It has been said that presidential candidates like to pick vice presidential running mates who will not overshadow them, and such is frequently done by picking running mates who are dumber than them. That hasn’t often been the case with Republicans, as Ronald Reagan chose the elder George Bush, who was very intelligent and qualified, the younger George Bush chose Richard Cheney, and Donald Trump picked J D Vance. But among the Democrats, yeah, it seems likely: Bill Clinton choosing Al Gore, Barack Obama running with Joe Biden, Mr Biden then running with Kamala Harris Emhoff, and Mrs Emhoff then going to the very bottom of the barrel, picking tampon Tim Walz.

From The New York Times:

Minnesota Pardons Sexual Abuser Who Was Set to Be Deported

Tou Lue Vang has expressed regret for abusing a 10-year-old two decades ago. The Trump administration accused Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, of shielding an immigrant who committed a serious crime.

By Hamed Aleaziz, Ernesto Londoño and Amy Qin | Wednesday, July 1, 2026

A three-person Minnesota panel including Gov. Tim Walz granted a pardon to an immigrant convicted of sexually abusing a child, drawing accusations that he and other Democrats are impeding federal efforts to expel dangerous foreign criminals eligible for deportation.

Shouldn’t that headline be “Minnesota Pardons Child Rapist Who Was Set to Be Deported”?

The Minnesota Board of Pardons granted the reprieve on June 10 to Tou Lue Vang, 42, who came to the United States as a child and was set to be deported to Laos imminently. Mr. Vang had submitted a letter to the board expressing regret for the actions that led to his 2005 conviction, and said a pardon could help him stay in the country with his wife and six children.

Mr. Vang’s victim, who was 10 when the abuse began, also submitted a letter supporting the pardon. Mr. Vang pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a plea deal that spared him from serving time in prison.

The pardon effectively wiped clean Mr. Vang’s criminal record, providing him an avenue to fight deportation.

There’s more at the original.

So, Mr Vang, sometime around age 18, raped a 10-year-old, but got a plea deal which allowed him to avoid prison. Under §609.342 Criminal Sexual Conduct in the First Degree, Subd. 1a, the penalty for such is up to thirty years in the state penitentiary. There are exceptions which allow non-incarceration, and the victim’s family pressured the then 12-year-old girl not to cooperate with the prosecution; that led to the probationary sentence.

Mr. Vang was around 18 when he first began abusing the girl, who was then 10 years old. Mr. Vang initially tried to defend his actions upon his arrest in 2005.

When a detective interviewed Mr. Vang, he acknowledged having had sexual contact with the girl and called it a “minor thing,” according to a criminal complaint. Mr. Vang blamed cultural norms in Thailand, according to the complaint.

You might, or perhaps might not, want to review what Minnesota defines as “sexual contact” with a person under 14, as the Times story used that euphemism.

The conviction led immigration officials to seek his deportation, and an immigration judge ordered him removed in 2006. But because Laos refused to accept deportees in large numbers, many ethnic Laotians and Hmong, including Mr. Vang, were allowed to remain in the United States on supervised release.

At least the Bush Administration tried to get rid of Mr Vang, though clearly did not try hard enough. He should have been taken to Laos and simply dumped there, if nothing else. Perhaps take him to sexual predator-friendly Thailand, drive him across, and just push him over the border.

I’ve said it before: sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the anus here] to do the right things!

That changed early last year when Mr. Trump returned to office, and Laos began to accept many of these stateless deportees with decades-old removal orders. Hundreds of people have since been deported to Laos.

That’s good; kick him out!

There’s some major Democrisy — you can easily see the etymology of that admittedly made-up word! — going on here. Our good friends on the left have been trying everything they possibly could to disqualify Donald Trump from the presidency, including claiming, to this day, that the Epstein files proved he was diddling underaged girls, despite the fact that, while those files were in the possession of the Justice Department under President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, who absolutely hates Republicans for denying him a Supreme court seat, the Biden Administration never found a single bit of evidence that such was true, yet state Attorney General Keith bin Ellison, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, and Governor Walz, Democrats all, decided to pardon a convicted child rapist, all to keep him in the United States, and, of course, fight President Trump’s policies.

I can understand how the left might have sympathy for illegal immigrants who have tried all along to be good people, but to attempt deliberately to keep a convicted sex offender in the country? Just how stupid can they be?