aacj

July 14 2025

Ghost of Epstein Haunts Trump; Student Loan Overhaul; Western Hemisphere Oil; Pentagon's China Focus; Sinner Wins Wimbledon

Greg Loving

14 Jul 2025 • 9 min read

A shale gas flare in Argentina, Oct. 22, 2024. PHOTO: ALEXANDER VILLEGAS/REUTERS

Trump Base Boos White House Over Epstein Files Secrecy

Trump Administration Overhauls Student Loans, Capping Federal Aid

Opinion: Oil and Gas Production Surges Across Western Hemisphere, Bolstering U.S. Geopolitical Standing

Pentagon Official Pushes China Focus, Fueling Debate Over Ukraine Arms

Sinner Tops Alcaraz to Claim First Wimbledon Crown

1. Trump Base Boos White House Over Epstein Files Secrecy

TAMPA — At a gathering of some of President Donald Trump’s most devout supporters — young conservatives spending a summer weekend strategizing on how to further the MAGA movement — a cloud hung over the convention center. Attendees of Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit erupted in boos over the Trump administration’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased child predator. Top MAGA leaders criticized the White House from stage and on their wide-reaching social media accounts throughout the weekend, attacking not only Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, for declining to release more on the investigation and potential Epstein associates, but raising questions about why the president seemed to be out of step with his base. The concerns raised at the conference followed days of conservative foment that continued to build over the weekend, fueling anxiety among Trump allies that conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein, widely promoted by Trump and administration officials before they took office, will continue to haunt them. Even Trump’s preferred cable network, Fox News, raised a warning Sunday morning, with “Fox & Friends” host Charles Hurt saying the White House needed to provide more answers. “There has to be some explanation,” Hurt said, “and I think that’s why you have a lot of people still ... with a lot a very valid questions.” The “excitement I saw among younger voters could be defused,” said Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, in an interview with The Washington Post, likening it to “air out of a balloon.” “Do I think this is the end of MAGA? No. I’ve never said that,” Kirk continued. “Do I think the extra 10 to 15 percent of [less inclined to vote] bros that are trading crypto and wake up at 2 p.m. every day … do I think they’re going to be, like, ‘Screw it?’ Yeah. That’s a huge risk.” Former senior White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon, taping his daily podcast from a small stage in the convention center Friday morning, was even more alarmed. “It’s deeper than Epstein!” Bannon shouted as a crowd gathered around him. The administration’s refusal to release more on the investigation and Epstein’s potential ties to power, as it had once promised to do, is “not about just a pedophile ring and all that,” he said. “It’s about who governs us.” “For this to go away,” a fired-up Bannon continued, telling his producers they would have to blow through the scheduled commercial break, “you’re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we’re going to lose 40 seats in ’26, we’re going to lose the presidency.

Editors note: regardless of your interest in Epstein conspiracies, this has grown into a major factor in the Republican/Democratic balance of power, starting with the 2026 Midterms

Washington Post

2. Trump Administration Overhauls Student Loans, Capping Federal Aid

The federal government is retreating from its central role in financing higher education. President Trump’s big tax-and-spending law includes new restrictions on how much students can borrow and how they repay. The provisions begin to reverse the government’s near takeover of the $1.7 trillion student lending market over the past six decades. As a result, families are reassessing the costs and risks of college. Many are likely to turn to private lenders, which typically charge higher interest rates and require creditworthy cosigners. Those lenders recently accounted for some 8% of outstanding loans, according to data from Enterval Analytics. In particular, as many as half of graduate-student borrowers may take private loans to cover funding gaps, according to Jordan Matsudaira, director of the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University, and former chief economist at the Education Department. Republican lawmakers say they want to reduce taxpayer risk from the ballooning federal student-loan portfolio while forcing colleges to curb their prices. Higher education observers and borrowers worry the changes will price out middle-class families and reduce access to careers that require expensive graduate training. Now, the law imposes a series of new borrowing limits. Here’s what is changing on July 1, 2026: Graduate loans are capped at borrowing $100,000 for master’s degrees, and $200,000 for professional degrees (law, medical, dental). Currently, students can borrow up to the full cost of attendance minus other aid. Parent PLUS loans, which currently let parents borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their child’s undergraduate education, are capped at $20,000 annually, and $65,000 total per child. The Graduate PLUS loan program, which allowed graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, is being eliminated.

