For the week 9/15-9/19

[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,378

—ABC pulled late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off air indefinitely over comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” a spokesperson for the Disney-owned network said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Kimmel said during his show that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points off Kirk’s killing.

In his Monday monologue, Kimmel said: “The MAGA Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Kimmel also criticized flags being flown at half-mast in honor of Kirk, and mocked President Trump’s reaction to the shooting.

On the day Kirk was shot, Kimmel took to Instagram to condemn the attack and send “love” to the activist’s family.

The ABC announcement came just after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it would not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! “for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show.”

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” and said he hoped other broadcasters would follow its lead.  [Sinclair Broadcast Group followed suit, Sinclair and Nexstar owning about 60 stations across the country.] Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna.

Carr, a Trump appointee, had earlier criticized Kimmel’s monologue on a podcast, saying the ABC host had shown “the sickest conduct possible” and he urged Disney to take action.

“[Broadcasters] have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest,” Carr said.  He added, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. [Emphasis mine.] These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

The Writers Guild of America, Hollywood’s labor union, condemned the decision to take Kimmel off the air as a violation of constitutional free speech rights.

“Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth,” it said in a statement.

Sag-Aftra, another union, said the move was “the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms.”

Donald Trump Jr. posted:

“They’re not losing their jobs to cancel culture, they’re losing them to Consequence Culture.  Consequences and accountability are something Democrats haven’t had to face in a long time.”

President Trump on Truth Social:

“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED.  Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT”

Kimmel had planned to address Carr’s comments on his show Wednesday night, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.  Before his on-air appearance, Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, spoke to the host about his plan, people familiar with the matter said.

After the conversation between Kimmel and Walden, she and other senior executives thought that the star’s approach could make the situation worse.  Executives also discussed staff safety, including threatening emails staff of Kimmel’s show had received after Carr’s remarks and the posting of some of their personal information online, the people said.

Walden huddled with her team and Disney CEO Bob Iger before the two decided to temporarily take Kimmel off the air.  She informed him of her decision.

President Trump on Thursday then suggested that U.S. broadcast networks should face scrutiny over their licenses if their content is overwhelmingly critical of him and defended ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show indefinitely over remarks about the death of Kirk.

“That’s something that should be talked about for licensing, too. When you have a network and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump,” the president told reporters on Air Force One, on the way back home from his state visit to the UK.  “They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.  They’re an arm of the Democrat party.”

Trump praised FCC Chair Carr and drew a direct link between coverage that the president views as negative and the prospect of TV licenses being revoked as a consequence.

“I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me again, I get 97% negative.  And yet I won it easily.  I won all seven swing states, the popular vote, whatever.  They’re 97% against.  They give me totally bad publicity, the press,” Trump said.  “They’re getting a license.  I would think their license should be taken away.  It will be up to Brendan Carr.  I think Brendan Carr is outstanding.  He’s a patriot.  He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy. So we’ll have to see.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“This government coercion violates the First Amendment. The government can’t block speech because it’s politically offensive. Nor can it do an end run around that prohibition by enlisting third parties to do the dirty work.  You might think the FCC is a wholesale exception to this rule, given that it regulates broadcast television.  You’d be incorrect.  ‘The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest,’’ noted an expert in 2019 – a fellow by the name of Brendan Carr.

“The Trump administration didn’t invent the strategy of indirect censorship backed by regulatory threats. The Biden administration’s pressuring of social media companies to remove content was the subject of a lawsuit by state leaders in Missouri and Louisiana that reached the Supreme Court last year.

“While the Biden administration used veiled threats against its corporate targets to maintain plausible deniability, Carr wielded the government’s coercive power openly.  ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way’ doesn’t leave much ambiguity.  Carr is pledging to keep targeting television offerings he doesn’t consider in the ‘public interest,’ but who will decide what that is? Carr, of course.  The late-night shows are already unfunny; imagine how bad they’ll be with bureaucrats dictating content.

“It was none other than Charlie Kirk who in a 2024 Supreme Court brief blasted the Biden administration’s use of ‘mammoth companies’ to engage in censorship that ‘the Government could not do directly.’  Now, Kirk’s death is an occasion for the Trump administration to do just that.  Conservatives cheering the creation of novel censorship methods by the regulatory state would do well to consider what it will mean for them the next time Republicans lose the presidency.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Maybe now our progressive friends understand why these columns oppose government control of business and fought liberal cancel culture. Regulatory power in the hands of a willful President can too easily become a weapon against political opponents, including the media….

“As a private company, Disney has the right to run or cancel shows as it wishes.  Perhaps in this case it saw pressure from government as an excuse to drop Mr. Kimmel, who had turned his show into a daily anti-Trump diatribe.  But anyone who thinks this is the free market at work is ignoring the ways government can punish companies. Disney’s executives had to look out for the best interests of their shareholders and the Disney brand.

“All the more so given how Mr. Trump has pursued retribution against political opponents in his second term.  He’s used regulatory leverage against Paramount and CBS in a weak lawsuit and squeezed liberal law firms to do pro bono work, while the Justice Department is investigating prosecutors who brought cases against him.  A regulator like Mr. Carr who might have ignored Mr. Trump’s musings about revenge in the first term doesn’t need direct orders in the second.

“The squeeze on Disney looks to be a case of cancel culture on the right.  Mr. Kimmel’s comments Monday associating Charlie Kirk’s killer with the ‘MAGA gang’ were false, callous and stupid.  But they weren’t inciting violence, and in a free society they shouldn’t be cause for the government to push someone off the airwaves. Compared to the malevolent garbage on social media about Kirk and his killer, Mr. Kimmel’s words were only mildly offensive. [Emphasis mine.]

“But the MAGA masses are understandably furious about the Kirk assassination, and they want the left to be punished. In this desire they can point to progressive institutions that have canceled conservatives far and wide….

“Most important is that, for a decade or more, the voters who backed Mr. Trump watched and listened as the coastal elites of media and entertainment showed their contempt for middle American values.  Those coastal grandees shouldn’t be surprised now if the public isn’t as outraged as they are by the Carr FCC’s abuse of its power against opponents.

“We want to be clear that none of this justifies the right’s resort to regulatory censorship.  As victims of cancel culture for so long, conservatives more than anyone should oppose it. They will surely be the targets again when the left returns to power….

“The political cycle of using government to punish opponents is taking the country into dark corners that will result in less freedom, and less free speech, for all sides.  The best immediate remedy is getting the FCC out of the business of regulating media.”

Personally, I do agree with those who described what transpired this week as a “dangerous moment” in American history.  Everything gets amplified these days, versus, say, the McCarthy ERA, via vile social media, that often the idiots consuming same fail to realize is nothing more than bots coming out of Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere that seek to pour gasoline on the fire and ignite a civil war in America that will redound to their benefit.

I also can’t believe how not only Kimmel, but his supposed comedy-writing staff, couldn’t read the room and gauge the temperature of the day.

Kimmel made a totally appropriate comment early on for his Instagram page about the assassination as he sent his condolences to the Kirk family.  It should have ended there.

—

Wall Street and the Economy

A federal appeals court on Monday night rejected an emergency Trump administration request to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook ahead of the central bank’s meeting this week.

A divided three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., left in place a lower court injunction that blocked Cook’s termination while she challenges the legality of Trump’s move.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee, first publicized the allegations and referred them to the Justice Department, which has since launched a criminal investigation.

Cook hasn’t been charged with a crime, and, in court filings, has denied committing mortgage fraud.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled last week that Cook was “substantially likely” to succeed with a claim that her firing was unlawful, and blocked her removal for now.

And over the weekend, the Financial Times reported that an Atlanta condominium at the center of the Cook controversy appears to contradict allegations by Pulte that Cook had claimed the Atlanta condo and another property in Michigan were both her principal residences.  The documents the FT reviewed listed the Atlanta property as a vacation home and in the second document reviewed as Cook’s ‘second home.’

