Beltway Insider: Trump/Epstein, Minneapolis School Shooting, Israel Continues Assault, Kills Journos, SCOTUS Same/Sex Marriage

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Category: Beltway Insider

Published on Saturday, 30 August 2025 18:32

Written by Janet Walker

President Trump's involvement with convicted sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein continues to plague the president as members of his own party are demanding reasonable answers as to the depth of his relationship with the former financier.

The President's job approval rating, according to Gallup featured in The New York Times for the period ending August 24, 2025, of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President remained increased by 3.0% to 40% and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as president decreased by 2.0% to 56%. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.

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House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Epstein Estate

House Oversight Committee Chair, James Comer (R-KY) in an ongoing investigation, has requested the estate attorney's for Jeffrey Epstein to turn over all evidence, including a compiled book presented to him on his 50th birthday by his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Representative Comer also demanded "any document or record that could be reasonably construed to be a potential list of clients involved in sex, sex acts or sex trafficking" facilitated by Epstein," The Washington Post reported.

The attorney's have until September 8, 2025 to respond.

Minneapolis School Shooting

Another school year begins in America, and with it another mass shooting. This time, a mentally ill young adult, Robin Westman, turned up outside a church and in an instant two young lives were taken and more than 18, including 15 children and three adults were injured, some critically.

Born Robert Westman, Westman, 23, had a legal name change in 2020 with the reason being that he identifies as a female. Westman in her diary entries indicated she had indulged in a steady diet of mass shootings, before the transition to female identification.

"Joseph Thompson, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, said Thursday that the suspect "idolized some of the most notorious school shooters and mass murderers in our country's history. More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children," Thompson said. "The shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children. Defenseless children," NBCnews.com reported.

Seven victims remained hospitalized, four of the six are in satisfactory condition, one adult is in serious condition, and one child remains in critical condition.

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Israel  Continues Gaza Assault

In what could possibly be the last large offensive in the ongoing Israeli-Palestine war, more than 1 million residents who remained in Gaza City were being warned to evacuate as the Israeli military were planning on heavy shelling to demolish what was left of the city, in an effort to destroy any Hamas strongholds that remain.

"Many residents have already been displaced multiple times as the Israeli military moved through Gaza during the war against Hamas and seized more than 80 percent of the strip. Some say that life in an overcrowded tent city on the narrow Mawasi coastal plain, where Israel plans to cram nearly all of the Gazan population, will be no better or safer than risking death in an active combat zone," reported The Washington Post.

As the Israeli Military has continued to issue evacuation warnings residents are faced with nearly insurmountable obstacles, cost, mental fatigue, PTSD, despair, and a deep mistrust of the Israeli military, making the decision to evacuate extremely difficult.

The Palestinians are in a mousetrap game, however, to stay is to risk death; to leave is to live, maybe.

Netanyahu's War Within

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determined effort to erase the Palestine people, and raze Gaza, has resulted in a need for new military recruits as much of Israel's military force is exhausted, and even as military service is compulsory, a large portion of the population, those of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, are exempt from military service.

This exemption, which has been permitted since the founding of the nation in 1948, has increasingly become scrutinized as Netanyahu's war is exhausting soldiers both in the reserves and in active duty.

"The Israeli military announced Aug. 20 that 60,000 new reservists would be called to duty and that 20,000 would have their orders extended, bringing the total number of reservists to serve across all fronts in Israel to roughly 120,000, according to a senior military official who requested anonymity under military ground rules," The New York Times reported.

Peering into the dilemma now faced as the Ultra-Orthodox, who are seen as ultra-religious and exempt from military service as they set themselves apart for service to God and study of the Torah, and the secular Israeli's who may be equally religious but chose not to set themselves apart for service and study, is yet another septic sore on Netanyahu's war against the Palestinian people, even as the loss of life for many Israeli military has been less, there have been loss of life.

Does the death of a child hurt less for the secular mother? Or for that matter does the death of a child hurt less for a Palestinian mother than for an Israeli mother? The moral dilemma is also plaguing the Ultra-Orthodox, who understand to answer Netanyahu's call to service, would be to violate their own sense of self and religious beliefs, and take up arms for the express purpose to murder.

