Tag: democrats

2008 Video Shows Tim Walz Implying He Suffered PTSD from Afghanistan Deployment

Newly resurfaced video from a hearing in 2008 shows Minnesota Governor Tim Walz implying heavily that he suffered PTSD from deployment to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Walz was speaking to the family of a Gold Star veteran at the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Veterans and Mental Health when he made remarks that suggested he had personal experience of PTSD after serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 with the National Guard.

“I can tell you this, having been one of those that came back. We were in support of OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom]… when we came back, they showed us the horse whisperer and told us to be nice when we went home. And that was the extent of it. That was in 2004.”

Since Walz became Kamala Harris’s presumptive running-mate, there has been intense scrutiny of his service record. Walz has been accused of “stolen valor” for making misleading statements about his rank and operational deployments. Walz never took part in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for US operations directly in and above Afghan territory, but was posted to Italy with the National Guard in a support role. He has also been criticized for retiring from the National Guard in order to avoid a deployment to an actual warzone, Iraq.

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On the mediocrity and mendacity of Tim Walz

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s new vice-presidential candidate, plays as a huntin’ and fishin’ Midwestern dad.

In truth, he leans even harder left than Harris. As governor of Minnesota, he legalized recreational cannabis, pushed net-zero carbon emissions, made his state a sanctuary for teen transgender surgeries, and was a hard-core Covid authoritarian.

All predictable for a blue-state governor. But put aside Walz’s policies (for now) and consider what we have learned about his personality and history since he was picked.

Nothing fueled Walz’s rise in the last few weeks more than his canny description of JD Vance and Donald Trump as “weird.”

The media and Democrats lauded him as plainspoken, a straight shooter who calls it as he sees it. A typical New York Times encomium1 for him began:

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota presents as a regular dad from the Midwest. He hunts. He fishes. He ice fishes… He is so normal that his normality has become exceptional…

[He has] the energy of a sitcom dad, one who embodies the archetype so winningly that he walks onto the pilot set and immediately becomes a star.

But n comparing Walz to a breakout actor, the Times may have stumbled upon an unfortunate truth.

When it comes to his military service, arguably the key to his political biography, Walz has – at best – danced between the raindrops for a long time. He put in 24 years in a Minnesota Army National Guard battalion, rising steadily through the enlisted ranks.

But he quit in May 2005, just before his unit was deployed to Iraq.

Walz says he had decided to leave in order to run for Congress before the unit received any formal deployment orders. The key word there is “formal.” Walz was among the battalion’s most senior enlisted men, and it was no secret by the end of 2004 that the war in Iraq was not going well and United States would likely need to call up and send more units.

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Regime-Approved ‘Fact-Checkers’ Rush To Downplay Tim Walz’s Stolen Valor Controversy

It’s another day that ends in “-y,” which means legacy media hucksters are running dishonest interference for the Democrat Party.

The latest example comes in the form of a Friday “fact-check” by The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. Known for his willingness to lie on behalf of Democrats, the Post’s “democracy dies in darkness” guru decided to offer his “assessment” of the controversy engulfing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

While lauded by regime-approved media for his National Guard service, Walz’s rollout as Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate has been marred by reports and resurfaced clips indicating he committed “stolen valor.” As Matt Beebe has detailed at length in these pages, Walz abandoned his unit before it deployed to Iraq to run for Congress and has inflated his military rank throughout his political career.

Rather than present those facts up front for Post readers, Kessler begins his “fact-check” by citing a quote from Harris announcing Walz as her vice-presidential pick and the following paragraph:

Since [Harris’ announcement], Walz’s record has been under attack by Republicans, with claims that he abandoned his troops on the eve of a deployment to Iraq and that, in an instance of “stolen valor,” inflated his credentials and wartime experience.

The implication, of course, is that any and all scrutiny of Walz’s record and prior claims about his military service are solely the product of GOP partisanship — not the actual facts documenting Walz’s dishonesty. By deploying this deceptive tactic, Kessler aims to convince readers his subsequent “fact-checks” are valid, despite their representation as blatant attempts to run interference for Walz.