Also Monday night, the Republican-controlled Senate approved Stephen Miran’s confirmation to the Fed Board, largely along party lines on a 48-47 vote, just two weeks after receiving his nomination from the White House, making it the second-fastest Fed confirmation in more than a quarter-century.  Miran will fill the seat that Adriana Kugler unexpectedly stepped down from last month, with her term expiring in January.

It is a notable achievement for the White House because Miran, who in March was confirmed as chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, indicated he wouldn’t resign that position.  He will be the first executive-branch official to sit on the central bank’s board since a landmark overhaul of the Fed’s governance in 1935.

So you had both Cook and Miran at the Fed’s Open Market Committee meeting, which convened Tuesday.

Monday, President Trump posted on Truth Social:

“ ‘Too Late’ MUST CUT INTEREST RATES, NOW, AND BIGGER THAN HE HAD IN MIND. HOUSING WILL SOAR!!! President DJT”

Sunday, Trump told reporters he predicted a “big cut” from the Fed.

So, Wednesday rolled around, the Fed cutting its benchmark funds rate a quarter-point, saying in its statement:

“Recent indicators suggest the growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year.  Job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remains low.  Inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.

“The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run.  Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated.  The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that downside risks to employment have risen.”

There was one dissenter, Stephen Miran, who preferred to lower the target range ½ percentage point, and 1 ¼ points in all the balance of the year.

But of the 19 weighing in on the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), ten penciled in at least two additional cuts this year, implying consecutive moves at the Fed’s remaining two meetings in October and December.

But seven penciled in no further rate reductions this year, and two more penciled in only one more cut. And the projections show that most officials don’t expect to make many more reductions next year under their current outlook for solid economic activity.

The SEP’s ‘median’ outlook for GDP this year is 1.6%, 1.8% in 2026.  The unemployment rate is pegged at 4.5% by year end from its current 4.3%, and 4.4% next year.

Core PCE inflation is projected to hit 3.1% by December from its current 2.9%.

Some policymakers have been more concerned about inflation, which has been running above the Fed’s target for more than four years.  They worry that businesses and consumers could become more accustomed to price increases in ways that make inflation more persistent.

Others have expressed concern that the lagged impact of the Fed’s aggressive moves to combat inflation with big rate hikes in 2022-23 will lead to undesirable weakness in the labor market, particularly amid softness in the rate-sensitive housing sector.

In his press conference after the release, Chair Powell said, “There wasn’t widespread support at all for a 50-basis point cut today.  You know…we’ve done very large rate hikes and very large rate cuts in the last five years, and you tend to do those at a time when you feel that policy is out of place and needs to move quickly to a new place.”

Powell also said: “Labor demand has softened, and the recent pace of job creation appears to be running below the break-even rate needed to hold the unemployment rate constant,” adding, “I can no longer say” the labor market is “very solid.”

Bottom line, Powell called the Fed’s decision a “risk-management cut,” signaling the central bank was moving to prop up the faltering labor market but was still trying to tame inflation.

It was highly significant that Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, who dissented at the last meeting, calling for a 50-basis point cut, did not do so this time, even though the Fed only went with 25 bps.  To many, it showed true solidarity behind Powell, with all the political pressures he’s faced.  A sign of real Fed independence, which may cost Waller because he’s on the short list to replace Powell when his term is up in May.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“(The) message is that the Fed will tolerate higher inflation for longer to take pre-emptive action to shore up an economy that may or may not need the help. We believe Mr. Powell when he says politics played no role in this policy shift.  And Mr. Trump probably will still complain that Mr. Powell should have cut more at this meeting.  But the President is getting the easier-money direction of Fed policy he wants.

“So good luck. It may be that everything works out fine: inflation drifts downward after a brief price bump from tariffs, the economy booms despite tariffs and a looming labor shortage, the housing market enters a new golden age, and financial markets gallop happily off into the artificial-intelligence sunset.

“But if Mr. Trump is wrong, voters will notice sustained inflation and the lack of gains in real wages.  Having staked so much on his political assault on the Fed, Mr. Trump owns the outcome now for good or ill.”

In other economic news, late last Friday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released new economic projections for the next three years, updating the outlook it originally released in January, before Trump’s inauguration.

The latest figures show the unemployment rate, inflation and overall growth are expected to be worse this year than initially projected, while the economic picture is expected to steady in subsequent years.

The CBO outlooks attempt to set expectations for the economy in order to help choices made by congressional and executive branch policymakers.  It does not forecast economic downturns or recessions, with its estimates generally reverting back to an expected average over time.

But Friday’s outlook showed the degree to which Trump’s choices are altering the path of the U.S. economy, suggesting that growth has been hampered in the near term by choices that have yet to show the promised upside of more jobs and lower budget deficits.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, told the Associated Press, “Americans heard similar doom-and-gloom forecasts during President Trump’s first term, when the President’s economic agenda unleashed historic job, wage, and economic growth and the first decline in wealth inequality in decades.”

“These same policies of tax cuts, tariffs, deregulation, and energy abundance are set to deliver – and prove the forecasters wrong – again in President Trump’s second term,” he said.

Overall, the CBO expects real GDP growth to decrease from 2.5% in 2024 to 1.4% this year, a downgrade from the initial projection of 1.9%.  The CBO attributes the projected decline to a slowdown in consumer spending stemming from new tariffs and a decrease in immigration, which would also impact consumer spending.

The tariffs “raise prices for consumer goods and services, thereby eroding the purchasing power of households; they also increase costs for businesses that use imported and import-competing inputs in production,” the report says.

However, GDP is set to grow 2.2% in 2026, which is higher than the CBO’s January prediction of 1.8%.  GDP would then level off to 1.8% in 2027 and 2028, the CBO says in its latest report.

Additionally, unemployment is expected to hit 4.5% in 2025, higher than the 4.3% initially expected, according to the CBO.  The jobless rate is expected to reach 4.2% in 2026 – and even out at 4.4% in 2027 and 2028.

And inflation is now expected to hit 3.1% for the rest of 2025, according to the CBO, up from its 2.2% projection in January.  Inflation would then lower to 2.4% in 2026, before leveling off at 2% the next two years.

Meanwhile, August retail sales were up a stronger than expected 0.6%, ex-autos 0.7%; further evidence of a resilient consumer.  August industrial production rose 0.1%.  Housing starts in the month were far less than forecast, a 1.307 million annualized pace and versus 1.429 million as a revised prior rate.  [Homebuilder Lennar’s lousy earnings report Thursday was further confirmation of the slumping housing market.]

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow for third-quarter growth is at 3.3%.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.26%, lowest since October 2024.

Next week, the Fed’s key inflation barometer, the PCE (personal consumption expenditures index), plus more housing data and a final look at second-quarter GDP.

—

Back to the Fed and Stephen Miran…a Wall Street Journal editorial noted (prior to the Fed’s rate decision):

“Mr. Miran (will) fill the remaining term of former governor Adriana Kugler, who resigned Aug. 8.  Her unexpired term ends on Jan. 31, 2026.

“It’s nonetheless extraordinary that Mr. Miran has said that when that term ends, he will return to his position as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Miran has declined to resign from the White House and instead is taking what he calls an unpaid leave of absence. This means that he will essentially still be a key White House economic adviser even as he is serving at the Fed.

“He won’t be ‘independent’ in any fair definition of the word. If Mr. Miran votes on the FOMC in a way Mr. Trump dislikes, he will put his job in the White House at risk.  If confirmed he would only be a single vote among 12 on the current FOMC, but everyone knows he will be speaking for, and answering to, the President.

“Mr. Trump wants Mr. Miran to join current governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman in pushing the FOMC to cut rates this week.  Mr. Trump has said rates should be 300 basis points lower than they now are, which would guarantee a new burst of inflation.

“A tragedy of the Trump years is the failure of Republicans to look beyond short-term tactical political calculations to the implications of their decisions for the long term.  A progressive President will be able to point to Mr. Trump and Senate precedent if he tries to put a White House official on the Fed as Mr. Trump is now doing. The failure to resist Mr. Trump’s executive-power excesses today will hurt the GOP and the country in the future.”

Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it remove Lisa Cook while a lawsuit challenging the president’s effort to fire her proceeds.

—

On the trade front, President Trump posted on Truth Social Monday:

“The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly. A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy!  I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday.  The relationship remains a very strong one!!! President DJT.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters after Trump’s post – as discussions in Madrid wrapped up – that a framework to keep the TikTok app running in the U.S. had been reached and that Trump and Xi would speak to complete the deal.

Trump and Bessent’s comments come ahead of a deadline this week to secure a deal that would divest TikTok’s American operations to comply with a U.S. national security law.  Trump had already extended the deadline more than once to keep the popular app, which he credits with boosting his appeal among younger voters in the last election, running.

The U.S. and China have suspended the most extreme economic protection measures against each other, which saw U.S. tariffs go up as high as 145%, with the latest deadline coming in mid-November.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, also speaking in Madrid on Monday, indicated that another extension in the pause on the highest tariff levels is possible when the November deadline arrives.

Today, Friday, Trump and President Xi then held their call, and afterwards, Trump posted on Truth Social:

“I just completed a very productive call with President Xi of China.  We made progress on many very important issues including Trade, Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal.  I also agreed with President Xi that we would meet at the APEC Summit in South Korea, that I would go to China in the early part of next year, and that President Xi would, likewise, come to the United States at an appropriate time. The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!”

For its part, China called the talk “pragmatic, positive and constructive.”  But the Chinese side has urged a resolution on TikTok that complies with Chinese law, which would mean it would retain control of the algorithm…the key to the whole deal…though China, like Trump, offered no details on the outcome of the call.

A statement published by Chinese state media outlet Xinhua said issues of mutual concern were discussed in a “candid” manner and included an “in-depth exchange of views.”

Aside from a resolution on TikTok, the U.S. needs Beijing to start buying our farm product.  From January through July, American farm exports to China fell 53% compared with the same period last year.  U.S. sorghum sales are down 97%.  And China has paused purchases of soybeans, they being the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. beans.

—

Meanwhile, we still have the Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a government shutdown and House GOP leaders are eyeing a plan to avoid a shutdown that would involve a mostly “clean” continuing resolution (CR) that funds the government through Nov. 20, which President Trump supports.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote on X, Monday: “Partisan legislation that continues the unprecedented Republican assault on healthcare is not a clean spending bill. It’s a dirty one.”

Friday morning, the House narrowly passed a short-term funding bill, 217-212, largely on party lines, and it has little change of passing in the Senate, where a 60-vote threshold means Democrats would need to support it.

The GOP doesn’t think big health care changes should be included in a stopgap funding bill.

Yet leaders of both parties have dug into their positions: Republicans want to keep the government funded at current levels until just before Thanksgiving, while Democrats are using a rare moment of political leverage to demand that the GOP help them reverse looming cuts to Medicaid and lapsing Obamacare subsidies.

The Senate then rejected competing measures to fund the government this afternoon. 

“The Republican bill is a clean, nonpartisan, short-term continuing resolution to fund the government to give us time to do the full appropriations process.  And the Democrat bill is the exact opposite,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said shortly before the votes.  “It’s what you might call, not a clean CR, a dirty CR – laden down with partisan policies and appeals to the Democrats’ leftist base.”

Both measures fell short of the 60 votes needed.

Which means, like back in March, the ball is in the court of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who in the spring convinced enough of his fellow Democrats to vote with Republicans, arguing that a shutdown would be damaging and give President Trump freedom to make more government cuts.  Many on the left revolted, calling for Schumer’s resignation.

Will he do the same again?  Both chambers are now off for the Jewish holidays.

Europe and Asia

Just a few economic items for the eurozone this week.  Industrial production for the month of July increased 0.3% over June, and was up 1.8% from a year ago. [Eurostat]

And August inflation was stable at 2.0% for the euro area.  Ex-food and energy the figure is 2.3%, down a tick from July. [Eurostat]

Headline inflation….

Germany 2.1%, France 0.8%, Italy 1.6%, Spain 2.7%, Netherlands 2.4%, Ireland 1.9%.

Britain: The Bank of England left its key interest rate unchanged Thursday at 4%, having cut in August for the fifth time since a year earlier, when it began to loosen the restraints it had placed on economic activity to reverse the surge in inflation that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine

“We’re not out of the woods yet, so any future cuts will need to be made gradually and carefully,” Gov. Andrew Bailey said.

A majority of BOE policymakers are growing more worried about a pickup in inflation that has been driven by food and increases in a series of prices that are guided by government policy, including a 26% increase in water charges.

The UK’s annual rate of inflation was unchanged at 3.8% in August, having started the year at 3%.

Germany: The far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party has more than tripled its support in local elections in the country’s most populous state, a poll seen as Friedrich Merz’s first significant electoral test since he took office as chancellor four months ago.

According to exit poll results from North Rhine-Westphalia, Mr. Merz’s Christian Democrats won with 34 percent – about the equivalent of its historically worst result in the same poll in 2020 – while the AfD secured 16.5 percent.

The Social Democrats (SPD), Merz’s junior coalition partner in the federal government, came in second with 22.5 percent, a small drop from its result in 2020.

North Rhine-Westphalia, home to almost a quarter of Germany’s citizens and made up of swathes of agricultural land, post-industrial towns and cities with large multiethnic and student populations, is viewed as something of a bellwether for the country as whole.

Five years ago, the AfD secured 5.1 percent.

The AfD’s gains appear to have been made on the back of heavy losses for the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic party.  The far-left Die Linke secured 5.5 percent, putting it above its 2020 result of 3.8 percent.

Turning to Asia…China reported on key economic data for August and everything was basically below consensus.

Industrial production for the month was up 5.2% year-to-date; retail sales up 3.4% Y/Y; fixed asset investment (big ticket projects…airports, rails, highways) rose only 0.5% year-to-date and August unemployment was 5.3%.

Factory output and retail sales are at their weakest growth since last year, keeping pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus to fend off a sharp slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

The 70-city home price index fell for a 26th consecutive month, 2.5% from a year ago, though this was the smallest decline since March 2024, as Beijing maintained support measures to cushion the prolonged property downturn.

Japan’s exports for August slipped 0.1% year-on-year, extending their decline for the fourth consecutive month, but better than expected.  The drag from U.S. tariffs eased, with exports to the U.S. tumbling 13.8%, the first straight decline, weighed down by autos and chip-making machinery.

A late-July trade deal with Washington reduced some uncertainty, but Japanese exporters still face tariffs higher than those before the Trump era, with reciprocal 15% duties applied on key sectors such as autos and auto parts. Automakers initially absorbed costs by cutting prices to sustain U.S. sales, but eroding margins have since forced gradual price hikes.

August inflation came in at 2.7% vs. 3.1% prior; ex-food and energy, 3.3% vs. 3.4% in July.

Street Bytes

—Hedge fund titan David Tepper, one of the great investors of all time, gave a rare interview to CNBC Thursday and had a few nuggets.

“If they [the Fed] go too much more on interest rates, depending what happens with the economy…it gets into the danger territory,” Tepper said.  “You’ve got to be careful not to make things too hot.”

Tepper fears that if the Fed lowers rates while inflation hasn’t been fully tamed, demand can pick up faster than supply, reigniting price pressures.  And too-easy monetary policy could create asset bubbles as investors keep flocking into riskier corners of the markets.

But Tepper (like the late market legend Marty Zweig used to always say) can’t fight the Fed.

“I don’t love the multiples, but how do I not own it?” Tepper observed.

Bottom line, “I’m constructive because of the easing right now, but I’m also miserable because of the levels,” he said.  “Nothing’s cheap anymore.”

And so, stocks, the hunger for the start of rate cuts satiated this week, hit more new highs, including today, as the Dow Jones finished up 1.1% to 46315, the S&P 500 1.2% to 6664, and Nasdaq 2.2% to 22631.

The market was helped today by Apple’s 3% gain as it apparently successfully launched the iPhone 17 models.

The Russell 2000 small-cap index hit a new high this week for the first time since Nov. 2021.

