Source: CounterPunch
by Addison J Hosner

“By now, it would be hard to find an American who doesn’t know the name ‘Epstein,’ and most understand exactly what it means for President Trump. But despite the President’s best efforts to label the investigation around Epstein as a hoax, claims even his own party has refuted, or deflect attention by targeting late-night hosts and football teams, the American public is not falling for the misdirection. Even some of his most ardent supporters are calling foul. In my experience as an attorney, when someone is innocent, they rush to prove their innocence. You know what they don’t do? Deflect, delay, deny, dismiss, and discredit. Trump has done it all, contorting narratives and pointing fingers elsewhere instead of simply putting forth the pieces of evidence, in his direct control, no less, that would exonerate him of his involvement.” (08/14/25)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/14/trump-epstein-and-the-art-of-the-lie/

Source: Common Dreams
by Steven Harper

“When we left convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, she had just received several remarkable gifts from the Trump administration. First, while serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking minors as Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer, she got an unprecedented meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the second highest official in the Justice Department. Blanche was also U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the hush-money trial resulting in his 34 felony convictions. That such a meeting even occurred astonished legal observers across the political spectrum. Second, only a week later, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell out of the Florida Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a minimum security prison with horrendous conditions. Her new home is the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, a ‘Club Fed’ that houses white-collar criminals and celebrities who have far better living quarters and relative freedom of movement.” (08/14/25)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ghislaine-maxwell-trump

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“During a speech in South Carolina, US Senator Lindsey Graham warned that ‘God will pull the plug’ on Americans if they stop supporting Israel. ‘This is not a hard choice if you’re an American. It’s not a hard choice if you’re a Christian,’ Graham said. ‘A word of warning: if America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us. And we’re not going to let that happen.’ The senator is correct, of course. What, do you doubt him? God clearly and explicitly commands Christians to support the modern state of Israel. It’s right here in the Holy Bible; give me a moment and I’ll find the verse for you. Aha! Got it. Exodus 20:13: ‘You shall not murder.’ Wait, hold on, that’s not it. Here it is, Matthew 5:9, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Hang on, shoot, that’s not the one.” (08/14/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/08/14/the-biblical-case-for-supporting-israel/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Elfadil Ibrahim

“In early August, Israeli energy company NewMed announced a record-breaking $35 billion deal to supply natural gas to Egypt, nearly tripling its current imports and binding Cairo’s energy future to its neighbor until at least 2040. Though Egyptian officials were quick to frame this not as a new agreement but as an ‘amendment’ to a 2019 deal, the sheer scale of the deal — the largest in Israel’s export history — is indicative of a deepening and dangerous dependence on its neighbor for its energy needs.” (08/14/25)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/egypt-israel-gas/

Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman

“The Trump administration has done a lot of things that many people find alarming, from shipping non-citizens to a Salvadoran prison to hiking tariffs to bombing Iran’s nuclear sites to killing funding for vaccine research to deploying the military in American cities to … well, it’s a long list, and I don’t need to rehash it. … This is sometimes described as a ‘constitutional crisis,’ but I think that’s a misnomer. A constitutional crisis is when different bodies within a constitutional structure claim supremacy over one another, and refuse to back down in a conflict. … That is precisely what is not happening today. On the contrary, what we’ve generally seen is widespread acquiescence in profound constitutional changes, and thereby the avoidance of crisis.” (08/14/25)

https://gideons.substack.com/p/what-if-we-held-a-constitutional