Stupider and Stupider and Stupider

Plus: Hate wins in Nashville, Tim Walz prances on thin ice, and NFL star shows off model girlfriend

Dec 05, 2025

It’s Friday, December 5, 2025.

First, an apology. We forgot to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of Tabin’s Law. It is arguably the most—if not the only—insightful observation ever posted on a social media platform. Here’s what the prophet John Tabin wrote on August 10, 2015, less than a week after the first Republican primary debate and Donald Trump’s infamous quip—at the time, anyway—about Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon.

In the decade that followed, America saw some shit. We elected a reality TV star, then a dementia patient, then the reality star again after the dementia patient was replaced by one of the worst candidates in history. We survived a global pandemic that started in a Chinese lab. George Floyd and everything that followed. A guided tour gone awry on Capitol Hill. That’s the hyper-abbreviated version. We’ve already forgotten most of the stupid things that happened in between. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. The banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $6.2 million at an “art” auction. The Jeb Bush campaign, etc.

The mid-August newsletter would have been a great place to honor the anniversary because that’s when Democrats were making some incredibly stupid arguments about crime (and whether trying to stop it was actually worse than doing nothing). Nevertheless, Tabin’s Law held true, and things have only gotten stupider since then. This week was no exception.

Home is where the hate is: A Democratic candidate named Aftyn Behn (neither typo nor satire) lost a special congressional election in Tennessee. The Republican candidate, Matt Van Epps, won by 9 percentage points. In 2024, Donald Trump won the district, which includes a large chunk of Nashville, by 22 points.

The Democratic swing was especially glaring because the absurdly named candidate was on tape denouncing Tennessee as a “racist” state and expressing her “hate” for Nashville and country music. She was merely echoing long-established planks of the Democratic Party’s national platform. That includes her suggestion during the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 that “burning down a police station is justified.”

Naturally, Behn won the Nashville part of the district with 78 percent of the vote. She celebrated by wearing a hideous rhinestone denim suit and singing—if you can call it that—Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” a song that talentless people should never attempt. You’ll probably hate country music, too, after watching the video of her performance.

You didn’t build that: Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass (D.) boasted last week about a “major milestone” in the city’s recovery efforts after wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 homes and structures in January. Bass, who flew to Ghana for a cocktail party while her city was on fire, announced that nearly a year later, the first home has been rebuilt. “Today is an important moment of hope,” she said.

Except it wasn’t. California’s bloated and dysfunctional (and Democrat-controlled) bureaucracy is still a place where all hope goes to die. No one is moving back into the property, which is owned by a developer who was already seeking permission to demolish the previous structure before the fire expedited the process for them. The mayor’s symbol of hope will serve as a model unit to show people whose houses burned down what their new homes could look like several years from now.

MAGA Mad Libs (Minnesota Edition): In an even more egregious example of a Democratic-run state disgracing itself on the national stage, what’s happening in Minnesota these days is almost too ridiculous to believe. What might have once been dismissed as a paranoid right-wing fever dream is actually happening. Something the preeminent fact-checker Daniel Dale might be ranting breathless about on CNN while a concerned Jake Tapper nods along.

It’s so bad that even the New York Times had to write an article about how Somali immigrants were “largely responsible” for the rampant fraud that has “swamped” Minnesota’s welfare system under Gov. Tim Walz (D.), the prancing moron and VP candidate once hailed as a paragon of modern masculinity. Last month, a Democrat-appointed judge overturned the conviction of a Somali fraudster who stole more than $7 million via Minnesota’s Medicaid program.

Fraud isn’t the only crime that the state’s authorities have been reluctant to enforce. The local Fox affiliate in Minneapolis reported this week that a 28-year-old Somali immigrant was charged with kidnapping and raping a woman in September, less than six months after he was convicted of two prior sexual assaults—including one involving a 15-year-old girl. For reasons that defy conventional explanation, the convicted felon served no prison time.

Crucial context: Walz is running for reelection next year, which means Republicans could try to exploit his incompetence by running a serious challenger who can offer a less insane alternative.

Meanwhile, on Air Force One: The president of the United States stood by his social media post describing Walz as “seriously retarded.” Reporters were offended, obviously, but Trump didn’t budge. “I think there’s something wrong with him, absolutely,” he said. Days later, the White House urged Americans to enjoy “the holidays” in what can only be described as a stunning retreat in the long-running War on Christmas.

Failed politician turns to journalism: Matt Gaetz, the disgraced former GOP congressman from Florida, covered this week’s press briefing at the Pentagon. That’s pretty sad, but also a refreshing twist on the (liberal) journalist to (Democratic) politician pipeline most recently exemplified by New York Times columnist Nick Kristof (ran for governor of Oregon) and CNN host John Avlon (ran for Congress in New York). Don’t forget Jay Carney, who left his job as Washington bureau chief of Time magazine to become Barack Obama’s press secretary.

Trash panda gets trashed: In a somewhat related development, an enterprising raccoon broke into an ABC store in Ashland, Va., and passed out drunk in the bathroom after making a mess.

More stupid things that happened:

CNN announced an exclusive partnership with Kalshi, the prediction market that lets users bet on practically anything, including which topics a CNN host will discuss on the air. This might actually give the failing network’s “talent” an avenue to recoup losses from impending cuts to their exorbitant salaries.
The New York Times appears to have updated its style guide. A recent article expressed contempt for the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken existing regulations on “vehicles that burn gasoline.” The esteemed paper also published a sob story about a California woman who suffered immensely after buying a $456 trench coat from the Netherlands and getting stuck with a hefty tariff bill.
The Times was on a roll this week. They also convened a panel of “experts” to pontificate about the significance of “rural aesthetics” among the vast majority of normal Americans that most mainstream journalists regard as a kind of alien species. They seemed to agree that it was impossible to discuss the popularity of jeans, flannel shirts, and cowboy boots without raising “the specter of racism ... or genteel womanhood.” They also discussed country music, which, as Aftyn Behn could probably tell you, was “invented as a consequence of anxiety about race.”

Palate cleanser: Nick Bosa, the star defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, refuses to let a season-ending ACL tear prevent him from playing the field. The NFL stud debuted his new girlfriend, model/influencer Ella Ailiff, in a TikTok post over the weekend.

Crucial context: Bosa’s ex-girlfriend, Lauren Maenner, placed third on the Washington Free Beacon‘s official power rankings of the hottest WAGs of Super Bowl LVIII in 2024. She appears to be enjoying the bachelorette lifestyle.