Xi’s Big Autocrat Fest. Suddenly, Dems Heart Independent Fed. Rich Ilhan Omar. Robert Westman’s Transgenderism. More
Ms. Must took a few days off last week to recover from Covid—this latest strain packs a wallop. Fortunately, I am feeling much better, and nobody shut down the world to accommodate the virus.
The first item that caught my eye this morning is Xi Jinping’s autocrats’ fest in Tianjin. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the gathering to blame the West for the Ukraine war (huh?), and Putin “gleefully held hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.”
In a column headlined “Trump’s Defining Issue: China,” the Wall Street Journal’s Walter Russell Mead writes that, while Xi flexes at his Tianjin summit, the U.S. president aims to prevail on trade. Mead writes:
Chinese President Xi Jinping is doing something unusual this week. He is driving Donald Trump off the front page. The story the world is watching isn’t datelined Washington. Instead Tianjin, China, was front and center as Mr. Xi held the largest summit to date of the China-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization. …
The Tianjin summit is akin to a Haka, a Maori ritual familiar to fans of New Zealand rugby. In a Haka, the members of New Zealand rugby teams stomp and shout to show their strength before the real contest begins. Once the Haka is over, it’s game on. Mr. Trump’s Haka has also been dramatic as he asserts dominance over allies and adversaries alike to prepare for the showdown with China. Using trade carrots and sticks, he has consolidated American leadership over a sullen Europe….
Mr. Trump has dealt mostly with powers much weaker than the U.S. and won a string of victories. In the next phase, he will be facing a Chinese-led coalition of stronger countries that want the U.S. and its president to fail. What kind of bargain Mr. Trump drives with China will likely define his place in American and world history more than anything he has done or left undone in his presidency to date.
An editorial in the same newspaper shows how the Ukraine war factors into China’s grandiose scheme: China doesn’t want Russia to lose because it wants to keep the U.S. tied up in the war.
According to a Washington Post report, China is seeking to erase the role of the United States in winning World War II. Today is the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender on the U.S. warship the Missouri.
“Suddenly the Democrats Want an Independent Fed” is the headline on Allyssia Finley’s column. It describes the various and manifold ways in which the Dems have politicized the Fed and takes special note of Fed member Lisa Cook, whom President Trump seeks to fire:
Ms. Cook’s appointment was no less political. She lacked monetary expertise, and her academic scholarship focused almost exclusively on racial inequities. In 2020 she joined a Twitter mob pushing for University of Chicago economics professor Harald Uhlig to be removed as editor of the Journal of Political Economy because he criticized the defund-the-police movement. Traducing leftist orthodoxy isn’t a legitimate cause for getting fired, but never mind….
President Trump’s tariffs (most of them anyway) were ruled illegal by a federal court of appeals that said the president “went too far” in declaring national emergencies to justify tariffs. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that President Trump “is not a tariff king” who can impose tariffs “on a whim.” On the same page, Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at William and Mary, writes that the Supreme Court could very well uphold the tariffs. Adler doesn’t approve of the tariffs, but since the president’s powers are strongest when it comes to foreign policy, the Supreme Court may allow them.
“Democrats are now in favor of separating children from their illegal immigrant parents,” according to a Twitchy item on Scott Jennings’ latest bon mot. That’s because a federal judge has ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s repatriating of Guatemalan children who came to the U.S. illegally and unaccompanied. What does the judge want? For the U.S. to put the children up for adoption or keep them in foster care until they age out? Still, it is time to discover more about the parents of these children. The children had already boarded the plane, and Guatemala said it was ready to receive them.
Mind Your Own Business. We’re Doing Fine. That’s sort of the message of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (and also Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson) to President Trump, who’s made big city crime a top priority. So, how was the Labor Day holiday for the Windy City? The New York Post has the story:
Bodies are piling up on the streets of Chicago over Labor Day weekend – with 54 shot, including seven killed, as President Trump and Illinois Gov. Pritzker spar over sending the National Guard into the Windy City.
At least 32 separate shootings occurred in Chicago between Friday evening and noon on Monday, according to a review of police incident reports by ABC News.
Just hours after Trump posted a message on Truth Social on Saturday criticizing Pritzker’s handling of crime in the city, at least seven people were shot around 11:10 p.m. in Bronzeville. All of the people are expected to be okay.
Poor Immigrant from Somalia Realizes the American Dream. Though she demurs, Minnesota Rep. and Squad member Ilhan Omar’s reported net worth has reached $30 million. Much of Omar’s wealth comes from her husband (no, NOT that one), Tim Mynette. They have increased their wealth spectacularly in a short time. They seem to be following in the elusive footsteps of another powerhouse Dem couple, Nancy and Paul Pelosi.
“Remember the Children of Annunciation” is the headline on Matthew Hennessey’s piece on the unspeakable horror last week visited upon innocent Catholic school children in Minneapolis. Against the advice of Jen Psaki and other savants, I know that we are praying for the victims and their families. The shooter was Robert “Robin” Westman, a male who identified as female and left behind an apocalyptic manifesto.
Sorry, but we really have to talk about something awkward. Colin Wright had a must-read piece at City Journal; Wright doesn’t boil it all down to transgenderism alone, but it must be discussed:
Westman’s life illustrates what happens when this ideology [transgenderism]intersects with mental illness. As a minor, he socially transitioned, and his mother signed off on his legal name change. It is not yet known whether he took cross-sex hormones or underwent surgeries. What matters is that adults around him encouraged him to lean into his confusion and embrace a delusion about his identity.
Not surprisingly, doing so didn’t resolve his distress. Instead, he became more alienated, more consumed by rage, and more obsessed with violence. His own writings reveal the crushing effect of adhering to a reality-denying ideology. …
The lesson from Minneapolis is that ideologies that deny reality—about sex, about suicide, about medical treatment, and about threats to people’s safety—are profoundly dangerous.
If you’ll indulge me, I am going to be a bit parochial and quote the prominent Catholic author Gavin Aschenden’s brilliant and provocative piece on the Annunciation shooting:
Interpreting the subtle and multi-layered gradations between mental distress and dysfunction and the reality of metaphysical evil is much harder to do than wrangling over gun control….
Part of the ethical and metaphysical analysis of the Church is that suffering from being mentally unwell makes the task of holding a defense against the subtleties of evil and the ethically disguised whispers of temptation so much more difficult than when one is sane and well balanced.
As you have probably heard, Rudy Giuliani, 81, was seriously injured in a car accident over the weekend. President Trump is awarding Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Honor. Meanwhile, Rep. Jerry Nadler, who led Trump to an impeachment, is retiring from the House. The New York Times story is his medal.
Have you lost sleep over former Veep Kamala Harris’ Secret Service detail being cut back to the normal six months post-office? Here’s the Babylon Bee take:
Kamala Harris Last Seen Fleeing Dozens Of International Assassins After Trump Cancels Her Secret Service Protection
