I Can Honestly Say…

…that if Ilhan Omar were a white, Presbyterian, Christian, humble, quiet-spoken conservative with an actual record of public service who said crap like this, I’d be mocking, taunting and condemning him – er, her, or whatever – with just as much schadenfreudy glee as I am today.

Because they’d both have it coming.

First – the rumor mill:

I’m starting to get the feeling that whole “accepting gays” thing Democrats jabber about is just a ploy…

And, yes, there’s the whole “antisemitic” bit:

Another Omar tweet from 2012 has drawn accusations of anti-Semitism against the congresswoman, who was appointed to a seat on the House Foreign Relations Committee by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday. 
“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” Omar tweeted during an Israeli military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

Given that the DFL is the party of intersectionality, it’s nothing she can’t fix among Democrats by declaring herself a lesbian and using it to shame any (white, Jewish, Democrat) critics that might pop up.

Which they won’t.

49 thoughts on “I Can Honestly Say…

  1. Some of that ‘evidence based reasoning’ the Left prides itself on!
    So how many professors at the the universities in the 5th district voted for Omar? All of them? Is it true that Omar thinks that senators represent districts and not states? If the people of the 5th would send a stupid liar to DC, why wouldn’t they vote for Trump?

  2. OK, Graham is a closeted homosexual in a party that stood (many still stand) against same sex mirage, and in a church that continues to hold that homosexuality is a sin.

    This reminds me of all the times people accused pork-munching booze-swilling Barack Obama of being a closeted Muslim. If either is true, they’re doing a darned good job hiding it.

  3. Isn’t Senator Graham in Turkey? Did Graham fly commercial to Turkey? Is he there for the Turkish baths or visiting Erdoğan

  4. I believe Senator Graham is in Turkey, yes. Why would it matter how he got there? Are you insinuating something improper with his presence in that fine NATO ally?

  5. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom is none of my damn business, when they start parading around in public it then becomes an issue. But this attack on Graham is for him unloading on the Left during the farcical Kavanaugh hearings. If they really had anything on him it would have come out during the 3 ring circus. Also is it just me or is Emerys threadjacks becoming really half assed now

  6. So she’s a sexual orientation bigot. Big deal. Lots of people are, in Congress and out. A more interesting question relates to her new job on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

    Rep. Omar is a celebrated Muslim who has publicly proclaimed her dislike for Jews in general and Israel in particular, on religious grounds. Now, she’s been appointed to the government committee responsible for making foreign policy. Liberals constantly lecture me on the separation of Church and State – that’s why the Senate had to vigorously interrogate Catholic nominees for federal jobs.

    Shouldn’t Rep. Omar be disqualified from any actions relating to Israel, on account of her demonstrated religious bias?

  7. It’s not a threadjack, PoD… well, not an explicit one anyway… and I’d like to know what he’s insinuating.

  8. Trump refused military air service for a congressional visit to Afghanistan.

    Melania Trump flies to West Palm in government plane despite shutdown ~ The Miami Herald, 01-17-2019

  9. Trump did refuse the Pelosi junket. And? He was just trying to make sure she was around town in case she decided to stop the shutdown.

    Melania isn’t needed for shutdown discussions.

    Still unclear about those Graham insinuations tho’. Some people might think the worst of those insinuations – just like those of our esteemed Muslim rep – and think you were a nasty little troll. But I gave you a chance to explain yourself. And bring it all back to the actual thread in question. But no, nasty little gamma troll it is.

  10. And since the point of this thread has been lost anyway, here’s another random thought: if a person does the right thing for the wrong reason, is it still the right thing?

    Married guys will recognize the frustration of hearing: “I don’t want you to go to the party because I want you to go, I want You to want to go.” In that case, doing it for the wrong reason isn’t good enough, she wants you to do for the right reason.

    Similarly, Muslims in Congress who hate Jews and want them to die, and certain America First Conservatives who don’t particularly care about Jews but prefer to focus on our own nation’s problems, agree the United States should spend less time and money meddling in Middle Eastern affairs. If Rep. Omar’s work on the House Foreign Affairs Committee resulted in distancing our nation from the region, offering peace, commerce and honest friendship to all nations – entangling alliances with none – she’d be doing a good thing for a bad reason. So is it still a good thing?

    Maybe a useful idiot can still be useful? It’s a conundrum.

