The Stream

The Brew: With DNC Convention Over, the Race is Now On

By Al Perrotta Published on August 23, 2024 •

Al Perrotta

Happy, happy Friday!

Grab your Brew quick, because with the Democratic National Convention now out of the way, the sprint to Election Day is officially underway.

What Did We Learn from Convention?

The Biden-Harris administration was simultaneously fabulous and nonexistent.

Kamala Harris is vowing to do on January 20, 2025, what she could have been doing every day since January 20, 2021.

Although Donald Trump hasn’t been president for four years, and Democrats have held the White House 12 of the past 16 years, everything is still Trump’s fault.

Spontaneously breaking into laughter at inappropriate times is now defined as “joy.”

You can abandon both your troops and your state in their day of trouble, steal valor, and still think yourself worthy of being second in command for the entire nation.

Joe Biden is the most amazing, historic, wonderful figure … whom you can stab in the back and discard like chicken bones.

Being “for children” means killing them off in a mobile Planned Parenthood van outside your front door.

Rising from poverty to attend a top-ranked university is now a bad thing.

The epitome of masculinity is a combination of 1.) a guy who sniffs little girls’ hair and showered with his own daughter 2.) a sexual predator who was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s travel buddies 3.) a guy who impregnated his children’s nanny, and 4.) a guy who shakes hands with his own wife.

That you don’t need a plan for making the lives of the American people better — just a “vibe.”

That wanting to make America great is worse than wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

And voting for your candidate is for suckers.

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Oh, we also learned that AOC breaks out into more accents than Meryl Streep, and Tim Walz looks like he’s auditioning for Nathan Lane’s role in The Birdcage. But that’s just me veering entirely off topic on a Friday morning.

Where Does the Race Stand?

We are now 73 days from Election Day. That’s nothing. That’s one day longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kris Humphries.

It is too soon to see if Kamala Harris will get the traditional bounce after the party’s convention. Right now, the polls show a toss-up. Rasmussen Reports released a poll Thursday showing Trump with a three-point advantage, while the Economist/YouGov poll out Wednesday gave Harris a three-point advantage. The Real Clear Polling Average has Harris up 1.6%.

All this means Harris is running behind the places where Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were in 2016 and 2020, respectively. This is not good for two reasons. First, pollster John McLaughlin told Just the News that mainstream media surveys are overpolling 2020 Biden voters in order to “pump Harris up. They’re trying to suppress our vote.” Second, we learned in 2020 that Harris starts out well, but fades quickly the more people hear her — meaning, all things being equal, that today might be her high point.

Also, something strange happened during the convention. The betting site Polymarket showed Trump actually increasing his lead as the week went on.

Harris was up eight points on August 14.

Also, we don’t yet know the impact of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dropping out of the race. It is widely expected he’ll be endorsing Trump if he does suspend his campaign this afternoon. We may even see the pair together in Phoenix later today.

Landing Kennedy’s endorsement could stop any momentum Harris has right in its tracks.

In other news that could impact the elections, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Thursday that Arizona must reject state voter registration forms that don’t carry proof of U.S. citizenship. However, the ruling does not apply to federal election forms.

Media Works Hard to Prop Harris Up, Tear Trump Down

Still, Harris has one huge advantage: The legacy news media is heavily invested in her winning the election. An analysis by Media Research Center shows the coverage for Harris has been 84% positive, while 89% negative for Trump.

This despite Trump doing nothing unusual beyond getting shot and raising his fist in iconic defiance in July, and Harris doing nothing different than when she was so toxic that many of these same outlets were hoping she’d be ousted from the ticket.

Border Horror: More Arrests Made in Case of 53 Illegals Found Dead in Texas County Whose Sheriff Spoke at Convention

This story started out as a wry head-scratcher, then turned to heartbreak.

On Wednesday night, Bexar County (TX) Sheriff Javier Salazar stood on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, roasted Donald Trump, and praised Kamala Harris over the border. That’s hysterical, considering Trump hasn’t been in office for three and a half years, and in 2022, Salazar was on TV begging, pleading for border czar Kamala Harris to come to his county to do something — anything — to help stem the tide of illegal immigrants flooding in.

What was hysterical is now a horror. Earlier Wednesday, Guatemalan officials announced the arrest of seven more people accused of smuggling 53 migrants — men, women, and children — found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio (Salazar’s jurisdiction) in 2022. That’s 53 people dead because of that open border.

And at the time, this very same Salazar was absolutely furious at this very same Harris-Biden administration for ignoring his pleas, which led to this horrific tragedy.

“I’m angry, Mr. President,” Salazar wrote, “I’m angry that I could not stop this massive loss of life in my country. I’m angry that despite my best efforts to appeal to your administration, I have not received a response.”

Trump’s Would-Be Assassin Had Foreign Encrypted Messaging Accounts

As much as the media and Beltway establishment seems determined to bury any news about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the truth keeps trying to work its way out.

On Wednesday, a member of a House bipartisan task force revealed that Thomas Crooks used encrypted messaging accounts based in Belgium, New Zealand, and Germany to communicate with unknown persons. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) asked the obvious and critical question:

“Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aid need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad – where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?”

Photos from local law enforcement show Crooks looking at his phone moments before climbing onto the roof of a building in Butler, Penn., and opening fire on Trump as he spoke at a rally. It’s a pretty safe bet he wasn’t ordering a pizza.

Waltz is baffled and suspicious by the fact that the FBI and Secret Service quickly declared Crooks acted alone. “You can’t tell us his motive, but you could tell us he operated alone? You can’t get into these encrypted overseas accounts, but you can tell us he acted alone? So, I don’t buy that yet.”

Another Threat on Trump Emerges

Authorities launched an urgent manhunt Thursday for a suspect who threatened to shoot former President Trump at his rally yesterday in Arizona. The suspect is Ronald Lee Syrvud, 66, a registered sex offender with several warrants currently out for his arrest.

We continue to pray for the safety of President Trump and all the candidates.

Homes and Loans for Illegals

California is known as the Golden State, and its mascot is a bear. But lately, it seems more like it should be the Golden Bull State.

The state Senate has advanced a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to purchase homes with zero down, zero interest. Specifically, the bill expands a state program for first-time home buyers, loaning them 20% of the purchase price.

Oregon is going even further. A taxpayer-funded organization called Hacienda Community Development Corporation is offering $30,000 to first-time home buyers, but on one condition: They can’t be citizens. The program is only for DACA recipients, asylum seekers, and green card holders.

Credit Oregon Citizen, an independent journalist, for uncovering the program.

Along The Stream

Stream contributor Timothy Furnish returns with “Wars and Rumors of War.”

Stream editor and bestselling military author Tom Sileo’s latest edition of Service & Sacrifice is up, “Keeping Up the Pressure.”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.

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