Guess Who Stole the Show in Dallas? Tisch: Don’t Blur Lines Between Terrorists and Heroes. The Robots Are Coming! (ARE They?) Devine on Holdout Juror. Charlie’s Legacy. More
First, last night’s brilliant Land Recognition Statement: All hail to Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, who flipped the script on Dems at the GOP convention last night with a reverse land recognition statement. Awesome.
But you know who stole the show. President Trump “stunned” the nation with an unprecedented pledge last night in Dallas at the GOP’s first-ever midterm convention (aka the “Trumpapalooza”):
President Donald Trump delivered the keynote speech on day one of the GOP’s inaugural midterm convention, alternating between touting his successes in office and rallying thousands of supporters for Republican candidates ahead of November’s general election before making a promise to American voters.
In a stunning move, Trump made a promise unheard of in the history of American politics — offering a cash prize should Republicans keep control of Congress.
“I can make this promise to you, and here is my promise,” he said. “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic — tremendous economic success like in history, we’ve never had anything like what’s happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically — I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”
“It will be called the ‘Trump dividend,'” he added.
Damian Paletta of The Wall Street Journal calls the “dividend” promise President Trump’s “biggest election gambit yet.” Paletta discusses where the funds might come from (tariff revenue?) and the ultimate price tag. The Wall Street Journal offers five takeaways, including the optimism and the surprise video appearance by maverick Democrat Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman rejected what he described as the Democratic Party’s “extremes and socialism.”
Trump vowed an end to cashless bail and increased use of the death penalty and pushed a new bill that would make it illegal for any future President to open our borders, plus a “great” healthcare plan that would crack down on insurers. The question is: Has the Trump administration delivered? Patrice Onwuka writes in the Washington Post that “no Democrat supported what’s propelling the U.S. economy now.” Onwuka argues: “I know firsthand about the benefits of the Working Families Tax Cuts.” Charts show that America is on the rise.
Meanwhile, Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York wonders whether the midterm results are already baked into the cake. WSJ political columnist Karl Rove contemplates, “Who Will Be the Bigger Midterm Loser?” “‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot’ Is Trump’s Midterm Strategy” is a Free Press article by Audrey Fahlberg. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel suggests that the Trumpapalooza might be a pivot.
We all know what day tomorrow is. He’ll be there, despite requests that he stay home. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch blasts 9/11 revisionists blurring lines between heroes and terrorists:
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch pointedly called Wednesday for “moral clarity” ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — decrying revisionists who blur the lines between heroes and terrorists.
Tisch made the remarks before a stone-faced Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other NYPD and city officials as they unveiled a new 9/11 Memorial Wall at One Police Plaza.
“No Place for 9/11 Truthers on the 25th Anniversary” is the headline on James B. Meigs’ Free Expression piece. “Conspiracy claims have found fresh expression today, but not one survives scrutiny,” Meigs argues.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg writes that Lower Manhattan must go on living, even as we honor those lost on 9/11 — otherwise, terror triumphs. Michael McConnell addresses the phenomenon of the “emergency presidency,” which was one result of 9/11. McConnell argues at City Journal that an era of executive power that has only expanded since 9/11:
Bush’s statement that the dangers were “continuing” as well as “immediate” proved more prescient than he could have known. We live in the shadow of the 9/11 emergency a quarter of a century later. Every president since Bush has extended the emergency declared that day. The extraordinary powers that the nation’s 43rd president invoked on September 14, 2001, have become ordinary.
We now live in an age of unending emergencies: 9/11, the financial meltdown of 2008, and the Covid-19 pandemic being the most prominent. Not surprisingly, each pitted emergency response against civil liberties, and each left the White House playing a more dominant role in the American republic.
An Anthropic researcher has made headlines saying that AI might kill us. We were told that there is a more than 10% chance AI “could kill all humans.” Frankly, Ms. Must was skeptical. C’mon, why? And how? I found the notion of AI “judgment day” silly. But people who know more than Ms. Must take it seriously. “Yes, AI Might Really Kill Us All” is the Free Press headline on Daniel Kokotajlo’s story:
I worked at OpenAI for two years before resigning in 2024. Fears that AI will cause human extinction are real. You should take them seriously.
“How Would AI Actually Kill Us All? What to Know About the AI Doomsday Debate” is a Wall Street Journal headline on a story that reveals how we could be wiped out “even if all the [nice?] bots want to do is make paper clips.” Famed investor Paul Tudor Jones weighs in with “AI May Become the Third Superpower.” The subhead:
The threat to mankind is real, and Trump and Xi need to develop a shared strategy to confront it.
Miranda Devine has an excellent column on the juror holdout in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial—she, too, zeroes in on the telltale quote that struck so many of us:
‘He couldn’t get over the fact that Clancy viciously killed her children.”
Those are the words of one of the insufferably condescending female jurors from the Lindsay Clancy mistrial who have gone public with their disdain for the lone male juror who refused to go along with their not guilty verdict.
Good for him.
Several of the jury members, Devine notices, were employed in the “helping professions”:
Jury forewoman Roni Carlson, a former elementary school teacher, Kellie Farina, a chef for a senior center, and Paula Devlin, who does work for a defense contractor, were interviewed on camera by NBC10 Boston, and it’s hard to imagine a more smug group lacking in self-awareness or any humility. They revealed that there were a number of nurses and teachers on the jury.
Loyal daughter of a certain state that, alas, sometimes doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, Ms. Must can’t resist this story: “Mississippi Fixed Its Schools. Here’s How Other States Can.” It’s the story about how the poorest state in the union reversed its illiteracy rate and what other states must do to emulate Mississippi. Ms. Must dares to suggest that with better schools, her state will lose its “poorest in the nation” tag.
September 10—today—is the first anniversary of the murder of Charlie Kirk. His death left a void in the conservative movement. There was a terrific story that I bet Charlie would love at The Federalist two days ago: “Charlie Kirk’s Biggest Legacy Will Be Inspiring Young People to Get Married.”
Just two more pieces to prepare for tomorrow. “What Mohamed Atta Was Trying to Tell Us,” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Tablet, makes the point that 25 years later, it’s time for us to face the true cause of 9/11. Atta steered one of the planes into the Twin Towers. Here’s a snippet of the piece:
Nothing in his circumstances compelled [Atta] to dwell on death. Yet he gave detailed instructions for the handling of his corpse. “I don’t want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or on any occasion thereafter,” he wrote. He did not want a pregnant woman, or “a person who is not clean,” to come and say goodbye.
The man who washed his body should wear gloves so as not to touch his genitals. He was to be wrapped in three white pieces of unadorned cloth, laid on his right side facing Mecca, and buried “next to good Muslims.” His money was to be divided “according to the Muslim religion as almighty God has asked us to do.”
In “The Europeans’ Post-9/11 Advice,” Barton Swaim suggests that “The urge to blame America and stop it from responding began immediately.”