  11. I can’t help myself – I’m totally inspired by Emery. I’m on a thread jack roll.

    If Gillette put up an ad instructing Black men not to rob liquor stores, would that be so bad? After all, everyone’s against stealing, right? Just because they use a few Black men in the ad, that’s not a group slur on ALL Black men, implying they’re ALL thieves, right? Who could object?

    If some secret trillionaire bought Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, Twitter and YouTube, then decided they’d no longer post anything that mentions Liberal talking points, would it be a problem? The companies are not the government, they’re a private. Entertainment is not a right like speech or religion, and Liberals are not a protected group like Black or Muslim, so it’s not a form of prohibited discrimination. De-platforming and de-monetizing the political opposition is perfectly acceptable, right? Who could object?

  12. If you were really inspired by Emery, JD, you’d stop writing entertaining and interesting threadjacks that state your ideas and opinions outright. You need to more mealymouthed and make sleazy accusations by insinuation only.

    And use other people’s work without attribution too.

  13. Trump could just put up a large panel on the border with a picture of a squirrel on it. Much cheaper and less trouble.

  14. Wayne Dupree had a funny take on Trump cancelling Pelosi’s trip last night. It’s on YouTube.

  15. jdm: This is the skill set of a non-strategist.

    Let’s dissect that 89 percent approval rating among Republican voters. Maybe half or less of that number are hard-core Ann Coulter-following, Trump-base voters; the rest are simply Republicans. Trump’s intransigence on The Wall suggests that he fears a fracture in this base (call them the 45 percent?) which might join with establishment Republicans and select another candidate. This
    scenario becomes highly probable if Special Counsel Mueller releases a base- fracturing report or set of indictments.

    This is the modern Republican party dynamic, mostly recently demonstrated in the House, where a minority of the caucus prevented and prevents the entire caucus from making compromises which permits regular business to go forward. All litmus-test issues become deal blockers and reasons to shut down the government and create a governing crisis.

    However, successive governing crisis eventually demonstrate to the wider public a lack of capacity at governance.

    The crucial success factor of American economic society is that it works. Shutting it down repeatedly goes against this society’s natural order.

    A majority is moving away. The House elections demonstrated that. Polling suggests that many Republican senators are in peril in 2020 — and for certain the Republican majority in the Senate is at risk.

    So Trump craves approval from his party’s minority of the electorate while voters at large who had supported Republican governance of the US are moving away by the millions.

    Today, it is members of the Republican Senate caucus that are the true hostages, and the number of these incumbents being offered up for decimation to voters next year by Trump is growing by the day. Trump is creating a huge schism in the Republican party, one not likely to be repaired anytime soon

  16. Imagine you live in a castle in Eastern Europe in the 1200’s. Your family lives in the castle but the rest of your subjects live outside the castle where they tend the flocks and fields. They only move into the castle in times of war.

    You’re seeing an increasing number of refugees coming over the hill, more every day, fleeing armies called “Mongol” who seem to be an unstoppable conquering force. The refugees want to live in the castle with you.

    How many refugees can you take in, without overwhelming your resources? How many outsiders can you protect, instead of your own people? When the Mongol Horde arrives, how many souls will you leave outside The Wall?

    What if you don’t have a Wall, only a few piles of stones here and there?

    America is the castle. Socialism is the horde. We already have the refugees on our borders. We need to finish The Wall.

  17. I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is . . . more thread-jack.

    Remember in junior high when some meathead would ask “You want to get punched?” so of course, you said no and he punched you anyway, saying “Today is opposite day!” Would you consider that guy to be a “strategist?” No. He was simply reversing everything, mindlessly, whether it made sense or not. It’s the junior high version of the Lord of Misrule.

    Liberals are like that. They saw American society in 1950 and decided they were against it. All of it. Like Professor Wagstaff in Horse Feathers, whatever it is, they’re against it. So they decided they must change it. All of it.

    Marriage is out, shacking up is in. Commitment is out, no-fault divorce is in. States are out, federal is in. Americans are out, the Third World is in. Burly men are out, pajama boys are in. Earning is out, welfare is in. Duty, honor, and country are out, the peace dividend is in.

    Oddly, the topsy-turvy world doesn’t work as well as the old one did, but Liberals don’t connect poor performance to ridiculous ideas. They simply need to flip even more things! Bathrooms. Halloween costumes. Pronouns. Razor blades. We’re making a better world. What could go wrong?

