Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea, our chance to stop and sample the latest news and headlines.

“Welcome to Hell Week”: Wary Eyes on Chicago as Democratic Convention Opens

The delegates and protesters are in place as the curtain rises on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. By the end, and barring any other surprises, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will be officially and as the Democratic presidential nominees … and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow may be off the hook as the culprit responsible for causing the most destruction ever to the Windy City.

Trouble’s already started. Last night, protesters disrupted a welcome party for delegates, declaring “Welcome to hell week” and blabbering about “genocide.” Outside, The Blaze reports, pro-Hamas demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “DNC go home, or we’re gonna bring the war home.”

Anti-Israel protesters in Chicago chant: “DNC go home! Or we’re gonna bring the war home!”
pic.twitter.com/i6HJzQvoWG

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 19, 2024

The questions of the week: When the violence breaks out this week, will Harris bail out the rioters like she did in 2020? Will Tim Walz and his wife enjoy the smell of the smoke?

Seriously, how will Harris handle it if Chicago 2024 turns into Chicago 1968? Her honeymoon will be over.

Joe Biden Gives the Keynote Before Being Made to Vanish

Erstwhile President Joe Biden will be the keynote speaker for tonight’s opening session. I don’t care what your politics are; it’s got to hurt the man to have to get up there on stage and look out at a bunch of party bigwigs that plunged a figurative knife in his back and left their collective bootprint on his behind after he secured the party’s nomination. A month ago, this was going to be his convention. His party. Now he’s got to get up there, pretend to smile and be on board with what even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd calls a “coup.”

Sure, he’ll get a rousing ovation for stepping down to “help save democracy.” And sure, it’s a safe bet he will get lost in his speech and demonstrate why he should have stepped down from office completely and not just the party’s ticket. But assuming he doesn’t curse them out for abandoning him, we need to have some sympathy for the painful spot he is in while trying to be a good sport — that is, until he calls half the country Nazis and terrorists.

House Impeachment Inquiry Concludes Biden Committed Impeachable Offenses

Speaking of Joe: When he was vice president, he “actively participated” in a “conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family,” defrauded the United States, and thus committed impeachable offenses.

That is the conclusion of the House Impeachment Inquiry’s 229-page report into Biden Inc. The evidence indicates the Biden family — with the Big Guy’s knowledge and participation — hauled in at least $27 million from foreign entities since 2014, “leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden.” 

The Bidens also used The Big Guy’s position as VP to pocket at least $8 million in “loans” from donors. The loans “have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the committees.”

The investigation laid out how the Biden family “went to great lengths to conceal this conspiracy.”

According to the report,

Foreign money was transmitted to the Biden family through complicated financial transactions. The Biden family laundered funds through intermediate entities and broke up large transactions into numerous smaller transactions.

That’s how you end up with Chinese cash in the accounts of your granddaughters and in-laws.

When asked for comment on the report, the White House said, “Joe who?”

Seriously: Joe Biden abused his offices for personal financial gain, and committed acts that rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” And House Republicans have the proof. The question is: What are they going to do about it? Impeach him now? Take the focus off of Kamala Harris? Play into her game of hiding from serious inquiry while she campaigns to take up residence in Oval Office?

Pressure Biden to resign … and let Kamala Harris run the last leg of the race as an incumbent president?

We’re thankful for the inquiry because it’s good to have the facts laid out — but if the impeachment effort goes anywhere beyond the report, it’d be a political miracle.

Dirty Tricks: Trump’s Political Director Spreads Nasty Kamala Drinking Rumor

Kamala Harris has dreadful policy ideas straight out of Venezuela, a history of statements and actions proving she’d be happy to serve as a socialist dictator, and has proven to be a catastrophic disaster in the one major job she’s been given in the Biden administration. Plus when given a mic and no script, she proves to be either inane (as evidenced by her word salads), or vicious and slanderous (as proven by the things she said during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings).

But over the weekend, Trump campaign political director James Blair made a social media post based on rumors that Harris has an issue with alcohol.

A lot of rumors out there about Kamala having a serious drinking problem…apparently coming into focus as campaign heats up.

⏳Stay Tuned…

— James Blair (@JamesBlairUSA) August 18, 2024

Obviously, rumors and questions about Harris have been floating around social media, complete with videos, for a long time. (Then again, rumors float around that Michael Jackson faked his death, no one actually took a shot at Donald Trump with an actual bullet recently, and that the earth is flat.) And the media in 2020 positively covered Harris’s fondness for and apparent expertise in wine.

However, the Trump campaign implying she’s an alcoholic without backing it up with evidence is cheap and dirty. After all, the person making this post was not some low-ranking back bencher, and his rank magnifies the unproven allegation. It means people flooding social media with clips of Harris speaking that, thanks to the power of suggestion, has viewers going, “You’re right, she does sound sloshed.”

Of course we would need to know if someone who may soon have their finger on the nuclear button has an issue with drugs or alcohol. And we can guarantee that the same people who hid Biden’s mental incapacity will lie for and protect Harris now if she does have a problem with substances. But the Trump campaign needs to keep their punches above the belt until the fight is over. As far as the Trump campaign is concerned, if Kamala Harris is drunk on anything, she’s drunk on power. 

Blair’s post was not only wrong and distasteful, it allowed Democrats to paint Trump’s campaign as desperate. The Trump campaign should be focusing on Kamala’s beliefs, words, and actions, not peddling in dirty rumors.

That said, the Harris campaign got hit with a story that couldn’t have been worse timed to battle this suggestion: Her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, is pitching on her Instagram account the positive effects of the drug ketamine for pain management. This is the drug on which actor Matthew Perry overdosed earlier this year, which in turn led to his death and which led to the arrest last week of five people. As The Associated Press reports, ketamine is a powerful anesthetic often used for surgery, and can be prescribed off-label to treat pain, anxiety, and depression. But, as with Perry, it’s also used illicitly.

The drug is a chemical cousin of the recreational drug PCP. Ketamine itself has been used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It can cause hallucinations and can impact breathing and the heart.

It’s not a good look for Kamala Harris to have anyone in her family promoting the stuff.

On the Stream Menu

John Zmirak is back with the provocative, in-depth “We Need to Take Racism Less Seriously.”

A new voice on The Stream, Joachim Osther, writes “Nero Fiddled and Tim Walzed as Their Cities Burned.” 

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.