Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea, our chance to pause and nibble on the latest news from Chicago.

Tim Walz’s Moment

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz spoke for all of 16 minutes last night at the party’s national convention. That’s almost as little time as he spent in combat. Speaking of which, a video introducing the Minnesota governor described him as a “command sergeant major” in the National Guard. As has been loudly established, Walz did not complete the coursework for that rank and was demoted the minute he abandoned his unit in order to run for Congress as they were headed to Iraq.

Truth must not have had an ID that allows it into Union Center. Take how the convention floor was filled with signs honoring “Coach Walz.” He was an assistant coach of a high school football team, not Bill Belichick. 

Another example of mendacity: Walz declared, “We respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make … mind your own d**n business!”

WALZ: "We respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make … mind your own damn business!"

Walz literally set up a snitch line for Minnesotans to tattle on their neighbors if they violated his tyrannical COVID rules. pic.twitter.com/4Q9vmrM1DC

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 22, 2024

Walz also loves his neighbor so much that he allowed leftist thugs to burn down their businesses in the 2020 riots. And “mind your own d**n business”? He’s made Minnesota a sanctuary state for gender-confused minors seeking mutilation and chemical castration. How is  wresting away parents’ rights to raise their children, particularly in order to do them permanent physical and psychological harm,”minding your own business”? 

In his speech, Walz pushed his small-town roots. In fact, his intro music is John Mellencamp’s “Small Town.” Funny, when I think of the progressive policies of Walz and Harris, the Mellencamp song that comes to mind is “Rain on the Scarecrow.”

Rain on the scarecrow,

blood on the plow.

This land fed this nation.

This land made me proud.

Son, I’m just sorry there’s no legacy for you now.

What is truly bizarre about Walz’s small-town push is that he uses it repeatedly to mock the fact that his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, worked his way from Appalachia to Yale. That somehow he betrayed his roots by getting educated at an Ivy League school. 

Poor kid with a very tough upbringing goes to Yale and gets mocked for it by a guy who stole valor. Got it.

— wilder😎🇺🇸 (@wilderpatriot) August 22, 2024

I am begging our John Zmirak to write on this. After all, he’s the postman’s son from Queens who made it to Yale on nothing more than brains and chutzpah.

There’s something disquieting about someone who wants to be the U.S. vice president mocking achievement. It’s also bizarre considering Walz follows Bill Clinton, who was born in a poor Arkansas town to a mother widowed before he was born and ended up at Yale and Oxford.

Other Moments from Last Night

Speaking of Bill Clinton, the former president went full eulogy on Joe Biden last night during his speech. Clinton compared Joe Biden to George Washington for voluntarily giving up power. Actually, he gave up power more like Abraham Lincoln — he was done in by Democratic actors.

The former president also declared that the Big Guy “healed our sick and put the rest of us back to work.” How exactly did he heal our sick? More people died of COVID during his first year in the White House than in 2020 when COVID hit. Did Biden engage in a laying on of hands that didn’t involve inappropriate touching?

Speaking of which, did it not bother the Democrats, even just a little, to give a prime time slot one of Jeffrey Epstein’s BFFs?

Which gets us to another moment: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro ranting about conservatives banning books. “It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read.”

GOV. SHAPIRO: "It's not freedom to tell our children what books they're allowed to read!"

WOW. pic.twitter.com/EoWsJnocMV

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 22, 2024

Never forget he’s talking about feeding porn and radical LGBTQ ideology to youngsters.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is a real piece of work. She’s fond of prosecuting citizens and even lawyers who dare question elections won by Democrats. Last night, she went all Charlton Heston over the issue of same-sex marriage. “You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand!” she said. As if anybody in the country, let alone the Supreme Court, cares about her jewelry. 

Michigan AG: “You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand!”pic.twitter.com/seK7TSzvvw

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 22, 2024

Besides, there’s no need to pry off the ring. Step onto any street under Soros-funded attorney generals like her and Kamala Harris, and the criminals and Venezuelan gangsters will do it for you. 

Finally, a humorous moment involving Oprah. And I’m not talking about when the multibillionaire, one of the most successful, famous, and adored people on the planet, complained about being a victim. “I have seen racism and sexism and income inequality.”

Oprah Winfrey: "I have seen racism and sexism and income inequality…." pic.twitter.com/YxYpoYwuyT

— DC Shorts (@theDCshorts) August 22, 2024

The minute she waxed rhapsodic over the possibility of Kamala Harris becoming president, Donald Trump posted a picture of a letter Oprah sent him gushing over the possibility of being his running mate should he ever run for president.

https://twitter.com/MTGrepp/status/1826447919572287905

DNC Oddities

Maggots for Breakfast

Maggots were found in the food being served at a convention breakfast Wednesday morning. Authorities believe the maggots were deliberately placed, and the FBI is on the case.

