Rep. Drunken Van Orden, like many Republicans, is refusing to hold a town hall meeting with his constituents because he knows that there is hell to pay (not to be confused with Hell Toupee, whom he loves and worships). So, to help out, Rep Mark Pocan held a town hall meeting just miles from DVO’s district. Pocan reported that people drove for two hours to get to his meeting, because they were in desparate need for answers and DVO was not speaking to them..
In response, DVO had his people arrange a hasty, last minute, seat of the pants virtual town hall on Facebook. Needless to say, it did not go well. In fact, it was such an epic failure that it caught Rachel Maddow’s attention:
MADDOW: Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan was here on this show last night to talk about holding an in-person town hall in Wisconsin near the district of Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden, who apparently won’t meet with people in his district in person. But, hey, what do you know, after Mark Pocan did that this weekend, met with Congressman Derrick Van Orden’s constituents this past weekend, and then after he got a ton of local press coverage for having done that, after he was here last night to talk about having done that, wouldn’t you know, hey, today, Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden did decide to hastily get on Facebook live and call that a town hall. today, in the middle of the workday.. Maybe because it seemed to have been organized on quite short notice. it did not go great.. I’ll show you what I mean.. See if you can follow his logic here.
DVO: When the DOGE group got together and they went with the different agencies and they said that they need to target, they need to try to target a certain amount of folks for employment, that was handed over to the agency. So, all the people that you’ve heard about being released from different agencies, that was on the agency itself, that had nothing to do with DOGE. So, let’s remember that there’s also a way to seek redress. If you think that there’s somebody out there that should not have been terminated for employment, get ahold of the DOGE folks directly or through us, and we’ll help try to rectify that.
MADDOW: So, first of all, all these firings of people who have federal government jobs, that has nothing to do with DOGE, it totally wasn’t them. Also, there’s a system that if you think somebody’s been fired who shouldn’t have been, and the system is that you should call DOGE, you should get ahold of the DOGE folks directly, he says. go ahead or through us. Congressman Van Orden says he can help you get in touch with the DOGE folks directly, because that’s the redress system. In case anybody has been fired from the federal government who shouldn’t be. That’s the system. Congressman Derrick Van Orden, the Wisconsin Republican whose constituents are right now only getting in-person meetings with the congressman when a nearby Democratic congressman decides to host them.
To be fair, DVO is having a really hard week already. First, he had to vote for a budget bill to keep government open but he hates to have a functioning government. Then, Rebecca Cooke, the woman he barely edged out in November, announced she’s running again in 2026. Judging from early reactions, DVO and his fellow Republicans are scared shitless. And now, even though he supports DOGE and the damage President Elmo and Felonia are causing, he is expected to actually defend it?
That’s more than a town drunk should have to deal with!