—U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 3.83%  2-yr. 3.57%  10-yr. 4.13%  30-yr. 4.74%

We had a bit of the old ‘Buy the rumor, sell the fact’ adage on Wall Street, as immediately after the Fed cut the funds rate on Wednesday, the yield on the 10-year fell very briefly to 3.99%, which would have been a closing low for the year, but quickly went back up and finished the week at 4.13%, ditto the 2-year, which fell to 3.49% before closing two days later at 3.57%.

It didn’t help that Thursday we had a far better weekly jobless claims figure than anticipated; as in the economy isn’t exactly cratering despite the putrid monthly jobs data.

Separately, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasurys rose to an all-time peak in July, data from the Treasury Department showed on Thursday, hitting record highs for a third straight month, led by gains in holdings from Japan and the United Kingdom.

Holdings of U.S. Treasurys surged to $9.159 trillion in July, up from $9.126 trillion the previous month.

China’s holdings of Treasurys, on the other hand, dropped to $730.7 billion, its lowest level since December 2008 when it held $727.4 billion.

Japan remained the largest non-U.S. holder of Treasuries with $1.151 trillion.

—China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said an initial inquiry found Nvidia had violated Beijing’s antimonopoly laws, according to a translated statement.

The inquiry is a blow for Nvidia because it looks very unlikely that China would allow the chip maker to sell new hardware in the country while saying it had breached antimonopoly laws.

Nvidia previously asked some partners to stop work related to production of its H20 processor for the Chinese market after Beijing told domestic companies not to buy the hardware, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Despite the Chinese government’s apparent opposition, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said there is a “real possibility” the company might be able to sell its more advanced Blackwell chips in the country in the future.

Nvidia also said its newest AI chip tailored for the Chinese market, the RTX6000D, has seen only lukewarm demand with some major tech firms opting not to place orders, two people with knowledge of procurement discussions said.

The RTX6000D, designed for AI inference tasks, is seen as expensive for what it does, according to people in the know interviewed by Reuters.

They added that testing of samples showed its performance lags the RTX5090 – a chip banned by the U.S. government for use in mainland China, but which is still readily available through grey market channels at less than half the RTX6000D’s price of around 50,000 yuan (US$7,000).

Chinese tech giants – including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance – are also waiting for clarity on whether orders for Nvidia’s H20 chip will be processed.

And these same firms are hoping that Nvidia’s B30A – a much more powerful graphics processing unit than the H20 – will be approved by Washington.

But then Wednesday, Nvidia shares fell about 3% after a report China’s internet regulator has banned the country’s biggest tech companies from buying its custom-made AI chips for the Chinese market.

The Cyberspace Administration of China told TikTok parent ByteDance, e-commerce giant Alibaba and others to end testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday in London, Jensen Huang said: “We can only be in service of a market if a country wants us to be.  I’m disappointed with what I see but they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States. I’m patient about it.  We’ll continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish.”

Separately, Huawei unveiled hardware that it said could deliver world-class computing power without using Nvidia’s advanced chips, in a breakthrough that could potentially free the supply chokehold that constrains China’s aspirations in artificial intelligence.

And then Thursday, Nvidia announced a new partnership with Intel and Intel shares soared 25%.

The two will team up to work on custom data centers that form the backbone of artificial intelligence infrastructure as well as personal computer products, Nvidia said in a press release.

Nvidia also said it’s investing $5 billion in the common stock of Intel, which has been struggling.  The deal is subject to regulatory approvals.

But the agreement provides a lifeline for Intel, which was a Silicon Valley pioneer that enjoyed decades of growth as processors powered the personal computer boom, but fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

Also Thursday, the United States and the UK agreed to about $200 billion in tech investments into the UK from American companies, of which Nvidia would be a big player.

–Back to the preliminary TikTok deal reached during trade talks in Madrid.  An investor consortium for TikTok’s U.S. business includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreesen Horowitz, with Oracle handling user data at its Texas operation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new entity for U.S. TikTok will have 80% American investor ownership, while China’s ByteDance will have 20%.

Current U.S. users would be asked to shift to a new app, which TikTok has built and is testing, according to the Journal.

But then we had today’s talk between Trump and Xi and who the hell knows what’s really going on….

–Shares in Tesla rose 7% Monday after Elon Musk disclosed his first purchase of the stock in the open market since February 2020.

The CEO purchased more than 2.5 million shares in the company Friday, totaling around $1 billion, according to a regulatory filing released Monday.

The move signals Musk’s commitment to the EV maker as the company board prepares for a shareholder vote on a lucrative new pay package that could deliver him as much as $1 trillion in stock over the next decade.

Shares in Tesla are up more than 66% over the past six months.

Tesla’s board said the unprecedented pay package was intended to keep Musk focused on the company at a time when other business and political projects have threatened to take over.

—President Trump on Truth Social:

“When Foreign Companies who are building extremely complex products, machines, and various other ‘things,’ come into the United States with massive investments, I want them to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to make these very unique and complex products, as they phase out of our Country, and back into their land.  If we didn’t do this, all of that massive investment will never come in the first place – Chips, Semiconductors, Computers, Ships, Trains, and so many other products that we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, relearn, because we used to be great at it, but not anymore.  For example, Shipbuilding, where we used to build a Ship a day and now, we barely build a Ship a year.  I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize investment into America by outside Countries or Companies.  We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them, and do even better than them at their own ‘game,’ sometime into the not too distant future!”

[This post was alluding to the ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, with hundreds of South Korean workers sent home. It created a diplomatic mess between Washington and Seoul. I’m on the side of South Korea on this one.]

—The Wall Street Journal had an exclusive report on toxic fumes leaking into airplanes, sickening crews and passengers.

Among the cases they cited was that of a JetBlue flight attendant who “inhaled a lungful of air through her nostrils in a single deep breath.  ‘It smells like dirty feet,’ she told a colleague.

“Instantly, she started to feel like she had been drugged, (Florence) Chesson said in an interview.

“About an hour later, the aircraft had landed, loaded a fresh group of passengers and was back in the sky returning to Boston. As Chesson wrapped up the drinks service, a colleague rushed past to the back of the plane, her hands around her throat, complaining she was struggling to breathe before starting to vomit.  Another was given emergency oxygen.

“When the flight landed, two of the cabin crew were taken to a hospital in an ambulance, one on a stretcher….

“After months of worsening symptoms, Chesson was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and permanent damage to her peripheral nervous system caused by the fumes she inhaled.  Her doctor, Robert Kaniecki, a neurologist and consultant to the Pittsburgh Steelers, said in an investigation that the effects on her brain were akin to a chemical concussion and ‘extraordinarily similar’ to those of a National Football League linebacker after a brutal hit.  ‘It’s impossible not to draw that conclusion,’ he said.

“Kaniecki said he has treated about a dozen pilots and over 100 flight attendants for brain injuries after exposure to fumes on aircrafts over the last 20 years.”

The Journal reported that there have been thousands of so-called fume events passed along to the Federal Aviation Administration since 2010, “in which toxic fumes from a jet’s engines leak unfiltered into the cockpit or cabin.  The leaks occur due to a design element in which air you breathe on an aircraft is pulled through the engine.”

But the rate of incidents is accelerating in recent years.

—TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2024

9/18…126 percent of 2024 levels
9/17…108
9/16…78
9/15…94
9/14…138
9/13…77
9/12…101
9/11…131

—FedEx shares rose about 3% Friday, after the company reported solid fiscal first-quarter numbers after the close on Thursday.

The logistics giant topped expectations and returned to giving full-year guidance, which is what the market liked most.

Adjusted earnings per share landed at $3.83 from sales of $22.2 billion, with the Street at $3.63 on EPS from sales of $21.7bn.  A year ago, the company reported earnings of $3.60 on sales of $21.6 billion.

For the full year, FedEx expects 4% to 6% revenue growth.  Wall Street currently projects 1%, with adjusted EPS expected to land between $17.20 and $19, the $18.10 midpoint not too far from the $18.36 projected by analysts.

