Trump Firing of Federal Reserve Governor Ignites Legal Fight

Trump fired Lisa Cook on Monday evening: “I have determined that faithfully executing the law requires your immediate removal from office. Thank you for your attention to this matter” (Truth). Lisa Cook responded, refusing to recognize that she had, indeed, been fired: “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in an emailed statement. “I will not resign” (ABC). She will continue her fight in court, according to her lawyer: “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action,” Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement… In challenging the removal order, Cook could immediately seek an injunction reinstating her while litigation moves forward. No charges have been filed against her, though a Justice Department official last week signaled possible plans to investigate her. The allegations also relate to actions taken before Cook joined the Fed, which some legal experts say could undercut Trump’s ability to assert that he has cause to fire her (Bloomberg). She has been accused of mortgage fraud: [Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte] accused Cook of mortgage fraud for listing two of her properties as her permanent residence. “Lisa D. Cook, committed mortgage fraud by designating her out-of-state condo as her primary residence, just two weeks after taking a loan on her Michigan home where she also declared it as her primary residence,” the FHFA director wrote last week in a post on social platform X. He also noted he made the appropriate referrals to the Justice Department for investigation (The Hill). Can Trump fire one of the governors of the Federal Reserve? Mike Davis of the Article III project: Yes, and if the president of the United States does not have the power under Article II of the Constitution to fire any executive branch officer in the government, then that scheme of the government is unconstitutional (Jennings).

Chicago Mayor Won’t Admit More Cops on the Street Would Reduce Crime

Mayor Brandon Johnson is so steeped in his critical theory that he refuses to admit the obvious—or he can’t see the obvious. From his conversation with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “Do you believe that the streets of Chicago would be safer if there were more uniformed police officers on the streets of Chicago?” Scarborough asked Johnson. Scarborough posed the question to the liberal Chicago mayor multiple times. Johnson instead emphasized the need for expanded social programs, including affordable housing. “I believe the city of Chicago and cities across America would be safer if we actually had, you know, affordable housing. Look, I’m not saying—” Johnson began, before Scarborough cut him off, noting it wasn’t the question he had asked (Fox News). That interchange highlights what has become increasingly obvious: The public is in favor of public safety. Politico: if it wasn’t clear then, it is now: The White House’s public safety play is a deliberate ploy to refocus the narrative on an issue that favors Republicans ahead of the midterms — one that’s already backing Democrats into a corner. The president in recent days is leaning even further into using the National Guard as a glorified police force, visiting the troops and allowing them to be armed. He’s suggested he’s eyeing Chicago and New York next for their next deployment. On Sunday, he needled Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for Baltimore’s notorious crime statistics, hinting he could send troops there as well. It’s a sign that despite polling showing how unpopular Trump’s moves are in Washington, the president is playing to a national audience — and betting this is a battle he and the GOP can win. If his recent escalation was an attempt to goad Democrats into declaring that crime isn’t a problem, repelling swing voters in the process, top Democrats did not disappoint him (Politico). Brandon Johnson may be getting a thank you note from the Trump administration soon.

600,000 More Chinese Students?

Trump’s latest idea isn’t sitting well with large portions of his base. The Hill: President Trump is facing outcry from some of his supporters after saying he plans to allow 600,000 students from China into the U.S. “It’s a very important relationship. We’re going to get along good with China,” Trump told reporters Monday during a meeting with the president of South Korea. “I hear so many stories about, ‘We’re not going to allow their students,’” he continued. “We’re going to allow their students to come in. We’re going to allow it. It’s very important — 600,000 students. It’s very important….” Fox News host Laura Ingraham raised the issue with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during her show Monday night. “Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, how is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?” the Fox host asked on “The Ingraham Angle,” noting it’s been a long-running issue for conservatives (The Hill). Gordon Chang: 600,000 Chinese students in our country? Do we really need hundreds of thousands more spies here? (Chang). Christopher Rufo: We can’t accept 600,000 Chinese students. If anything, we should reduce the number of Chinese visas, especially for students with political connections to the CCP (Rufo). Liz Wheeler: “Chinese ‘students’ are all spies for the Chinese Communist Party. They’re forced to be. They steal our intellectual property. They steal our tech. They steal our intel. They cozy up to our military,” Wheeler posted on X. “Trump should ban all Chinese students from U.S. universities. Deport them all” (Fox News).

Mexican Senator Speaks Out, Arguing for US Help With Drug Cartels

 


Speaking on Fox News, Mexican Senator Lilly Téllez did not mince words about President Claudia Sheinbaum: “The only people opposed to the offer to help us … are the narco-politicians, which includes President Sheinbaum and her entire group,” Téllez said, pointing to the president’s recent endorsement of Morena Senator Adán Augusto López. López is accused by the opposition of ties to organized crime in the state of Tabasco, stemming from his relationship to his hand-picked state security minister Hernán Bermúdez, a fugitive who is the alleged leader of the La Barredora crime gang. On Tuesday, Sheinbaum ratified López as the leader of the Morena caucus in the Senate. Telléz, a former member of Morena, said the ratification proves that the Sheinbaum administration is “infiltrated by the drug cartels,” which have been labeled as terrorists by the U.S. government (Mexico News). The New York Times reported on Augusto Lopez earlier this month: Two former officials are on the run, accused of secretly leading a criminal group. Their old boss, now a powerful senator in the president’s party, is being grilled over what he knew. And the timing could not be worse for Mexico’s president, who faces the corruption scandal as President Trump doubles down on accusations that drug cartels have the Mexican government in their grip. At the scandal’s center is the senator, Adán Augusto López Hernández, a former interior minister and governor of Tabasco State, and a close confidant of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Two men Mr. López appointed in Tabasco, a secretary of security and state police chief, are now wanted by the Mexican government and Interpol, facing charges of leading a criminal group involved in drug trafficking…. But the case strikes at the heart of one of Mr. Trump’s most sensitive accusations: that Mexico’s political elite is unwilling to purge itself of the corruption that has long provided the cartels cover and impunity (New York Times).

Australia Expels Iranian Diplomats, Closing Australian Embassy in Tehran

All this after Tehran had been found culpable of dozens of arson attacks on Jewish businesses and a Jewish synagogue. New York Times reports: “These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference in Canberra, the capital, where he was flanked by Australia’s top intelligence official, its foreign minister and its home affairs minister. “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community,” he said. A spate of violent attacks on Jewish businesses and institutions, which began late last year, has unnerved many people in Australia, which has the highest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. The extraordinary decision to publicly hold Iran responsible for some of the attacks, and to cut diplomatic relations, was not reached quickly or taken lightly, Australian officials said on Tuesday…. Mike Burgess, Australia’s head of intelligence, said a monthslong investigation had uncovered links between the two attacks and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Australia said it would designate as a terrorist organization. Mr. Burgess said organized crime groups outside Australia had been involved in the attacks, but he declined to elaborate (New York Times). Ed Morrissey of Hot Air: The obvious question is whether the IRGC is driving similar terror/intimidation campaigns in the US. To what extent, for instance, is Iran behind the “globalize the intifada” rioters in the US? We already have listed the IRGC as a terror organization, so any coordination between the groups behind Iran and these radical and violent demonstrations should prompt criminal charges for those involved. More to the point, it should also result in actions that would serve to deter further proxy warfare against the US, Australia, and other Western nations by the mullahs’ regime in Tehran (Hot Air).

Justice Gorsuch Presses Back Against Judicial “Anarchy”

The comments from the Supreme Court Justice came last week in the case of National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association. CNN: In Donald Trump’s long-running feud with federal judges, the president has found some support in an unlikely place: the nation’s highest court. A growing sense of frustration with some lower courts — articulated in terms that at times sound similar to Trump’s own rhetoric — has crept into a series of opinions this summer from the Supreme Court’s conservative justices as they juggle a flood of emergency cases dealing with Trump’s second term. “Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Justice Neil Gorsuch admonished in an opinion last week tied to the court’s decision to allow Trump to cancel nearly $800 million in research grants. The rebuke, which was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, flipped the narrative that it is Trump who has pushed legal boundaries with his flurry of executive orders and support for impeaching judges who rule against him. A wave of legal conservatives took to social media to tout Gorsuch’s warning (CNN). New York Sun: Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh add: “When this court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.” That is Federal Courts 101, canon to generations of law students. It could be, though, that the surge in the high court’s reliance on the emergency or “shadow” docket — where rulings are handed down without oral arguments and sometimes without fully explicated reasoning — has empowered lower court judges to ignore or evade pronouncements from the high court (New York Sun).

Federal Judge in Maine: Yes, Federal Government Can Withold Medicaid Funds From Abortion Providers

A victory for life. New York Times reports: A federal judge in Maine declined on Monday to block the government from stripping Medicaid funding from one of Maine’s largest abortion providers, finding that to do so would override “the will of the people as expressed by Congress.” At issue is a provision of the tax and spending bill Congress passed in July that would deny abortion providers Medicaid funding even for health services other than performing abortions. In a blunt, 19-page opinion, Judge Lance E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Maine wrote that particularly after the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade, he could neither consider abortion services a constitutional right nor stop Congress from advancing laws to defund organizations that provide them. “It would be a special kind of judicial hubris to declare that the public interest has been undermined by the public,” wrote Judge Walker, who was appointed by President Trump in his first term (New York Times). Inevitably, the case will be appealed by Planned Parenthood as the decision is at odds with a ruling from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts (New York Times).