  18. Nice, JD. It’s interesting how Mr Threadjack is so concerned about the various factions in the Republican party. It’s almost as if he knows that the Left never exhibits any divergence or independent thinking: it always just an issue of power. The Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks, and the Nazis: who’ll win this round of musical chairs?

    As I recall, PoD, you’re a youngin’. You *should* be going out on a Friday and getting hammered. 😉

  19. eh 32 aint that young, and going out getting hammered just aint my style, I never do it. Tonight will be an exception though

  20. JD: One simple test for any new Democratic challenger — is he or she advocating economically centrist progressivism that will lift the living standards of the median American family or is he or she advocating redistribution from the top to the bottom (and skipping over the middle)? Easy mistake to make; deadly for long-term viability of a political party.

    Another test would be advocating higher labor participation with more rewards going to more work all across the wage spectrum (redistributing into that vast middle of the American economy) by broadening benefits, better wage bargaining, reining in the gig economy, more skill building education, parental care and child care policies that truly mobilize women in the workforce. Or is this going to be about mailing checks to “clients,” some “walking around money” for the supporters? 

    The idea about broadening opportunity is that those who benefit from the broadening, particularly through better access to education and skills, will earn their future better standard of living through work. With 148 million in the US workforce (49% of US population), more work at better pay is just about the only way to a higher overall standard of living. In short, redistribution has to support the goal of broader based work at better real wages. 

    So when evaluating Democratic candidates, what is their real program about work? Are they for it or against it?

    The big positive legacy of Donald Trump was his campaign of 2016 which demonstrated that an inexpensive insurgent campaign built around sharp messaging and ideas with popular appeal could beat a billion-dollar clunker campaign waged by an establishment-anointed candidate. Trump has changed how Americans will campaign for president for a long time to come. But insurgent-style campaigns of ideas based on inexpensive funding techniques will favor Democratic candidates much more than Republicans in the future. It is Republicans that like to steamroller elections with massive deployments of plutocratic wealth behind essentially mediocre retainer boys and girls. 

    Importantly, more democratized campaigns for the selection of Democratic party presidential candidates will result in better candidates able to win more presidential elections. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came up through a very competitive selection; Al Gore and Hillary Clinton came up through extraordinarily uncompetitive processes. Weak candidate selection was behind the Democratic presidential losses in 2000, 2004, and 2016. Strengthen that selection process and improved results will follow. 

  21. The people who comment here are very smart people; it’s what keeps me coming back after all these years.

    And yet, y’all can’t help engaging with a witless buffoon *that you know* is just copying and pasting shit he finds out on the web that stimulates his vestigial brain stem.

    There’s no “Emery”. Ya cant even call him a bot, because theres an intelligence behind the bots program. There’s just a fucking
    clown reposting the thoughts of dozens of real people making those statements in other discussion threads and leftist BS propaganda sites.

    I don’t get it.

  22. Even “doggone” was more worthy. Yeah, she’s on absolute nutcas; a model Dunning_Kruger sufferer and inveterate liar. But at least she was authentic; her twaddle was her own.
    The “Emery” character is like a shit stain skid mark in the comment threads.

  23. Swiftee is correct. Google search the crap, find and post the original source and move on.

  24. Aw, you guys are too serious. I used to get pissed off about the little weasel but what the heck, the responses from JD and others were lots of fun. And I always like a Swiftee rant – even if this time I’m the target. Sorta. D’oh!

  25. The caption of the photo Mitch posted to start this thread continues one of the most useless and frustrating trends in modern reporting. First person to wear hajib in Congress. So? Who cares? “First Muslim woman to take a crap in Congressional bathroom, news at 11:00” is not even worthy of the supermarket checkout magazines, much less a banner on national television.

    This is the result of the 24-7 news model. We told you all the crucial news, then the really important news, then the rest of the stuff on the desk. Now, we’re sitting here looking at the camera with nothing to say and hours to fill, so we must manufacture some news to have something to talk about.

    Reminds me of the About Town column in my parents’ hometown newspaper.
    “Mrs. Dorothy Wiggins recently entertained guests. The ladies of the Garden Club admired her roses and enjoyed refreshments.”

    We don’t need more news, we need less of it. Only the important stuff. Cull the crap. Of course, that would require judgment and intelligence and initiative, so we won’t get it from CNN.

  26. I wonder if Mitch keeps track of his posts, to see which generate the most comments? What do you say we mess with his statistics by posting a few more thread jacks? 🙂

    So let’s assume the new majority Democrats are successful in adopting Articles of Impeachment of President Trump for the High Crime and Misdemeanor of Not Letting Hillary Win, which is all they’re really mad about.