WSJ

3. Opinion: Oil and Gas Production Surges Across Western Hemisphere, Bolstering U.S. Geopolitical Standing

More new oil and gas production is likely to come from Canada, Guyana, Argentina and Brazil than from the U.S. Nevertheless, the geopolitics of energy are shifting in Washington’s direction even as fossil fuels appear poised to play a larger role than green climate campaigners hoped. From the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, politicians of all stripes have embraced the Trumpian rallying cry of “drill, baby, drill.” In Argentina, President Javier Milei’s pro-market government is accelerating the development of shale reserves that some compare favorably with America’s Permian Basin. In Guyana, offshore rigs are beginning to produce large quantities of oil, with exports up 54% in 2024 to almost 600,000 barrels a day, and are expected nearly to triple by 2030, when daily output capacity is expected to reach about 1.7 million barrels. Brazil’s socialist President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva is doing everything he can to promote fossil-fuel growth in his country. Canada is already among the world’s top five producers of both oil and gas, but this isn’t enough for Prime Minister Mark Carney. Resistance from indigenous groups and environmentalist campaigners has derailed pipeline projects and oil-field developments. Canada is producing less oil and gas than it could and is more reliant on exporting fossil fuels to the U.S. than it wants to be in the Age of Trump.

WSJ

4. Pentagon Official Pushes China Focus, Fueling Debate Over Ukraine Arms

A. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, wants to refocus the U.S. military on countering China. That has put him at the center of the Trump administration’s abrupt moves on providing weapons to Ukraine. It was Colby, a 45-year-old grandson of a former Central Intelligence Agency director, who wrote a memo to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early June outlining how Ukraine’s requests for U.S. weapons could further stretch already depleted Pentagon stockpiles. The memo didn’t have a recommendation and was described by a defense official as a tool for assessing how arms deliveries would affect U.S. stockpiles. But some officials in the administration and in Congress say it figured in the Pentagon’s decision to suspend some arms shipments to Kyiv, a move President Trump later reversed.

B. China’s military is extending its reach deeper into the Pacific, sending ships and aircraft into new territory in a push that has spurred the U.S. to strengthen defenses and alliances in the region. Beijing has long resented what it sees as interference by the U.S. and its allies in its traditional sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Now, it is asserting itself more aggressively in its backyard while also pushing well beyond longstanding geographical limits of its military. China’s reach is often measured by activities within a “first island chain” that links U.S. partners—Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines—and those undertaken around a second, sparser constellation of countries and territories. The first chain marks maritime territory that U.S. security officials say China would hope to dominate in a regional conflict. Two Chinese aircraft carriers held their first simultaneous drills in the western Pacific in June; one sailed past Japan’s Iwo Jima with at least seven other vessels, the first time a Chinese carrier crossed the second island chain. A group of Chinese navy ships sailed through the Tasman Sea and around Australia this year, carrying out live-fire drills along the way in a visit that New Zealand’s defense minister called a “wake-up call.”

WSJ

5. Sinner Tops Alcaraz to Claim First Wimbledon Crown

LONDON (AP) — Jannik Sinner insisted early on at Wimbledon that he put an excruciating loss to Carlos Alcaraz in their epic French Open final behind him. Sinner was sure that one defeat wouldn’t haunt him, wouldn’t prevent a quick recalibration and certainly wouldn’t mean a thing at the All England Club. Sure was right about all of that. Exactly five weeks after the devastating defeat at Roland-Garros against his rival, Sinner reversed the result, beating two-time defending Wimbledon champion Alcaraz 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday to win his first championship at the grass-court major.

AP News

July 14, 1789: French revolutionaries storm the Bastille

On July 14, 1789, revolutionary crowds stormed the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison in Paris that had become a symbol of monarchical oppression under the Bourbon dynasty. This event marked the beginning of the French Revolution, a period of profound political upheaval that lasted over a decade and ultimately led to the execution of King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and tens of thousands of others during the subsequent Reign of Terror.

The French Revolution significantly influenced American domestic politics, deepening ideological divisions between the emerging political parties. The Federalist Party, led by figures like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, favored closer ties with Britain and was perceived by opponents as sympathetic to monarchical principles and strong central authority. In contrast, the Democratic-Republican Party, primarily organized by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, supported the French revolutionary cause and advocated for limited federal power and individual liberties.

These competing views of the French Revolution helped crystallize fundamental disagreements about the proper scope of government authority in the new American republic. The Democratic-Republicans' association with revolutionary ideals and their opposition to centralized power resonated with many Americans, contributing to their electoral success. The party controlled the presidency for twenty-four consecutive years through the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), James Madison (1809-1817), and James Monroe (1817-1825). Meanwhile, the Federalist Party gradually declined and eventually disappeared as a national political force. This period reinforced the American ethos of skepticism toward concentrated governmental power, a principle that had been shaped significantly by observing the excesses of both monarchical rule and revolutionary extremism in France.

Hutchinson

Salina

McPherson / Lindsborg