Wall Street has expected essentially no sales growth, with volumes impacted by a post-Covid shipping slowdown and higher costs due to tariffs.

Policy changes appeared to have an impact on international business.  FedEx’s international volumes fell 3% year over year, but U.S. numbers looked solid.  Domestic package volumes rose 5%. Domestic package revenue grew 8% year over year.

You still have the “de minimus” issue, where President Trump ended the tariff-free treatment of “de minimus” parcels – small, low-value packages that companies such as Temu and Shein had been able to ship from China to the U.S. without paying taxes and duties on them.

But, again, with FedEx returning to giving full-year guidance, it’s a sign that some of the uncertainty plaguing shipping has passed, a big relief for investors.

—President Trump revived an idea from his first term that would relinquish the obligation of companies to report quarterly financial results, moving that bar to every six months, in a Truth Social Post on Monday:

“Subject to SEC Approval, Companies and Corporations should no longer be forced to ‘Report’ on a quarterly basis (Quarterly Reporting!), but rather to Report on a ‘Six (6) Month Basis.’ This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies. Did you ever hear the statement that, ‘China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis???’ Not good!!!”

In a 2019 survey of the CFA Institute’s global membership, 59% of respondents disagreed that regulators should consider a change to uniform semiannual reporting, while 36% agreed. Many cited the potential for leaks that undermine market fairness.

While businesses may complain about the cost of compiling quarterly reports and the pressures of managing their businesses for quarterly results, it isn’t clear that less frequent reporting would improve capital formation for businesses.

But it could hamper the legions of investors and analysts on Wall Street, and Main Street, who base their stock selection on quarterly inputs.

Researchers in Germany recently found the market value of companies tended to drop with less frequent reporting.  Deregulation reversed the positive effects of mandatory quarterly reporting, increasing information asymmetry and lowering firm value, lead author and Dresden University of Technology professor Lars Hornuf found.

—The Washington Post had an extensive piece on health insurance and the rising costs, such as they are on track for their biggest jump in at least five years, “adding turbulence to an uncertain economy and boosting expenses for millions of Americans already beset by inflation.

“In 2026, businesses will be hit with an increase of 9 percent or more and they are expected to push some of the burden onto employees, according to (multiple surveys).

“For the 24 million enrollees of the Affordable Care Act insurance plans, however, the news is far worse. The end of enhanced federal subsidies for that program means their costs are expected to rise by more than 75 percent next year, according to KFF, the nonpartisan health policy organization.

“Insurers and employers point to two recent factors to explain the rising prices: the tariffs on pharmaceutical imports being considered by the Trump administration and the high cost of new obesity treatments, called GLP-1 drugs.”

—General Mills beat quarterly sales estimates on Wednesday, as price cuts on select products lifted demand.

However, the company said that category growth will likely be below its long-term targets amid a challenging consumer backdrop.

The Cheerios maker maintained its annual sales and profit forecasts.

The company expects full-year adjusted profit to decline by 10% to 15% and organic net sales to range from down 1% to up 1%.

CEO Jeff Harmening said the company’s turnaround plan is starting to bear fruit, as inflation-weary shoppers responded positively to new products and increased advertising.  He said GIS will lower prices across roughly two-thirds of its portfolio this year to better appeal to these budget-conscious shoppers, noting that about half of that work was completed during the recent quarter.

Sales were $4.52 billion during the recent quarter, in line with Wall Street estimates, and down from $4.85 billion a year earlier.  On an organic basis, sales fell about 3%.  Adjusted earnings of 86 cents a share were ahead of analysts’ estimates of 81 cents.

—Cracker Barrel Old County Store’s business cratered after a fumbled rebrand, and the shares fell 5% after the restaurant chain projected a decline in revenue and guest traffic over the next fiscal year, roiling a turnaround effort launched under CEO Julie Felss Masino.

Guest visits to Cracker Barrel declined after the company changed its logo away from the traditional insignia last month, with the drops concentrated in the Southeast.

Even after restoring the original logo and pausing restaurant-renovation plans, the company expects visits in the current quarter to be down 7% to 8%, while retail same-store sales fell 0.8% during the quarter ending Aug. 1.

Masino launched a plan in 2024 to update the company’s flagship restaurant brand by brightening up its dining rooms and better curating its retail offerings to help attract younger guests.  As part of that, the 56-year-old restaurant released an updated logo, which no longer contained its “Old Timer” man sitting in a country-style chair.

Online commentators and some customers accused the company of sanitizing its image and taking the charm out of its restaurants.  President Trump weighed in on social media, saying Cracker Barrel should bring back its traditional logo and capitalize on the attention it has received.

About a week after the logo release, the company said it would reverse course and keep its “Old Timer” branding.

—Bank of America appointed two new co-presidents and elevated the title of its chief financial officer Friday, moves that identify them as the most likely potential successors for longtime CEO Brian Moynihan.

The bank tapped Dean Athanasia, who leads the consumer and commercial banking operations, and Jim Demare, who runs the global markets division, as the co-presidents of the entire bank.

They will take over responsibility for the company’s business lines, and the individual business heads will report to them, according to an internal memo the bank released from Moynihan.

CFO Alastair Borthwick was given the title of executive vice president.

But while these three were long assumed the most likely current CEO candidates, whether any of them actually gets the job as head of the nation’s second-biggest bank is far from certain.

Moynihan is among the longest-serving executives on Wall Street, having taken over the bank in 2010 when it was still in trouble from the 2008 financial crisis.

But Moynihan, 65, has said he isn’t planning on going anywhere soon.

“My focus as Chair and CEO of the company remains the same,” his memo said.

Foreign Affairs

Russia/Ukraine:

—Another Russian drone breached NATO airspace last week, prompting Romania to scramble two F-16 fighter jets after radar detected a Russian drone in Romanian airspace.

“This is Russia’s second incursion into NATO airspace over the course of four days,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted in their latest assessment.  It’s also the 11th incursion into Romanian airspace since Russia launched its full-scale Ukraine invasion in 2022.

And then today, Estonia summoned a Russian diplomat to protest after three Russian fighter aircraft entered its airspace without permission Friday and stayed there for 12 minutes, the Foreign Ministry said.

This is serious stuff, folks.  Putin continues to test NATO defenses and the response of leadership.  NATO needs to issue a stern warning to Vlad the Impaler…the next time we shoot them down.

—Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Peace in Ukraine isn’t at hand, and Americans know it.  President Trump issued another round of pronouncements over the weekend, and it may now fall to Congress to start applying pressure on Vladimir Putin to come to the table.

“President Trump said in a social-media post that he’s ‘ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA.  As you know, NATO’s commitment to WIN has been far less than 100%, and the purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking!’

“Mr. Trump is right that Europe shouldn’t still be importing oil and gas from Russia, and one of the laggards is his friend Viktor Orban in Hungary*.  Kudos too for Mr. Trump’s implicit suggestion that the war in Ukraine is larger than one country’s future and that NATO should do what it takes to prevail.

“But with Mr. Trump you never know if he’s issuing an ultimatum to persuade Europe – or as an excuse for him to keep doing little or nothing to help Ukraine.  His pattern is to throw up a demand, set another two-week deadline, blow past it and repeat….

“Meanwhile, Mr. Trump also said (last) Friday for the umpteenth time that he is losing patience with Mr. Putin.  Mr. Trump is always buying time to act, and that means more time for Mr. Putin to kill more innocent Ukrainians and pocket more territory.  By this point one wonders if Mr. Trump is stringing Congress along so it doesn’t pass anything that forces his hand….

“The sanctions bill has been in a holding pattern for months, ostensibly to allow Mr. Trump time to conduct his global politics of personal diplomacy.  House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leader John Thune have been deferring to Mr. Trump out of partisan loyalty.

“But Congress is a co-equal branch of government with its own prerogatives and responsibility to protect the country’s interests and national security.  If they continue to deny these measures votes on the House and Senate floors, they’ll be complicit in whatever fate befalls Ukraine.

