“There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” —Minnesota Governor Tim, December, 2022
When Walz used a fake story about Vance during the first speech as a vice-presidential candidate, I knew he was not to be trusted. (Of course, I knew before then. The way he handled the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis is disqualifying.) Walz himself had been the victim of a fake news story himself, yet he used a fake story to mock Vance, a fellow veteran, all to further the Democratic Party line about “weird”—this coming from the party of ball gags, drag queens, puppy play, and transing children. (It was Walz who came up with the idea to call Vance weird.)
A man saying he served in war when he didn’t is not “misspeaking.” It’s a deliberate misrepresentation of one’s biography and military service record. This is what the Harris campaign wants the public to think, that Walz “misspoke” about his military rank and exploits. People know whether they served in war or not. Walz was deployed to Italy in a support position of active military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. He never served in Afghanistan or Iraq. He therefore cannot say he served in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). This is stolen valor.
Unaware of Walz’s penchant for misrepresenting his record, the Harris-Walz campaign posted a (now removed) video of Walz, a hunter, speaking about his decision to change his position and support an assault weapons ban following the 2018 Parkland shooting. In the video, Walz states, “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” Walz did not carry weapons in war. (That the Harris-Walz campaign seeks to ban so-called assault weapons, i.e., certain semi-automatic rifles, it itself disqualifying.)
People also know what rank they’ve achieved. Walz claimed for years that he was a retired Command Sergeant Major, the highest rank possible for an enlisted man, but he always knew that this wasn’t true. Walz retired before completing coursework at the US Army Sergeants Major Academy, along with other requirements associated with his promotion. Walz in fact retired at the rank of Master Sergeant. To give you sense of the stretch, a Master Sergeant claiming to be a Command Sergeant Major would be like a Colonel claiming to be a General.
Which brings us to another misrepresentation: the timing of his retirement. According to the Guard, Walz retired from military service in May of 2005. In August 2005, the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit. The unit mobilized in October of that year before deploying to Iraq in March 2006. We’re told that Walz retired before the mobilization order. But Walz knew the mobilization order was pending. We know he knew this because, as he ramped up for a congressional bid in 2005, his campaign issued a statement in March saying he still planned to run despite a pending mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to the theater of operations. The media desperately wants to spin this, but Walz knew the order was imminent and he bailed. Others went in his place. His unit suffered casualties.
Walz leans into his biography for political purposes, so he has no excuses. I’ve now watched numerous videos of Walz misrepresenting his record or failing to correct his record when others misrepresent his biography. They misrepresent his record because the bio they’re sent by his staff provides facts about his record—facts that are false. Media elites trust Walz because they’re fellow progressives (this is why the Harris team did not properly vet Walz). They are therefore also to blame for building Walz into something he is not. Of course, Walz is the most deserving of blame here because he misrepresented himself. But he could not have gotten away with it for so long if the media hadn’t covered for him.
Combine these misrepresentations with his numerous extreme positions on matters of freedom and democracy—lockdowns, mandatory vaccination, parental rights, transing children—and he is beyond the pale. This is a man who has openly expressed his hostility towards free speech. In December 2022, Walz went on MSNBC to support censorship and deplatforming, declaring, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” This is a man whose biggest applause line is to tell everyone to “mind your own business,” yet set up a hotline in Minnesota for citizens to report residents who violated COVID-19 mandates. This is the Stasi mentality, and it is fundamentally un-American. A man who lies about his biography who presumes to tell other people what’s true and what’s false is a threat to democracy.
freedom and reason 