There are plenty of questions about the attack on Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar at a town hall this week, including whether the official story about it adds up.
The vinegar-spray “truther” argument, made logically, was best expressed by the conservative social media pundit who goes by DataRepublican, who put her thoughts about the Tuesday attack thusly: “Representative Omar continued her town hall because of one of two options: 1. She does not have the self-preservation instincts accompanying being sprayed with a smelly substance, such as getting a doctor to check it out or even as simple as washing it off. 2. She staged it.”
“There are no other options,” she said.
Representative Omar continued her town hall because of one of two options:
1. She does not have the self-preservation instincts accompanying being sprayed with a smelly substance, such as getting a doctor to check it out or even as simple as washing it off.
2. She staged it.…
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) January 28, 2026
This is a fair way of framing what happened, although for those who gravitate toward No. 2 and question the official account that has developed in recent days, I will merely note this: To say that you marvel at Rep. Omar’s lack of capacity for self-preservation or intelligent decision-making could indicate insufficient familiarity with her life, both public and private. But, who knows?
However, option No. 3 — presented by Rep. Omar herself to question her decision-making in the wake of the attack — beggars belief: She was more afraid of “losing my dignity” than she was of dying from poisoning.
So, a quick recap about what we know about Tuesday night’s incident in Minneapolis: During one of these inane “town hall” events, Rep. Omar was talking about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as impeaching Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem because of the fact that she has the temerity to enforce immigration law.
A man, now identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, allegedly yelled “she’s not resigning, you’re splitting Minnesotans apart” as he ran up to the podium and sprayed a liquid on her from a syringe. He was then tackled and taken into custody.
Noting that she’d been sprayed with something and that it was pretty odiferous (authorities would later identify the substance as apple cider vinegar), her people urged her to get checked out, at the very least. Omar refused: “We will continue,” she said, angrily. “These f***ing a**holes are not going to get away with this.”
WARNING: This video contains expletives and may be offensive to some viewers.
MOMENTS AGO: Major disturbance at Ilhan Omar’s town hall event.
Someone sprayed Omar with a substance as she was calling for Secretary Noem to resign or face impeachment.
She continued to speak afterward. pic.twitter.com/zZNWFVvyG5
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 28, 2026
This was indeed pretty stupid, as nobody reported virtually anything she said before or after. Her statement about this act of “bravery” did get some brief play in the media — “I survived war, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think that they can throw at me, because I’m built that way,” she said — but by Wednesday everyone had pretty much forgotten about this and had moved to fresher stuff, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Kazmierczak, meanwhile, faces both state and federal charges and will, if convicted, likely spend a not-insignificant chunk of his time behind bars. Authorities said in court documents that he had a history of anti-Omar statements made both online and offline.
This is still effectively inexplicable from a number of angles — and to a certain extent, political crimes of passion are, definitionally. I suppose we can thank the heavens this wasn’t any worse than it was, but actual assassinations and assassination attempts — from James Garfield to Charlie Kirk — make as much sense as the alleged motivations behind this. Ronald Reagan was almost killed by a guy who thought it’d impress Jodie Foster, after all.
However, as comedian and conservative pundit Terrence K. Williams pointed out, he “spoke with Poison Control” and the instructions he was given in such a situation “were very clear and you didn’t follow any of them.”
Now, given that Kazmierczak is charged and the official story is out there, all Omar had to do was stay quiet and let voices like Williams talk themselves silly. That’s literally all she had to do. We’re talking about her again, so guess what: That’s not what she did.
“I didn’t do any of those things because I fear losing my dignity more than I fear losing my life,” Omar said in a quote-post. “Something you coward losers will never understand. So f*** off.”
WARNING: The following post contains vulgar language that some viewers will find offensive.
I didn’t do any of those things because I fear losing my dignity more than I fear losing my life. Something you coward losers will never understand. So fuck off. https://t.co/dVrhvI46Xd
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 29, 2026
So, just to be clear, her explanation is now that she risked her life to maintain something that exists only in her own mind, if it exists there at all. (I suspect it doesn’t, but this is just a guess as to how cognizant Omar is of her shamelessness, which is the best I can do.)
A quick recap of her career: After Omar was elected in 2018, her past anti-Semitic statements on social media came to light. She apologized for her past anti-Semitic remarks, then continued to make them, then had her far-left confederates in the House tone down a censure resolution about those new anti-Semitic statements to the point where it was so toothless and kumbaya in its terms I was halfway surprised Nancy Pelosi didn’t start singing “Free to Be You and Me” on the floor as it was introduced.
Then, a longstanding rumor that she’d committed immigration fraud via a sham marriage to a Somali-born man who was her brother also came to light; while this rumor has never really been dispelled in any official manner, and she filed joint tax returns with a man who wasn’t yet her husband for two years while she was still legally married to the man it’s alleged is her brother, mentioning the allegation invariably draws condemnations from a media that claims you’re engaging in “unfounded claims” about her past.
Somewhat more founded is the allegation that she cheated on her real not-brother husband — the one she filed the joint tax returns with — with a man who was her campaign consultant, Tim Mynett. She broke up his marriage and eventually married him, but continued to pay him millions in taxpayer money for his “consulting services” despite running in a district safer than asserting Keith Richards may, at some point in his life, have broken drug laws somewhere.
More recently, she’s helped stoke the violence in Minnesota, including with an unfounded claim that her son was pulled over by DHS officials. She’s also painted the Somali community in Minnesota as the real victims of the massive multi-billion-dollar entitlement fraud scheme perpetrated by, um, members of the Somali community in Minnesota — an act of moral prestidigitation that takes unwarranted courage, if perhaps not dignity:
ICE has absolutely ZERO record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son.
With no evidence, it is shameful that Congresswoman Omar would level accusations to demonize ICE as part of a PR stunt.
Allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are… https://t.co/WKTz0rpir1
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) December 16, 2025
.@IlhanMN says Somalis in Minnesota are actually the victims of the massive fraud scandal in which 91% of the perpetrators are of Somali descent: “It’s been really frustrating!” pic.twitter.com/T5ODvFjYe1
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 7, 2025
To the extent that we do not believe the attack against Omar, it’s partially that she’s the extremist who’s cried wolf, the perpetual soi disant victim of America whenever she just so happens to be the perpetrator of some outrage against decency and propriety.
It’s also because, at a meaningless town hall event, she continued saying meaningless, unreported things after getting sprayed with an unknown substance, all in an act that defies intelligent human response. The best argument in her defense, naturally, is that a lack of intelligent human response is effectively what she’s built a life and a career upon, so why stop now?
But dignity? Now that beggars belief.
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