“By holding votes, they’d be helping the President, whatever he may think.  Mr. Putin would see how the wind in America is blowing.  Mr. Trump would have to choose whether to put more pressure on Mr. Putin, or do nothing and own some responsibility for more years of war, death and destruction.”

*China and India are the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, followed by Turkey and then Hungary.

Thursday in the UK, President Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a joint press conference that wrapped up Trump’s second state visit to the UK, and on the issue of Ukraine, Trump expressed his disappointment in Vladimir Putni over his lack of engagement with peace efforts.

“He’s really let me down,” Trump said.

Trump also further urged Western allies to stop buying Russian oil to force Putin to the negotiating table, but did not commit to sanctioning Moscow.

Just further delay.

And this at a time when as the New York Post reported exclusively Thursday, “Russian forces are surging an estimated 16,000 troops for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine that could begin in as little as 10 days as the Kremlin seeks to take more of the roughly 30% of the Donbas it has been unable to capture, a Ukrainian military commander told the Post Wednesday.

“In the Pokrovsk direction, the Russians are trying to break through our defense lines,” said Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of Ukraine’s 225th Separate Assault Regiment.

As I’ve written countless times, Pokrovsk is the critical logistical hub that Moscow’s forces have been attempting to take for more than a year.

President Zelensky said on X that Russia has been fighting from four main axes: Sumy in north-central Ukraine, Pokrovsk in the east and Novopavlivka and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast.

Zelensky posted: “The Sumy operation has already failed – Russia suffered heavy losses, especially in manpower, and has redeployed forces to other fronts.  Ukrainian Armed Forces inflicted even greater losses on them there,” he said, without naming the second axis that fell.

“As a result, Russia is left with two operations. But it has lost so much manpower that it cannot deliver strong additional actions in the above-mentioned directions,” he added.

But unlike Shriaev, Zelensky said he believed that Russian losses have been so severe that “as of now, they lack the strength for large-scale offensives.”

—Ukraine is increasingly targeting Russia’s oil refineries and export facilities with drones, taking the fight beyond the battlefield to strike at Moscow’s economy.

Last Friday, Ukraine claimed to have struck facilities handling almost half of Russia’s seaborne crude exports. The attacks – part of a 200-plus drone raid centered on the Leningrad region bordering Finland and Estonia – came soon after strikes on several refineries crucial to domestic fuel supply.

Kyiv argues it’s trying to deprive Russia’s military of fuel, and the Kremlin of petroleum revenues.  But Western allies have long expressed caution about any steps that could disrupt global oil and fuel supply.

In August, the height of the summer driving season, Ukrainian drones carried out at least 13 attacks on major refineries, more than half the total for the previous seven months, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Gasoline shortages that first appeared in remote areas are now creeping closer to Moscow.

—U.S. troops attended Russia-Belarus war games on Monday, Pentagon officials confirmed after news organizations photographed them attending Zapad-2025. It was the first time U.S. representatives have attended the sprawling exercise since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The Telegraph reported, “Mr. Trump is said to want to reopen the American embassy in Minsk as part of a wider strategy for cultivating ties with one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies,” adding, “Just last week, the U.S. president sent [Belarus leader Alexander] Lukashenko a hand-written note” via Trump’s envoy John Coale.

—Aleksei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, suffered from heavy vomiting and convulsions shortly before he died in an Arctic prison last year, according to what the organization he founded called new information it had collected.

His wife and political successor, Yulia Navalnaya, claimed on Wednesday that the details supported her accusation that Navalny had been poisoned on Russian government orders, though she did not provide direct evidence.

In a 15-minute video posted on social media, she described what she said was a photo of Navalny’s prison cell showing vomit on the floor on the day he died, as well as excerpts from what she said were official incident reports submitted by five prison officials. She also said that her team had obtained biological samples from Navalny’s body and sent them for analysis in two countries.

Navalnaya did not explain how her organization had obtained the documents she cited in the video, and did not say how biological samples had been obtained or where exactly they had been tested, though she claimed that the results pointed to poisoning.

Israel/Gaza: Israel’s military launched a ground incursion into Gaza City early Tuesday, embarking on a risky operation to take control of a key urban area even as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain there.

The ground operation and intensifying Israeli bombardments risks deepening further the humanitarian crisis in the nearly two-year-long war.

Israel’s plans for the assault, which had loomed for nearly two months, have drawn fierce international criticism and doomed hopes for a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

“Gaza is burning,” Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement after a night of heavy bombardment of Gaza City.  The Israeli military “is striking with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure,” he added.

Israeli officials have said that the planned takeover of Gaza City aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping and planning future attacks.

But after almost two years, the Gaza Strip has been largely leveled and parts of it are experiencing famine, according to a recent report by the UN.

Even before the latest operation began, the new military front has divided Israelis, many of whom fear it imperils the lives of about 20 hostages being held by Hamas that are still believed to be alive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the start of the new phase of the war on Tuesday when he appeared in a Tel Aviv courtroom to give testimony in his corruption trial.  The Israeli news media quoted him as saying, “We have launched a powerful operation in Gaza City.”  He added that Israel was at a “decisive” turning point.

Israel then pressed on with the operation on Wednesday, Palestinian journalists on the ground reporting continuous fire overnight in all corners of the city.

It was also difficult to just reach people in Gaza City as access to information was restricted Wednesday with the enclave suffering heavy network disruptions.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said they would open a second route for Gaza City residents to evacuate to the south.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are estimated to still be in Gaza City, while tens of thousands are fleeing every day, many have said they feel stuck: The cost of transport along the route is exorbitant and few believe they will find anywhere to stay, or even be able to purchase a tent, when they arrive in central or southern parts of Gaza – where IDF attacks also continue.

The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called on the Israeli military to put an end to its “wanton destruction of Gaza City,” which it said was “destroying the last viable element of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.”  The office described the Israeli military strategy in Gaza City as “tantamount to ethnic cleansing” and said that it “appears to be focused on causing a permanent demographic shift.”

In a joint statement Wednesday, a coalition of key global aid groups called on world leaders to do more to intervene after a UN commission concluded for the first time that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, echoing those of an increasing number of governments and human rights organizations.  Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the report, saying it was based on “falsehoods” and accusing the writers of being “Hamas proxies.”

Throughout Gaza, it is estimated more than 90% of homes are damaged or destroyed.

Over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes across Gaza City killed at least 60, according to medical staff on the scene.  Israel has continued to target high-rise buildings while accusing Hamas of putting surveillance equipment in them.

Thursday, Olga Cherevko of the UN’s humanitarian office, said the situation in Gaza City is “nothing short of cataclysmic,” as Israeli tanks and troops continue to advance on the third day of a ground offensive.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that overwhelmed hospitals were on the brink of collapse because it was being prevented from delivering lifesaving supplies.

Also Thursday, President Trump and British Prime Minister Starmer admitted that the two disagreed on the subject of Palestinian statehood.

Starmer plans to recognize Palestinian statehood ahead of next week’s UN General Assembly in New York.

Currently 147 of the UN’s 193 member states have recognized Palestine. By joining that list the UK would be making a strong political statement, albeit a largely symbolic one as Palestine has no internationally-agreed-to boundaries, no capital and no army.

David Luhnow and Joshua Chaffin / Wall Street Journal

“In the days after the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate were lit up in the blue and white colors of Israel’s flag – a sign of how many Western nations rallied to the country’s side after the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.

“But in the nearly two years since, Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza has eroded that sympathy and threatens to turn Israel into a pariah state, even among longtime allies.  The repeated military assaults in Gaza have killed tens of thousands of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands and led to widespread hunger and possibly famine.  All of this has unfolded in an age of social media where images of the destruction regularly appear on billions of phones worldwide.

“ ‘The war for hearts and minds is lost,’ Howard Wolfson, a veteran Democratic strategist, said recently on a podcast.  ‘The reality here is that public opinion is shifting very quickly and very dramatically away from Israel.’….