The trickle of secularism has begun to infiltrate the Ultra-Orthodox community, and as a nation founded on faith is this war, which has gone well beyond a measured response, a war that will demolish the existence of the religious sect, forcing them to complete the mandatory military service? And with that allowing all that is secular to enter into their lives, and when the service is over, send them back, inundated by the ideals of secular life outside the community, which only allows the walls to come down further. Soon, there will be no separation. The destruction of life, literally and figuratively, will effect all involved in this war.

Shelling Murders Journalists

As the exposure of the extreme horrendous conditions in Gaza become more widely known, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made an active decision to silence those voices, either journalists or aid workers, who expose to the outside world the grave and dire circumstances in Gaza.

Five journalists from the Associated Press and Reuters news services were killed this week in an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Gaza.

"We can confirm that the Reuters and AP journalists were not a target of the strike," military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told Reuters on Tuesday. Three other journalists were also killed in the strike. Using its own camera equipment, Reuters has frequently broadcast a feed from Nasser hospital during the Gaza war. For the past several weeks the news agency had been delivering daily feeds from the hospital position that was hit," Reuters reported.

More than 400 Aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began in 2023. The intentional/not intentional air strikes on aid caravans have largely been the reason behind the inability for foreign governments and aid organizations to gain access to Gaza. Crippling outside aid organizations allows for Israel to have complete control over the disbursement of food, aid, supplies and can provide or withhold as they determine.

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Coronavirus Total

At the order of the President of the United States, the U.S. no longer recognizes the value of The World Health Organization. The CDC has recommended every person from age six months, including senior citizens should receive at least one shot of an updated COVID-19 vaccine, annually.  The death toll from Covid-19 has dramatically decreased, as has transmission of the virus. Even as confirmed new cases continue each week, fewer are dying from the newer variants.

Even as the United States does not actively report on the increase of new cases, nationally, the western United States, from Texas to California are seeing an increase in confirmed cases.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's forecasting model estimates that infections are growing, or likely growing, in most states. While the agency is reporting low levels of the virus in wastewater nationally, some states, including Texas, Utah and Nevada, are showing very high concentrations of Covid in their wastewater. Emergency department visits linked to Covid are rising, too," The New York Times reported.

For the seven days ending August 30, 2025, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases reported by the World Health Organization increased by 17,715 to 778,491,932. The total worldwide death toll increased by 188 to 7,099,904 deaths. The United States has stopped providing Covid data to the World Health Organization. (Data updated August 10, 2025, from the World Health Organization).

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SCOTUS Could Spell End to Same Sex Protections

The United States Supreme Court have taken up another hot button issue, and plan to hear arguments this fall on the validity of Same-Sex marriage laws.

The case brought by Kim Davis, a Kentucky County clerk, who refused to issue a marriage license to a same sex couple in 2015 and was subsequently fined and jailed.

"In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses. More fundamentally, she claims the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges -- extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment's due process protections -- was "egregiously wrong," ABCnews.com.

As the Court stands, there are five conservative justices, it is essentially a court of five, and the possibility that federal protections for same-sex marriages, just like the long-standing Roe vs. Wade decision, will be overturned. Making the decision to afford same-sex couple the provision of marriage would become a state's issue, as it was with abortion.

Should the justices decide the federal provisions will be revoked, the same sex marriage will return to its original state by state privilege.

Labor Day 2025

Monday, September 1, 2025 marks America's 143rd celebration of Labor Day, a holiday set aside to honor the American Labor movement, or the broad swath of middle class workers who were once the backbone of the American economy.  

Today, Labor Day is usually seen as the end of the summer holidays, and for parents a breath of fresh air as students return to school. Labor Day is a federal holiday and as such all federal services will not be available including banks, post offices, and courts. Get out, have a barbeque, go to the beach, celebrate the remaining days of summer. Enjoy.

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For more information on President Donald Trump: Whitehouse.gov.

Sources: Various © Articles covered by Copyright protection.

Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade.  A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five screenplays "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She has also published "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," and "Days, Times, Seasons, and Events: A Collection of Poetry & Prose," which can be purchased here. She is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a member of the International Federation of Journalists.