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The Debate Is Over — CNN Airs Investigation that Confirms Tim Walz Is Stolen Valor Fraud

CNN settled the debate about Governor Tim Walz and his alleged stolen valor scandal. The far-left channel ran a 10-minute investigation on Governor Walz, his time in the service, his abandoning his men after their deployment notice, and Tim later lying about his service in the Iraq War.

Mike Cernovich called the segment “absolutely devastating” and confirmed that CNN actually debunked all of the lies spread by Walz and his Democrat defenders.

“Absolutely devastating and it debunks all of the lies spread by Tim Walz’s defenders. I want him on the ticket as VP. The conversation is over. Tim Walz is a deployment dodging stolen valor fraud!” he wrote on X.

CNN host Laura Coates brought in retired Command Sergeant Major Doug Julien to discuss Walz and his record. Julien previously accused Walz of letting “his troops down” and going over his head to secure his retirement after decades of service in May 2005, a few months before the battalion was given a mobilization order to deploy to Iraq.

Julien’s testimony provides a stark contrast to the narrative Walz has long promoted, revealing a troubling pattern of deceit and self-serving decisions that have cast a shadow over his military legacy.

According to Julien, Walz, who filed paperwork for his Congressional bid in February 2005, deliberately went above his superior’s head to retire just as his unit was preparing for deployment to Iraq.

Julien revealed that in the fall of 2004, his brigade was informed of an upcoming deployment to Iraq, and the unit was in the process of preparing for the mission.

By February 2005, Walz was already laying the groundwork for his political career, notifying Julien of his intent to run for Congress but assuring him he would still deploy with his unit.

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Yes, Tim Walz signed a bill that removed anti-pedophile language from human rights act

On May 30, 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed into law HF 1655, also known as the “Take Pride Act.” This controversial legislation, introduced by state Representative Leigh Finke, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the first transgender legislator in Minnesota House history, has drawn significant attention for its removal of anti-pedophile language from the state’s Human Rights law.

The “Take Pride Act” sought to redefine “sexual orientation” in the Minnesota Human Rights Act, removing the explicit exclusion of pedophilia. The original text of the law stated that “‘Sexual orientation’ does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult.” However, the new law, signed by Walz, removes this crucial caveat, raising concerns about the potential implications for the protection of minors.

Critics argue that the removal of the anti-pedophile language could lead to the normalization of pedophilia and weaken the state’s ability to protect minors from sexual abuse and exploitation. They contend that the original language was necessary to ensure that pedophilia is not afforded any form of protection or legitimacy under the law where “sexual orientation” is a protected class.

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Tim Walz Was Dead Wrong About Misinformation and Free Speech

Now that Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, it is ostensibly time for the media to scrutinize his record and past statements. (Emphasis on ostensibly.)

To say the mainstream coverage of Walz has been fawning thus far would be quite an understatement; The New York Times described him as “a one-man rejoinder to the idea that the Democrats are the party of the cultural and coastal elite.” The Atlantic‘s Charlie Warzel merrily aided media efforts to portray Walz as a lovable, folksy paternal figure, writing that “dad is on the ballot.” CNN proclaimed the Harris-Walz team as “an antidote to Trump’s American carnage.”

“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to make America joyful again,” wrote CNN’s Stephen Collinson.

The task of scrutinizing Walz will clearly fall to other interested parties. (See Reason‘s Eric Boehm on his overall record, and this piece by me on his COVID-19 policies.)

Conservatives on social media did manage to dig up an old clip of Walz making an alarming and false claim: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”

Walz is wrong, of course: The First Amendment, which vigorously protects Americans’ free speech rights, does not distinguish between good information and misinformation. Moreover, so-called hate speech—an arbitrary category, as different people find different sorts of speech to be hateful—is quite obviously protected.

But that clip of Walz is only eight seconds long, and I am wary of taking people out of context. So I looked for the rest of the clip, which is available here.

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Even CNN Admits There’s “No Evidence” Walz Saw Combat

It seems that Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz has repeatedly made misleading statements about his military service, and even CNN admitted Wednesday that there is no evidence to back up the notion that he ever saw combat.

CNN correspondent Tom Foreman noted that “Walz did make a comment speaking to a group, he’s done it a couple of times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation.”

“As you know, with your contact with the military, I know from coming from a military family, there is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you,” Foreman continued.

Then came the kicker.

“There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was,” the correspondent urged.

Walz said in 2018 after the Parkland shooting that he wanted to ban weapons that he “carried in war.” The Harris HQ X account even boasted about the claim earlier this week.

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Tim Walz Falsely Claimed He Served in Afghanistan. When a Local Vet Called Him Out, His Office Did Nothing.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has described himself as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the official name of the U.S. government’s war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. 

But Walz never deployed to the Middle East. And, when an Iraq war veteran confronted Walz’s aides with evidence of what he called “stolen valor,” his aides didn’t do much to address his concerns.

As a first-time congressional candidate in 2006, Walz’s campaign announcement described him as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” an archived version of the press release shows. Two years earlier, in 2004, Walz organized a protest against then-President George W. Bush in Mankato, Minn. A photo of the rally shows Walz carrying a sign reading “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry.”

Such a title historically applies to someone who served on the ground in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terrorism. Walz, a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard, spent time in Norway in support of NATO forces and in Italy working in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He had never seen combat, he told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018.

Walz’s claims spurred Iraq war veteran David Thul, a sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard, to approach Walz’s aides at the Democrat’s Mankato office in 2009. Thul filmed the encounter, in which a staffer told Thul she was “not aware” of Walz serving in Afghanistan. Thul went on to present the 2004 photo of Walz, as well as Walz’s website, to another aide, who acknowledged that constituents could get the false impression that Walz served in Afghanistan.

“Operation Enduring Freedom is limited to Afghanistan and the airspace directly above,” Thul told the aide. “Congressman Walz is clearly claiming … to be an Enduring Freedom veteran. Nobody disputes the fact that he is not an Afghanistan or Enduring Freedom veteran. So this represents a fairly serious issue.” Asked whether he understood how constituents could falsely “assume that means [Walz] served in Afghanistan,” the aide responded, “Perhaps, I guess.”

The aide did not dispute that Walz was pictured in the 2004 photograph, and, indeed, a 2006 Atlantic article describes the spectacle of the future governor protesting the Bush visit with a group of high school students. The aide told Thul he would follow up with him. A source familiar with the situation said neither Walz nor his staffers followed through with that pledge.

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Walz administration threatened voters for not masking up; critics tear apart new mask study

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris picked a running mate, Tim Walz, known for severe COVID-19 restrictions as Minnesota’s governor, including a hotline on which residents could report each other for violating his stay-at-home executive order.

Walz’s administration threatened the medical license of his 2022 Republican challenger, Scott Jensen, who won Minnesota’s Family Physician of the Year award in 2016, for COVID wrongthink. Two of its five investigations were opened after Jensen entered the race.

But it’s Walz’s crusade for masking, which he called  “one of the last” COVID mandates he would lift in fall 2020 and was upheld as constitutional a year ago, that could make swing voters more wary of a Democratic ticket that, unlike the GOP ticket, might bring mandates back.

When Minnesota Republicans sued to block Walz’s mask mandate at polling places ahead of the 2020 primary, Secretary of State Steve Simon told the Star Tribune that he would direct officials to record the names of voters who refused to accept masks “and let them know they will be reported to authorities” if they vote inside without a “health reason.”

Germany is still using a similar tack to protect masking from scrutiny.

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Minnesota Nice: Creepy Tim Walz Uses Fake Internet Sex Meme to Mock JD Vance

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) referred to a crude sex joke based on a fake meme to make fun of rival Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) during a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

“I can’t wait to debate the guy,” Walz said, to cheers. Then he added: “That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”

The crowd roared with laughter.

“You see what I did there?” he said, clearly aware of the joke.

The joke refers to a meme that claims Vance had sex with a couch, based on a fake citation from his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

The meme was widely shared and repeated among “progressives” looking for something bad to say about Vance.

The author of the original hoax told Business Insider that the ease with which people believed his fake citation “hasn’t bolstered his faith in the critical-thinking skills of the electorate.”

Walz, supposedly bringing Midwest decency to the ticket, launched his campaign with a crude sexual joke — one based on deliberate misinformation.

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