“Sixty percent of Americans now say they disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza.  Only 32% say they approve, down from over 50% in the month after Oct. 7.  More Americans now say they sympathize with Palestinians than with Israel in the conflict (37% to 36%), for the first time since the question began to be asked in 2001.  And half of Republican or Republican-leaning voters under age 50 now say they have negative views of Israel.

“Across Europe, Israel now registers record-low approval ratings.  Nearly half of British adults say Israel is treating the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews in the Holocaust, and antisemitic attitudes in the UK have doubled in the past five years….

“Israel has made itself safer in the short-term by decimating Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as setting back Iran’s nuclear program.  But many analysts believe the last two years of war could end up undermining the country’s long-term security by heightening hostility in the Arab and Muslim world, including among moderate Gulf states, and weakening support among Israel’s allies, especially the U.S., the UK and Germany….

“Israel has always been sensitive to how it is perceived abroad.  Part of that is the need for a small country in a hostile neighborhood to have powerful allies. But it is also emotionally important for the world’s only Jewish state to have an accepted place in the world.  The war seems to be risking both….

“ ‘We did not hesitate to defend Israel, but at the same time we cannot remain silent now in the face of a reaction that has gone far beyond the principle of proportionality,’ Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a longtime supporter of Israel, said recently.”

Staying in the region, Saudia Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The pact defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both in the wake of Israel’s strike on Qatar earlier this month.

The kingdom has long had close economic, religious and security ties to Pakistan, including reportedly providing funding for Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program as it developed.  Analysts have suggested that Saudi Arabia could be included under Islamabad’s nuclear umbrella, particularly as tensions have risen over Iran’s atomic program.

China: Beijing is intentionally mischaracterizing World War II-era documents to put pressure on, and isolate, Taiwan, as those accords made no determination of the island’s ultimate political status, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said.

The 80th anniversary of the war’s end has been marked by a bitter dispute between Taipei and Beijing on its broader historical meaning and relevance today.

China says documents such as the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation support its legal claims of sovereignty over the island, as they call for Taiwan to be “restored” to Chinese rule at a time when it was a colony of Japan.

The Chinese government at the time was the Republic of China, which fled in 1949 to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao’s communists.

The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name, and its government says no World War II agreements made any mention of Mao’s People’s Republic of China because it did not exist then, so that Beijing has no right to claim Taiwan now.

“China intentionally mischaracterizes World War II-era documents, including the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, and the Treaty of San Francisco, to try to support its coercive campaign to subjugate Taiwan,” the American Institute in Taiwan said in a statement on Monday.

“Beijing’s narratives are simply false, and none of these documents determined Taiwan’s ultimate political status,” the de facto U.S. embassy added in a statement sent to Reuters.

Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, renouncing its claims to Taiwan, though the island’s sovereignty is left unresolved in that pact. Beijing says the treaty is “illegal and invalid,” as it was not a party to it.

The United States ended official ties with Taiwan in 1979 when it recognized Beijing, but remains the island’s most important international backer.

Washington follows a “one China policy” by which it officially takes no position on Taiwan’s sovereignty and only acknowledges China’s position on the subject.

“False legal narratives are part of Beijing’s broader campaign to try to isolate Taiwan from the international community and constrain the sovereign choices of other countries regarding their interactions with Taiwan,” added the American Institute in Taiwan.

Taiwan was most appreciative of the statement.

Turkey: Authorities on Saturday detained the mayor of an Istanbul district, along with 47 other officials, over allegations of corruption, as part of a widening crackdown on the country’s main opposition party.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office ordered the detentions in connection with an investigation into alleged extortion, bribery, fraud and bid rigging by the Istanbul’s Bayrampasa municipality.

Bayrampasa’s mayor, Hasan Mutlu, denied the allegations in a statement on X:

“What is happening consists of political operations and baseless slander.  Be assured that, together with you, the valued residents of Bayrampasa, we will overcome these slanders and these acts of dishonesty,” Mutlu said.

More than a dozen mayors from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and hundreds of municipal officials have been arrested in recent months for alleged corruption, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.  The arrest of Imamoglu, viewed as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main challenger in the next presidential elections, led to widespread protests.

A Turkish court on Monday did at least provide short-term relief to the CHP by adjourning a case questioning the legitimacy of the CHP’s leadership until Oct. 24.

Venezuela: President Trump announced on Monday that the U.S. military had struck a boat that he said was carrying drugs from Venezuela, the second time he has ordered the use of lethal force against a vessel from that country.  Trump said three “narcoterrorists” had been killed in the latest strike, which he announced hours after Venezuela’s president condemned the earlier strike, which killed 11, as a “heinous crime.”

Asked what proof the U.S. has that the vessel was carrying drugs, Trump replied, “We have proof.  All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean – big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place.”

More than a few senators from both sides of the political aisle question the legality of Trump’s action.  They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.

Random Musings

–Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 40% approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 56% disapprove.  35% of independents approve (Aug. 1-20).

Rasmussen: 53% approve, 46% disapprove (Sept. 19), a big move from the prior three weeks’ 48-51 split.

—New York Gov. Kathy Hochul endorsed Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor.

President Trump on Truth Social:

“Governor Kathy Hochul of New York has Endorsed the ‘‘Liddle’ Communist,’ Zohran Mamdani, running for Mayor of New York. This is a rather shocking development, and a very bad one for New York City. How can such a thing happen? Washington will be watching this situation very closely.  No reason to be sending good money after bad! President DJT”

In a Marist University Institute for Public Opinion survey, Mamdani continues to hold a commanding lead – 21 points – in the mayoral race, fueled partly by a growing black base, at 45% of the respondents, compared to 24% who said they back ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 17% in the camp of Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and 9% for Mayor Eric Adams, with 5% undecided.

Among Black voters, 47% would back Mamdani, compared with 26% for Cuomo, 11% for Adams and 5% for Sliwa.

Back to Gov. Hochul’s endorsement, it’s been interesting watching Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still refuse to endorse Mamdani.

–In the latest poll on the New Jersey gubernatorial race, this one from Quinnipiac University, Democrat Mikie Sherrill is ahead of Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli by eight points among likely voters, 49% to 41%.

Sherrill is sitting at 93% support from Democrats, and Ciattarelli at 90% with Republicans.

The two are holding the first of two required debates on Sunday, Sept. 21.

—The reaction in the White House to the death of Charlie Kirk has ranged from President Trump’s anger, to shock and disbelief that someone many considered a personal friend had been killed.  Vice President Vance has credited Kirk with playing a key role in supporting his own political rise.

The relationship between Trump’s team and Kirk grew in recent years to become more of a political alliance, with the conservative activist serving as a key outside adviser to many top officials.

The president on Sunday warned that left leaning groups will be investigated after Kirk’s death, though he offered no details.

“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left.  It’s not on the right…the problem we have is on the left,” Trump told reporters.  “And when you look at the agitator, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that’s the left. That’s not the right.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-la.) said Sunday that Kirk’s death could be “a turning point” for the country, urging leaders to “turn down the rhetoric” amid a divisive climate.

Johnson said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that lawmakers should stop treating policy differences as an “existential threat to democracy or the Republic,” while urging them to stop “calling one another names.”

Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) on Sunday, also on “Face the Nation,” appeared together to make an appeal for bipartisanship amid the divisive political climate, with Coons pointing to the role of the internet in driving polarization.

Coons said the killing of Kirk “in such a grotesque and public way has to bring us to reflect about how hard it’s getting, because the internet is an accelerant – it is driving extremism in this country.”

Tuesday, Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old arrested and accused of assassinating Kirk, was formally charged with aggravated murder.  Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty.

Court documents filed along with the charges shed more light on Robinson’s possible motive.  In a series of messages exchanged with his romantic partner after the shooting, he said he had killed Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred.”

After the shooting, Robinson texted his partner with instructions to look under his keyboard, according to the court documents. There, his partner found a note that said, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

The key break in the investigation appeared to come from the suspect’s own mother.  A day after the shooting, she saw a photograph of the gunman on the news, thought it resembled her son, and showed the photo to her husband.  They called him and persuaded him to head home before he turned himself in.