If you remember, last month pro-Hamas agitators placed maggots all over the hotel  the Israeli delegation was using during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C.

These are the people Harris is trying to appease by pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza and saying she’d be open to an arms embargo against Israel.

Another Lie About Trump Exposed, This One About Trump and the Hamas Hostages

The First Law of Snake News: “Anything about Trump that has the media and left in an uproar will be proven false, usually within 24 hours.”

A line you’ve been hearing during the Democratic National Convention is to claim Donald Trump convinced Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon a hostage deal with Hamas. In a PBS news special Monday night, Judy Woodruff relayed that Trump told Bibi to hold off on a deal until after the election to help him politically.

Both leaders had vehemently denied the story when it first popped up last week.

On Wednesday, Woodruff admitted the story was false. “This was a mistake,” she posted on X. “And I apologize.”

I want to clarify my remarks on the PBS News special on Monday night about the ongoing cease fire talks in the Middle East. As I said, this was not based on my original reporting; I was referring to reports I had read, in Axios and Reuters, about former President Trump having…

— Judy Woodruff (@JudyWoodruff) August 21, 2024

Both Axios and Reuters had updated their story to include the denials before Woodruff spread the lie.

Like all the other Trump hoaxes, this one will continue to be brought out as long as Muslim-heavy swing states are in play.

Update: Secretary of Commerce Was Unaware of Report Showing 818,000 Fewer Jobs Created than Claimed

Do you know about that Bureau of Labor Statistics report that showed the economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than the Biden administration had previously announced? If you do, that puts you one up on Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. During an interview with ABC News, Raimondo was asked about the numbers. She said she didn’t believe it. Blamed Donald Trump. When informed that the report came from the federal government itself, she replied, “I’m not familiar with that.”

Harris-Biden Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo says she doesn't believe new government data that shows almost a million of the jobs the Harris-Biden admin claimed to have "created" don't actually exist.

"I'm not familiar with that." pic.twitter.com/JaAwEWKuNC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 21, 2024

But I bet she can tell you how many drag queen expos and DEI seminars the Commerce Department has hosted.

This would be like Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin going, “What? We took all our troops out of Niger?!” Or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg saying, “What happened in East Palestine?” (Then again, he did pretty much brush off the toxic train disaster there.)

I again put out the challenge: Can you name me one person hired by the Biden-Harris administration who’s actually good at their job?

Kamala’s Big Night After She “Shut Down” Opportunity for Anyone Else to Take Biden’s Place

The Democratic National Convention comes to a close tonight with a speech by Kamala Harris, who incidentally couldn’t be bothered to attend Walz’s.

Harris will take the stage late tonight to officially accept the Democratic nomination for president. However, as we learned yesterday, it was not a nomination she earned, but rather took. Nancy Pelosi, who along with Barack Obama orchestrated the unceremonious dumping of her dear friend Joe Biden from the party’s ticket, admitted to the Wall Street Journal she had been in favor of an “open process” to find another nominee. However, that didn’t happen. Pelosi says Harris “took advantage,” jumped into the gap and “smartly” cornered the delegates before any others had a chance to throw their hats in the ring. Or any of the voting public had the slightest say.

In Pelosi’s words: “Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted to have an open process. It was an open process, anyone could have gotten in. [Harris] had the endorsement of the president, and she, politically astutely, took advantage of it and shut down — not shut down, but won the nomination.”

What Pelosi admitted should be a big deal. 

As Lee Zeldin noted on X: No Votes. No Competition. No Interviews. No Pressers. No Policy Positions on Her Website.

That’s something to consider tonight when Kamala talks about “democracy” and the convention cheers along like she’s William Wallace before the Battle of Sterling Bridge. Expect the speech to last several hours if the crowd breaks into laughter every time she says, “On Day One,” despite having been in office now for nearly four years.

Seriously, while she certainly will be relying on her trusty teleprompter, and she’s more likely to stage dive than divert from the script, Kamala Harris still has to stand up there and meet the moment without looking small, especially after two nights of Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Is she in their league? Is she a gamer? Harris has never shown it in the past. Anyone can look good in practice, with no rush, no blitzing, no contact. The key is what happens when it counts.

After tonight, the game gets real.

On The Stream Menu

John Zmirak asks, “Can We Citizens Beat the Machines That Steal Our Elections to Serve Our Ruthless Elites?”

Stream contributor Raymond Ibrahim is on a roll. His latest is up: “Unsheathe the ‘Two Swords’ of Christianity.” 

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.