Government & Politics

• “Meet the Press” coughs up a major correction about Kamala: Kristen Welker is no Tim Russert. But as the host of NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” it seems she’s not even up to the low standard set by her immediate predecessor, Chuck Todd. A case in point came this weekend when Welker tried to attack Donald Trump for his recent appearance at Arlington National Cemetery to honor 13 fallen American warriors. Welker’s guest, Republican Senator Tom Cotton, had said of Harris, “She was four miles away — 10 minutes. She could’ve gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn’t. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting with them.” To which Welker replied with a fake fact-check, “They did meet them during the dignified transfer. They were with them at the dignified transfer.” Um, no. As “Meet the Press” put it in an X post shortly afterward: “On our broadcast this morning, we incorrectly implied that both President Biden and Vice President Harris attended the dignified transfer of 13 American service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Biden was in attendance but Harris was not.” Ouch.

• Wasn’t Walz supposed to help Harris in Minnesota? Normally, a vice-presidential nominee is supposed to help the ticket by solidifying support in the state from which he hails. Apparently, though, no one ever told “Coach Tim Walz” this. Indeed, the deployment-dodging, valor-stealing, ChiCom-sympathizing former unpaid assistant high-school football coach and current governor of Minnesota actually appears to be hurting Kamala Harris’s polling in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. At least according to a new poll from KSTP. “Harris now leads Trump 48% to 43%, a significant decline for her from the previous survey that showed her up 50% to 40%,” reports the New York Post. That is, the Post notes, “the opposite of a post-convention bump that normally would have been expected.” Moreover, the sampling favored Democrats, “with Dems making up 40% of the sample, Republicans 35%, and independents the remainder.” If the Democrats are forced to play defense in reliably blue states like Minnesota, they may well be in big trouble come November 5.

• Tim Walz’s political origin story does not add up (Washington Examiner)

• Is Harris’s polling surge fake? Recent polls show that Kamala Harris has either surpassed Donald Trump or is in a dead heat with him in the race for the White House. According to Suffolk University/USA Today, Harris has surged past Trump and now holds a five percentage point lead over him nationally. This represents quite a swing from just two months ago when Trump led Joe Biden by four percentage points. However, given Harris’s sustained unpopularity as vice president, some question the validity of the current polling data. Critics contend that the pollsters have been oversampling Democrat voters, and based upon percentage comparisons from both the 2016 and 2020 election results, they appear to have a point. The benefit of artificially inflating Harris’s numbers would be to gin up Democrat voter enthusiasm and encourage more campaign donations while at the same time discouraging support for Trump. Furthermore, given the fact that the vast majority of the mainstream media is in the tank for Harris, it’s not surprising that what we’re currently seeing is pollaganda at play rather than a genuine reflection of Americans’ opinions.

• Kamala Harris goes viral with “cringe” new accent at Detroit rally (Fox News)

• Biden joins Harris at Labor Day rally, returns to campaign trail (Roll Call)

• Pelosi claims Harris won an “open" primary (Daily Wire)

• About that list of anti-Trump Republicans: In recent days, much has been made within the Harris campaign and the mainstream media (but we repeat ourselves) about a list of "more than 200” people who used to work for former Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and former Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney, who’ve nonetheless penned an open letter to endorse Kamala Harris for president. That seems huge if true. But it’s mostly not true. As The Daily Signal reports, “Many of the signatories were interns or apolitical staff, and many of them went on to work for then-President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden.” Still others, we can be sure, are of the Trump-derangement strain. Columnist Tyler O'Neil reports that many are apolitical staff, such as “a guy who flew Marine One for George W. Bush (props) who also flew Marine One for checks notes Barack Obama. Not exactly a GOP politico, huh?” But hey, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a great narrative.

• Rep. Chip Roy has a simple bill that mandates proof of citizenship to vote, but the media says Dems might shut down the entire government to oppose it (Not the Bee)

• EPA gives $20M to black colleges for electric bikes: In a move designed to reinforce the climate change narrative, the Environmental Protection Agency is giving a nearly $20 million grant to Dillard University, a private historically black college in New Orleans, for the purpose of combatting the “climate crisis.” Part of the means of “fighting” this so-called climate crisis will be the purchase of electric bikes for 300 families. The rest of the grant will go to the school for expanding its electric bike-sharing program, which includes the installation of bike charging stations and the fitting of campus buildings with solar panels. Reason Foundation senior transportation policy analyst Marc Scribner blasted the spending as “just bad federal policy design.” That’s climate policy in a nutshell.

Security

• Another Islamic convert, another terrorist in the making: Theirs is the Religion of Peace™, they’ll tell you. And if you don’t believe them, they’ll slit your lousy infidel throat. We haven’t heard much news stateside of late about the ongoing war between radical Islam and the West, but that’s not for lack of effort on behalf of the jihadists. As PJ Media reports via Las Vegas’s KLAS: “Joshua Robles, 16, has been ‘accused of plotting an ISIS-inspired terror attack.’ … Ultimately, Robles was deemed to be so dangerous that bail was set at $1 million. … Authorities think that Robles was ‘building explosive devices similar to the ones that killed three and injured hundreds in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.’ There is some indication that he planned to carry out an arson jihad attack on New Year’s Day 2024.” Robles had also been searching for floor plans for a local Las Vegas high school. On a sheet of notebook paper found in Robles’s bedroom, he reportedly wrote, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.” Under that: “DEATH TO JEWS.” But again, Islam is a religion of peace.

• U.S. Marines attacked by mob in Turkey (Daily Wire)

• Northern border sector continuing to break records in apprehensions (Center Square)

• The U.S. has seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s presidential airplane (Not the Bee)

Economy

• CA Dems reject no tax on tips: California Democrat lawmakers voted down a bill introduced by Republicans that would have eliminated the state’s tax on tips. Republicans saw the recent embrace of the tax-elimination policy first advanced by Donald Trump and subsequently embraced by Kamala Harris as a winning issue that would boost revenue for California’s tipped workers, primarily in the restaurant industry. Yet the Democrats’ overspending turned a $97 billion surplus into a $31.5 billion deficit in just two years, so the notion of the Golden State’s government losing more tax revenue was a no-go for the state’s Senate Democrats. Republican State Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, who introduced the legislation, responded to the downvote, stating, “It is deeply disappointing that the legislature chose not to consider a proposal that could have provided much-needed relief to California’s workers.”

• Shake Shack shuttering six California locations after $20 fast food minimum wage (Just the News)

• Volkswagen says it could close plant in Germany for the first time ever (CBS News)

Culture

• Reagan movie divides critics and audiences: Movie critics, like the Leftmedia, apparently put politics before art and, as a result, have difficulty recognizing and appreciating what everyday Americans see and enjoy. Case in point is the recently released “Reagan” film starring Dennis Quaid. Critics have panned the Ronald Reagan biopic, giving it only an 18% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas audiences have apparently loved the film, giving it a near-perfect 98% approval rating. Indeed, that Rotten Tomatoes divide represents the largest disparity between critics and the general public in Hollywood history. Critic Adam Nayman from The Ringer was representative, dismissing the film as a “berserk Saturday Night Live sketch.” Yet the wider public has gushed over Quaid’s excellent depiction of Reagan. And the opening weekend numbers appear to support the general audience’s reaction, as the film outperformed expectations of $5 million in ticket sales by pulling in $10 million. Maybe if critics could get outside of their own leftist political worldview, they would be able to recognize and enjoy good movies like the rest of the country.

• Reparations bills die on final day of California’s legislative session despite urgent protests (Sacramento Bee)

• A powerful California general was credibly accused of anti-Semitism. Gavin Newsom gave him a promotion. (Washington Free Beacon)

• Women’s college adopts women-only admission policy, angering students and faculty (National Review)

• 26 states have blocked Title IX, nearly 700 schools won’t comply (Center Square)

World

• Hamas threatens to release video showing six slain hostages’ “last message” (Jerusalem Post)

• Maduro orders arrest of presidential opponent (Daily Wire)

• Brazil Supreme Court upholds judge’s decision to block Elon Musk’s X across country (NY Post)

• Far-right success in German votes piles new pressure on Scholz’s government (AP)

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