Robinson’s mother told the police that her son had moved to the left politically over the last year, specifically on gay and transgender rights, according to court documents.

Jeff Gray, the county attorney in Utah County, Utah, said at a press conference: “The murder of Charlie Kirk is an American tragedy.” Saying that he was notifying the court that prosecutors would seek the death penalty, Gray said: “I do not take this decision lightly and it is a decision I have made independently as county attorney based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The left hasn’t reckoned with what it unleashed when it declared that words are equivalent to violence, which some unstable people hear as an open call to return fire. Yet what the country needs at this moment is leaders who understand that they represent everyone once they are elected, not merely a political faction.  This is what the country could also use from President Trump, rather than vows to punish his opponents.

“(Utah Gov. Spencer) Cox told Americans to ‘log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community,’ while calling social media ‘a cancer.’ Don’t underestimate the political salience of this message to voters who all know someone whose mental stability has deteriorated after hours spent marinating in online rage.

“ ‘History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country,’ Mr. Cox said, ‘but every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us.’  It has been a bleak week for the greatest free society in history. But Mr. Cox is right to tell Americans that their personal conduct can be a starting point toward something different.”

Meanwhile, foreign disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s killing is seeking to widen U.S. divisions.

Chinese propaganda has focused on the violent nature of Kirk’s death, painting the U.S. as a nation of violent gun owners and political extremists.  Russian voices have tried to tie Kirk’s death to U.S. support for Ukraine, even spreading a conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian government killed Kirk because of his criticism of that aid.  Pro-Iranian groups took a different tack, claiming Israel was behind Kirk’s death and that the suspect was set up to take the fall.

A public memorial service is scheduled for Sunday in Arizona at State Farm Stadium, where the Arizona Cardinals play.

–At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) invited Dr. Susan Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified she had been asked by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to support changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, without pointing to any science or data that would justify such changes.  Monarez also said she had been told by Kennedy not to communicate with members of Congress, nor to “speak or work with” career scientists at the CDC.

“I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign,” Monarez told the Senate health panel, giving her account of why Kennedy ousted her after only 29 days on the job.

“I was fired,” she added, “for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

Meanwhile, Sec. Kennedy is accelerating efforts to remake the nation’s vaccine policies, pushing past the objections of government scientists and lawmakers, as well as mounting calls for his removal.

Thursday, his new vaccine advisory panel voted to revise the use of one of two key childhood vaccines under review.

The group recommended against allowing parents to choose the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (chicken pox) vaccine before age 4.  The MMR vaccine recommendation stands, while the varicella vaccine can be given separately.

There is a small risk of seizures that is associated with the MMRV shot, that is generally harmless, say doctors.

I do not consider this move a big deal.

But this afternoon, the panel voted to get rid of the positive recommendations for Covid shots for all Americans, and instead advised “individual decision-making.”  So even adults 65 and older should decide on their own or with their doctor.

This makes it difficult for Americans who want the latest Covid vaccine update to be able to get one, and could easily mean its out-of-pocket.  Much more on this next week as the likes of Walgreen’s and CVS decide on a policy.

[I’ve had six shots myself over the years and had Covid once (very minor) so I was going to skip this year, but I am definitely getting another RSV vaccine.]

—Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing broad backlash on the right after suggesting the federal government may try to prosecute alleged hate speech, with efforts to clarify the comments stoking criticism.

Her remarks came on former Trump administration official Katie Miller’s podcast regarding a flood of comments made online celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” Bondi told Miller in an interview published Monday.

“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” the attorney general said.

The backlash against Bondi’s comments was swift from across the political spectrum.  A chorus of conservative voices particularly pushed back, pointing to sweeping protections under the First Amendment for free speech and dismissing the idea of prosecuting alleged hate speech.

“For a couple (of) decades, we defended religious freedom and speech that some people deemed to be inappropriate,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.  “Look, in America, it’s a very important part of our tradition that we do not – this is a conservative principle and certainly an American principle – we do not censor and silence disfavored viewpoints.”

“Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called ‘hate speech,’ repulsive though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment,” Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume posted.  “She should know this.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “You cannot be prosecuted for speech.”

Bondi then sought to clarify her comments with a post Tuesday on X, arguing “hate speech” that rises to the level of violent threats isn’t protected by the First Amendment.

“For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over,” she said.

Fox News host Will Cain directly rejected the attorney general’s comments.

“No. We don’t have ‘hate speech.’  Private employers firing people for abhorrent celebration of murder…cool,” he said.  “Going after direct incitement, which some are getting close to…cool. But we don’t have ‘hate speech’ in the USA.” [The Hill]

—Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the Trump administration on Thursday of politicizing intelligence and undermining national security professionals inside the government.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Warner, the vice chairman of the committee, said the actions of the administration were undermining the independence of the intelligence agencies.  He said cuts and firings inside the nation’s intel community were “dismantling trust in institutions that literally took generations to build,” undermining morale and threatening the ability of analysts to deliver unvarnished, apolitical analysis to the White House.

“Why is this administration going to war against the very professionals sworn to keep our country safe?” Warner asked. “Why are decades of service and sacrifice tossed aside? Well, I think because they believe they still are obliged to provide the truth and speak truth to power.”

Warner said of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who in her confirmation hearings made repeated promises to depoliticize the spy agencies, citing flawed information about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and intelligence being bent to agree with policymakers: “She pledged that she would never allow those mistakes to be repeated on her watch,” but since her confirmation, Gabbard’s done the opposite.

“Careers were ended, and decades of expertise were discarded, just for doing the job they were entrusted to,” said the senator.

Warner also said he was most disturbed that Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who holds no official role in the administration, appeared to be dictating who would lose their job inside national security agencies.  In early April, at Loomer’s recommendation, Trump fired six important staff members of the National Security Council because, she said, they were not pure enough in their adherence to the president’s worldview. [Julian E. Barnes and Chris Cameron / New York Times]

—Twenty-six officers were injured, four seriously, while policing a protest organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson in central London last weekend, with up to 150,000 people marching at the Unite the Kingdom rally.

Elon Musk spoke to protesters via video link.

The injuries were mostly the result of clashes with a far smaller counterprotest organized by Stand Up To Racism.

Robinson, whose real name in Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, addressed the crowds, claiming UK courts had decided the rights of undocumented migrants superseded those of the “local community.”

—The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has risen to a record high of nearly 100,000, the government announced last weekend.

The number of centenarians in Japan was 99,763 as of September, the health ministry said.  Of that total, women accounted for an overwhelming 88%.

Japan has the world’s longest life expectancy.  It is also one of the fastest ageing societies, with residents often having a healthier diet but a low birth rate.

Japan holds Elderly Day on Sept. 15, a national holiday where new centenarians receive a congratulatory letter and silver cup from the prime minister.

The higher life expectancy is mainly attributed to fewer deaths from heart disease and common forms of cancer, in particular breast and prostate cancer.  The diet is low in red meat and high in fish and vegetables.

The obesity rate is particularly low for women, which could go some way to explaining why Japanese women have a much higher life expectancy than their male counterparts.

–Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the three Pennsylvania police officers who were killed, two wounded, in southern Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

The violence erupted in rural York County as officers followed up on a domestic-related investigation that began on Tuesday.  We then learned Thursday police were in search of a suspected stalker.

—

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Slava Ukraini.

God bless America.

—

Gold $3717…another record weekly close!
Oil $62.73…seven straight weeks with a Friday close of $62-$64.

Bitcoin: $115,178 [4:00 PM ET, Friday]

Regular Gas: $3.19; Diesel: $2.70 [$3.22 – $3.59 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 9/15-9/19

Dow Jones  +1.1%  [46315]
S&P 500  +1.2%  [6664]
S&P MidCap  +0.1%
Russell 2000  +2.1%
Nasdaq   +2.2%  [22631]

Returns for the period 1/1/25-9/19/25

Dow Jones  +8.9%
S&P 500  +13.3%
S&P MidCap  +5.2%
Russell 2000  +9.8%
Nasdaq  +17.2%

Bulls 56.6
Bears 17.0

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore