> Baggers, does it feel weird to be in a pro-pedophile party?

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is blasting Gov. Tim Walz after the Minnesota Board of Pardons granted clemency to a Hmong man facing deportation to Laos for raping a 10-year-old girl more than 20 years ago.

The pardon removes the underlying reason for Tou Lue Vang’s current deportation proceedings, according to Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, but the Trump administration can choose not to restore his green card and restart the proceedings.

“Gov. Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement Wednesday.

Vang was 18 when he started assaulting his victim in 2002. He received a removal order in 2006, the year of his conviction.

But because Laos had no repatriation agreement with the United States, Vang — like many Southeast Asian refugees with deportation orders — remained in the country for nearly two decades, marrying and raising six children.

The Trump administration has escalated deportations of people of Southeast Asian heritage, sending hundreds to Laos last year. Many deportees were young children when they entered the country as refugees, only to commit deportable crimes decades ago that ended their chances of attaining citizenship.

The Vang case has also given the Trump administration and Minnesota Republicans an evocative new example for one of their most potent political attacks: that Democrats are too soft on crime and immigration enforcement.

On June 10, the Board of Pardons — consisting of Walz, Ellison and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson — voted to purge Vang’s felony sexual assault conviction. The deciding factor was a letter from Vang’s victim saying she forgave him and supported his pardon.

“What happened to me was wrong, but I have had many years to think about this,” the victim’s letter read. “I have made my peace with it. I forgive him. That was a long time ago.”

“He is not the same person now. I have seen how he has changed,” the letter went on. “I believe he is sorry for what he did. I want his family to stay together here. His children need their father. He and his wife have built a life. I believe that he has learned and grown since the abuse and that the family has suffered enough. Please grant this pardon. That is my wish.”

Vang, now 42, addressed the board before the vote and expressed remorse for his actions.

“What I did was wrong. It was a serious crime. She was a child,” he said. “I took something from her that she cannot get back. From my heart, I am very sorry to the victim, sorry to other people who I hurt by these actions.“

Vang said he grew up without his father, who died in Thailand when he was 6 years old. He said he was in special education all his years in school. When he was arrested, he said he blamed his culture for the offense, “but that was a lie.”

“There’s no culture that makes what I did acceptable,” he said.

Vang’s lawyer, Winona Yang, told the board that he completed treatment afterward and never reoffended.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Vang, opposed his pardon. Tami McConkey, director of the office’s Victim, Witness and Postconviction Justice Division, wrote that Vang received a lighter sentence of 30 years probation for the offense because the victim “was experiencing pressure from her family to not cooperate.”

McConkey said the abuse occurred over two years, from January 2002 through July 2004. Vang abused the girl in her own home and on one occasion drove her to his home and abused her there, McConkey said.

“While Mr. Vang expresses shame and regret about what his children experience when [they] learn of the offense, he does not share any thoughts or insight about what the victim must have gone through,” McConkey said.

Before voting to pardon Vang, Hudson said “the victim’s statement here is very significant for me.”

“We’ve seen some evidence here of rehabilitation,” Hudson said. The justice declined to comment further on Thursday.

Walz and Ellison said they supported Vang’s pardon but did not elaborate more during the board meeting.

Walz’s spokesperson referred back to the victim’s support letter and declined to comment further on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Ellison said the board’s unanimous decision to grant Vang’s pardon came “after an exhaustive process which included a statement of support for the pardon from the victim, a recommendation to grant the pardon from the Clemency Review Commission and a large number of community support letters.”

Ellison’s spokesperson added that the Department of Homeland Security is “lying through their teeth” about the pardon, saying it does not protect Vang from deportation.

“Before Trump and his allies say a word about what anyone else does, they should stop pardoning pedophiles, fraudsters, and law-enforcement assaulting insurrectionists‚" the spokesperson said. “It’s baffling that the media would highlight this singular decision from a month ago based on a false statement from an agency that has lied repeatedly to the American people.”

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Cold Spring Republican who is running for governor, said Walz and Ellison “weaken public safety and pardon heinous crimes.”

The Trump administration still refuses to release the uncensored Epstein files, despite a court order to do so.

Nester wrote:

How come you support Biden and all the democrat pedos?

Let's compare lists. Here is my list of over 1500 conservatives who raped, molested, and even murdered children.

https://www.dailykos.com/user/cajsalilliehook/ [Questionable Source (Libz)]

Now, you show your list.

Nester wrote:

you are kidding me right?

No. Show a list of the Dem pedos. Please have it link back to the original stories as the DailyKos writer did.

We can compare your list and mine. Since you are so deeply concerned about all these Dem pedos, I am sure your side has a well-researched list available.

My list has over 1500 conservative pedos and perverts. Of course Trump is in there at least once or twice.

Nester wrote:

I didnt support Biden

So you don't have a list of Dems who raped, abused, and even murdered children? Because my list has over 1500 conservatives who did that.

All you have is "Biden is a pedo"

Well, okay, if we accept that (which is there is absolutely zero evidence that Biden is a pedo)

That means you have 1 to my 1500+

So, conservatives are the party of pedos.

And in case you missed it, one of your beloved candiates let a child fuqer off the hook:  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/montana- … d68678175f

wrote:

Let's compare lists. Here is my list of over 1500 conservatives who raped, molested, and even murdered children.

https://www.dailykos.com/user/cajsalilliehook/ [Questionable Source (Libz)]

Now, you show your list.

Google use it

Iman wrote:

Google use it

Yeah, I did that. No lists of pedo dems were found.  So why don’t you share with us your list. Since you said this is such a serious issue. Let’s see all the pedo dems out there.

June wrote:

Bad in both parties

Is it though?

I posted a list of 1500+ conservatives who fuqed, abused, molested, and even murdered children. The list is thorough and cites its sources for every single incident.

So far your side has produced "Biden took showers with his granddaughter" which is really just a right-wing screech based on a rumor and has little to no real proof that he did that. In contrast every single entry in the list I provided links to news stories, court cases, arrest records, and proven information.   

At this point its about 1500 to barely 1. So based on this empirical analysis, it is not "bad in both parties" it is substantially and numerically much, much worse in the GOP.

How about producing a list of Dem pedos.

https://www.reddit.com/r/millenials/com … _liked_to/

Being Republican means being a pedo.

wrote:

Each of the 1500 baggers posting here can just post one. I had to look back a long way - like an hour - to find the first one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics … -campaign/

If you can call a 16 year old a child I can call any liberal woman a child.

Yeah, not how this works. See any person under 18 is considered a child in the eyes of the law. So when Matt Gaetz or Donald Trump inserted their penis into a person under 18, that's called being a pedophile.

Now, a list of 1500+ conservatives was posted who molested and fuqed children. How about you guys get busy posting that list of Dems that fuqed children.

wrote:

You mean like the 1500 conservatives who fuqed, molested, and even murdered children? I don't think any such law passed. How about you post that list of Dem pedos. Still waiting for it.

The hysterical talking point obviously isn’t working. Nobody believes it, if anything the perverts & weirdos are mainly creepy Dems. Latest is Pete Buttigieg and the weird harpy husband and weird black kids they bought. Biden, Hunter, Podesta, Clinton, Epstein, Smallwell, Platner, etc etc.

Luckily for our great country Trump has consistently been hounded by paps since the 1980s and sticks with the long tall supermodel arm candy as accessories , has no interest in stupid pre-obese whiny trailer trash underage prostitutes. Was never on that nasty island & cut ties with Epstein.