Fourteen -Year-Old Scottish Girl Resists Attempted Assault, Gets Arrested

The moral compass of the ruling class in the UK under Prime Minister Keir Starmer is 180 degrees off. Red State: Just two days ago, this horror show flashed across X. The location is Dundee, Scotland. Two girls, one age 12 and the other 14, are pursued by a number of migrants who remain off-screen. In fear, the oldest girl … produces a hatchet and a knife and tells the creepazoids stalking her to stay away. Both teens are visibly distressed as grown men stand around them. One of the girls can be heard yelling, “Don’t ____  touch her, she’s ______12.” Another account indicates one or more of the girls may have been groped or manhandled by the migrants. A video that has been widely circulated on social media shows the youngster brandishing an axe and a machete…. The footage was taken on Saturday afternoon and shows two girls on a grass verge by the busy Coupar Angus Road. A man’s voice is heard saying: “Show the knife, show the knife…” Given that this is Britain, you can predict what happened next. The girl with the blades was arrested (Red State). Rogan O’Handley: The UK has fallen to dystopian levels of evil (O’Handley).

Since 1980, Average American Income: Up 18 Percent, Housing Costs: Up 400 Percent

That goes a long way to explain the struggles of young Americans today. Here’s the full paragraph from the Wall Street Journal: In inflation-adjusted terms, Americans are earning 18% more than they did in 1980, when the last of the baby boomers were entering adulthood. The costs of housing have soared more than 400% since then, medical care has climbed nearly 700% and tuition and child care costs have increased more than 10-fold (Wall Street Journal). That graph comes from their just-completed 10-part series on the costs of parenthood (full series: Journal). Oren Cass looks at the “The Math Problem at the Heart of the Family Budget”: For one family with two working parents, the cost of a nanny represents three-quarters of the household’s increase in monthly expenses after the child is born. For the other, daycare accounts for 100% of the increase. A third couple has a stay-at-home parent. Their monthly spending with child? Unchanged from pre-child (but a significant income reduction with the father quitting his job to be at home) (Commonplace). Trump may do well in addressing the fundamental challenges for the middle class today, but there’s a long way to go.

Taylor Swift Is Getting Married

I’m sure you’re just learning it here… Swifties were over the moon—like CBS News reporter Olivia Rinaldi who was so excited that she said: “I feel like Paul Revere right now!” (CBS). Swift’s time with NFL tight end Travis Kelce has shown contours of a somewhat traditional relationship—at least in contrast to the superstar’s past. John Sexton of Hot Air: I think there’s something positive in all of this. She seemingly dated every scrawny, gender indifferent creative artist type in Hollywood and beyond. She drifted from one to another and wound up pretty lonely and unhappy best I can tell. And then she finds a relatively normie football player who makes her actually happy and she’s engaged just like that. There’s a message there about traditional American manhood that probably goes beyond politics. And don’t think that message isn’t being heard by a lot of young women who count themselves as Swift’s true fans (Hot Air). Will Rahn at the Free Press watched the full two hours of Swift with Travis and his brother Jason’s “New Heights” podcast (You Tube). He found himself drawn in: If you’re looking to be with someone for the rest of your life, you’re better off in the long run with a quick wit. Conversation is the backbone of every good relationship, and you want someone who’ll still tell you things you didn’t know or never thought of 30 years from now. Also, you’re going to need someone who makes you laugh. And I’ll add that you should worship them accordingly, as Travis clearly does. A lesser man would feel anxious running off with a genius, someone who will always, inevitably, eclipse him for the rest of his life. Instead, Travis gets that he’s hit the jackpot—and not just because he gets to travel the world for free on a private jet. So let’s resolve to be like Travis. Watching the burly, bearded fellow canoodle with the brilliant bombshell is, to my amazement, a good use of two hours. If you’re lucky enough to have found your gal, pour her a glass of wine and watch it with her. If you’re still searching, take note of Travis’s recollection that his first conversation with Taylor was “the easiest I ever had.” That’s what you’re really looking for, boys. Go out and get it. And be endlessly grateful if you’re lucky enough to find it (Free Press). A number of sports pundits were driving home the point to men: Get up, get off the couch, turn off the video game and pursue a good woman (Colin Cowherd).