Now that May is here, it’s time to complete the April Moron of the Month nominations. For this final round, we have three nominees from the southern division. Next week I’ll put the four “winners” from all divisions up to a full vote of CO Nation.
Our first nominee today arose during the raging debate about whether Trump should be allowed to do what all presidents before him were allowed to do – i.e. deport people who came here illegally. In their zeal to jump on a political grenade, and thus cling like grim death to the 5% side of a 95-5 political issue, the Dems scoured the countryside to find what I’ve called “a self-detonating hero.”
First they picked Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Hamas activist at Columbia. But since he was here on a student visa, he wasn’t a good pawn for the Dems who were trying to scare Americans that American citizens could be deported next. So they went looking for an innocent, sympathetic American citizen whom Trump’s Gestapo illegally deported…annnnnndddd… they couldn’t find one.
Because they’re lying, and Trump isn’t deporting squeaky clean seminarians who are also American citizens.
So they eventually landed on Kilmar Abrego Garcia and said, “Close enough. He’s married to an American citizen and has a couple of citizen kids, so we’ll call him a ‘Maryland father’ and lean in on the pathos.”
This struck many elected Dems as a great idea, and one of them elbowed his way to the front of that low-IQ pack. This man, and today’s first nominee, is Senator Chris Van Hollen, a man so bland that even a political junkie like me could not have recognized his face or his name a month ago. (And I remember that Senator Flat-Top from Montana who just lost was named Jon Tester.)
If you had put a gun to my head in March and said, “Tell me who Chris Van Hollen is or I’ll blow your head off!” I would have immediately started flop-sweating and guessing.
“Um, the black guy who’s reasonable about 10% of the time?” (No, that’s Van Jones.)
“Uh, the great Irish singer?” (That’s Van Morrison.)
“Okay… that space thing?” (You mean the Van Allen Belt?)
“The classical pianist?” (That’s Van Cliburn.)
“Just shoot me already!”
And, scene.
Anyway, this mediocre man took one look at Kilmar the tattooed wife beater (allegedly) (but c’mon!), and saw his big chance. He ran in front of the cameras and began to pontificate. “Donald Trump’s midnight kidnapping and subsequent illegal deportation of my constituent Kilmar cannot be allowed to stand! I am going to go to El Salvador myself, and demand to see him!”
And the reporters all looked at each other. Then one said, “And you are?”
And Van Hollen drew himself up to his full height – probably 5’5”, though I haven’t checked – and said, “Senator Chris Van Hollen!”
After a long moment of blank stares, one reporter pointed to him and said, “Ooh! Were you the drummer, when Eddie was shredding on the guitar and Roth was the front man?!”
“Um, no. That was Alex Van Halen. I’m Chris Van Hollen.”
And the reporters gave a disappointed groan. “Awwww.”
But they soon realized that they might be able to use what’s-his-name to hurt Trump, if it turned out that Kilmar had been tortured in El Salvador. So they encouraged his delusions of relevance, and followed him south.
You know the rest. Van Hollen flew to El Salvador, bloviated for the cameras, and eventually got to go on a dream date with everyone’s favorite Maryland man.
They stared deep into each other’s eyes, while Van Hollen stroked Kilmar’s hand — although that may have been to try to cover up the gang tattoos – while Kilmar whispered in a throaty Spanish accent, “My turn-ons are long walks on the beach, giving my wife a pop when she gets a little mouthy, and human trafficking. My turn-offs are the rule of law and Hulk Homan™.”
It was a PR disaster. (Unexpectedly!)
Within two weeks, Van Hollen went from total unknown, to vaguely recognizable opportunist, to political poison. When several elected Dems with ten-cent heads followed in his footsteps and flew to El Salvador a few days later, the party leaders had a fit. Hakeem Jeffries had to make a humiliating public statement: No more going to El Salvador, you morons.
Our second nominee is an old favorite: the Pale Pawnee, the Translucent Tonkawa, the Land o’ Lakes Butter Maiden come to life… Grandma Squanto Warren! (#wemustneverstopmockingher)
She might have qualified based on one tweet alone, from April 21st. She was responding to Trump’s announcement that student loan repayment was going to re-start, after 5 years of using covid as an excuse for embracing dead-beat borrower status.
This was one of Trump’s most popular actions, and a smart politician would have kept her powder dry on this one. Or I guess in her case, her arrows quivered?
But not “Ghost Dances with Entitlement.” She fired off this tweet: “This decision is all about punishing student loan borrowers. Instead of lowering costs, Trump wants to take money out of your grandma’s Social Security check.”
What can you even say about that? Other than, “Shameless!” and “Feh!” Insisting that borrowers pay what they owe is “punishing them?” And why drag grandma and her social security check into this?
But that wasn’t Warren’s low-light of the month. Because that came in the podcast interview she did with a guy named Sam Fragoso — and if you haven’t seen it, you should.
Fragoso comes across as a non-threatening presence – he’s got the vibe of somebody who might be halfway through a transition, and I’m not sure which direction he’s going in. But he has enough integrity to at least push back when Warren is obviously lying.
The topic was Biden’s mental condition, and when Fragoso asked if she regretted saying that “Biden had a mental acuity” and “a sharpness to him,” Lizzie tried. After an awkward pause, she said, “I said what I believed to be true.”
When Fragoso gently followed up, “Do you think he was as sharp as you?” it caught her by surprise. She let the mask slip for a moment, and almost laughed at that absurd idea, before salvaging a careful, “I…said that… I had not seen a decline.”
A few seconds later, she gave it the old war-path try: “The thing is… he… Look. He was sharp, he was on his feet, I saw him, live event—”
Fragoso once again showed more integrity than the MSM hacks she is used to dealing with, because he interrupted her with a little sarcasm: “Senator, ‘on his feet’ is not praise! He can speak in sentences is not praise.”
And Liz visibly crumbled, shaking her head and grimacing guiltily. “All right. Fair enough, fair enough.”
Her surrender couldn’t have been more clear if she had recited the last lines of her ancestor, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce’s famous surrender speech: “Hear me, my chiefs; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
Of course, she’s a phony politician, and her interviewer is sympathetic to the leftist cause. So when she followed with the lamest rhetorical escape attempt – saying, “The question is… what are we going to do now?” Fragoso said okay, and let her move on to talking about how the Dems are going to resist Trump.
But for that brief, shining moment, she looked as dumb as she had when she proudly announced that her DNA test proved that she was Native American
.0000023 % Native American!
My final nominee is a departure, in that it is not an individual, but a group: the baristas who work at a small, upscale chain of Minnesota coffee shops called Café Ceres.
Last fall, the coffee-slingers at all four locations voted to unionize, and then started a six-month negotiation. Though they ended up earning in the range of $25-30 an hour with tips, plus 80% coverage of their insurance premiums, that was not enough. They also demanded “a role in managing the business” including deciding where the chain sourced its milk, and the right to wear pro-Hamas pins at work.
Annnnddddd…the owners said screw it, and closed the business. (Unexpectedly!)
To which the only reasonable response is one firm blast from the sad trombone (Wah, wahhhh!), followed by a chorus of, “Ha! HA! HA HA! HA HA HA!”
The denouement of this episode of “FAFO Comes to Breakfast” was a hilariously tone-deaf and delusional press release from the entitled workers, after they discovered that the real minimum wage is zero:
“We bargained with the company for 6 months, fighting them each step of the way to include immigration protections, fair wages, healthcare, and to secure DEI values…. We’re devastated…. We’re now faced with the harsh reality of finding new work and making last minute plans to stay secure.”
You mean that your employer wasn’t eager to put up with your stupid DEI values, just for the privilege of trying to manage a group of surly employees who “fight them every step of the way?” The hell you say!
They’ve got one thing right, though: they are now facing harsh reality.
And if they can actually look in a mirror, and learn from this experience – throwing the pro-Hamas pin in the trash would also be a good move – it might not be too late for some of them to avoid that particular circle of Dante’s Inferno that they had been heading for.
I’m speaking, of course, of the Circle of the Bitter, Entitled, Leftist Cat Ladies.
Because as their former employers and boyfriends who dodged that bullet warn anyone willing to listen, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter there!”
Okay CO nation, place your votes…
…and Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 