 trillion and climbing by roughly $8 billion a day. Consumer debt isn't behaving either. The election fraud claims are still floating around with the same amount of evidence they had four years ago: none. And Butler, Charlie Kirk — the conspiracy theories around both refuse to go away, which does nothing but keep the country arguing about ghosts instead of groceries.

Add it up and you get a White House that talks tough on accountability while torching public trust in journalism and institutions right along with everything else. And here's the part that should actually worry conservatives: exhaustion has a landing spot, and it isn't moderation. It's socialism, dressed up and rebranded for a generation of kids who've never seen a bread line. Every economic system built on that idea has collapsed, every time, everywhere it's been tried — and the backlash to MAGA chaos is pushing young voters straight toward it anyway. That's not a protest vote. That's dangerous.

People are tired. Not because the media told them to be — because they're living it.

The case for "no, hang on":

Here's the thing the exhausted crowd keeps skipping over: results.

The stock market is sitting at record highs. That's not a talking point, that's 401(k)s, pension funds, and retirement accounts actually growing for the first time in years. Businesses are thriving under deregulation — pulling back the red tape that strangled small operators for a decade and letting people build again instead of filling out paperwork for permission. Massive tax cuts landed, and they landed where it counts: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. That's real money back in real paychecks for waitresses, line cooks, and retirees — not a promise, a policy. Trump Accounts are putting a financial head start in the hands of newborns, an actual bet on the next generation instead of another program that spends itself into nothing.

The border, for the first time in years, is not a punchline. The invasion — and it was an invasion — got shut down. And when it came to standing up to actual narco-terrorism instead of just talking about it, Trump didn't write a strongly worded letter. He sent Delta Force into Caracas and dragged Maduro out in handcuffs to face justice in a New York courtroom. Say what you want about the method, but a cartel-linked dictator who spent a decade running drugs and starving his own country is now sitting in a federal holding cell instead of a palace. That's not chaos. That's consequences.

DOGE's exact savings numbers are still hotly disputed — fair fight, no argument there — but even skeptics admit something got cut that hadn't been touched in decades. Nobody serious thinks the swamp gets drained by someone the swamp actually likes.

And on the bigger point: thirty years of bipartisan rot doesn't unwind in one term. Both parties spent three decades running up debt, offshoring jobs, and letting the swamp get comfortable. A president who's popular with the people who benefit from the status quo was never going to be the one who breaks it. The trade-off for actually fighting entrenched interests — on both sides of the aisle — is that entrenched interests, and the media that carries water for them, are going to hate you for it. That's not a bug. That's the price of admission.

Where that leaves us:

The instinct underneath all of it is still correct. America First isn't a bumper sticker, it's a business plan: buy American, manufacture American, trade on terms that actually benefit America, hire Americans. Nobody sane wants to go back to leadership that treats "America First" like a threat instead of a starting point.

But the execution has been a mess, and pretending otherwise insults the people paying for it — including the people who still can't afford a home in a market that's supposedly booming. So the real question isn't whether America's bored of the chaos. It's whether there's anyone left who can hold that ground — America First, no apologies — without the drama, the family enrichment, and the conspiracy sideshows attached to it. Someone who can sit across from the other side, argue with facts instead of vibes, and still walk away without needing a fainting couch.

We don't have that person yet. We know who it isn't — Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris can stay right where they are, thank you very much. God help us if that's the bench, and God help us more if the alternative to MAGA chaos turns out to be a bunch of twenty-somethings discovering socialism for the first time and mistaking it for something new.

And whoever eventually fills that gap needs to understand one more thing: America First cannot mean America Alone. You can fight for better terms without torching the relationships that make "better terms" possible in the first place. Isolate the rest of the world long enough and they stop waiting on us — they just build the next economy without us in the room.

That's the job description. So far, nobody's filled it.

Alright, that's our take. What's yours?

Are you exhausted, are you all-in, or are you somewhere in the messy middle like most of the country? Hit reply and tell us straight — we read every one, and we'll run the best (and the most brutal) responses in a future edition.

Common Sense Is Back. Let's hear yours. 🇺🇸