    And let’s assume Mueller obtains an indictment against President Trump for Obstruction of Process for failing to provide Mueller with any evidence that President Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary.

    There would be a trial in the Senate. Would there be enough votes to remove him from office? We know the 49 Democrat senators will exercise their independence and diversity by voting in lockstep to do whatever the leadership tells them to do. We know about 40 of the Republicans will stammer and stutter but eventually stick with the party lest they lose every seat in the 2020 elections. What about the rest? Will they suddenly find backbone like Lindsay Graham, to call out an attempted coup for the obvious farce that it is? Or will they see this as the ultimate Never Trump opportunity, so they can ditch him as the party’s nominee and run a sure winner like Mitt Romney?

    Does the Senate have the President’s back? Or are they just itching to stab it?

  27. It’s 5 below outside and my furnace is out so I’m sitting under a blanket posting thread jacks until the repair technician arrives. It’s not my fault – I’m the victim here. Check your privilege.

    The frustrating part is we’ve had this furnace about 10 years and it worked fine, until earlier this year when it started making a squealing noise when the fan kicked in. The tech replaced that fan and did a full checkup so we should have been good to go. Now the little green LED light is blinking at me, telling me everything is fine, except there’s no flame and the house is down to 65.

    If this turns out to be related to the government shut-down, I’m gonna be pissed.

  28. One of the greatest mistakes the world made in the last 100 years was shifting from small business to big business.

    I get the concept of economy of scale. I understand the power of massive capital and global markets. I’m happy to pay lower prices. But the result of the shift has been a change in mindset. Instead of a nation of business owners, we’re a nation of cube dwellers. It’s intellectually stultifying and economically deadly.

    Everywhere I’ve ever worked, the boss has been An Idiot. No matter how high I moved up the ladder, my new boss was always Another Idiot. So I quit and went into business for myself. Then I became The Idiot (just ask my staff). It was a powerful lesson in humility.

    A person who runs a small business – farmer, mechanic, electrician, lawyer, shopkeeper – must understand more than doing the actual job, they must understand all the bull*** that goes along with it. Payroll, taxes, withholding, worker’s comp, liability insurance, computer security, purchasing, inventory, marketing, financing, human resources management, employment law and so much more. Sure, you can hire professionals for some of that, but in the end, you get the Big Bucks because you’re The Idiot who decided to do it this way instead of that way.

    People who sit in cubicles don’t have that perspective, which lets them believe in idiotic notions like redistribution of wealth from The Rich to The Workers. It leads to corporate virtue signaling instead of fiscal prudence (Starbucks bathrooms, Gillette razors). It leads to electing people like AOC to Congress. It will lead cube-dwelling employees to kill the company goose that lays the golden employment egg without having any idea why their ideas were deadly.

    The nation can’t afford that, in the long run.

  29. Sensible web designers take care to make login screens intuitive for the masses. They want it to be easy for you to log in to use their service, so you don’t get frustrated and elsewhere.

    Sensibly designed web pages work this way: after you enter your User Name, you hit Tab and the cursor jumps to Password. If you forgot your password, hit Tab again to jump to Forgot Password. The web designers don’t make Forgot Password the second stop because sensible web designers know that most of their users aren’t idiots, don’t need the help, and hate wasted clicks.

    Google’s login fails at this simple concept. I’m serious, try it. First stop, User Name, second stop, I’m An Idiot Please Help Me Remember My Password.

    What does this design say about Google’s perception of its customers?

  30. Okay, that’s weird. On a whim, I decided to turn the thermostat off and also flip the breaker off for a few minutes. Shouldn’t have made any difference – I know the power was working before because the LED light was blinking “Everything’s Fine,” but as I said, it was a whim.

    Just turned everything back on and suddenly, the furnace is kicking out heat. On the one hand, that’s great, I can cancel the service call and save $69. On the other hand, what the hell? That shouldn’t have worked, but it did, so do I have a problem or don’t I? Sure, it’s heating now – but what about when I’m at work, or going out of town for a few days, can I trust it not to let the pipes freeze?

    Grrrrr.

  31. While I’m waiting for the house to warm up, I’ll abuse Mitch’s hospitality for a few more minutes. What’s one more thread jack going to hurt?

    A trade association is a group of similarly employed people, working for the betterment of all the workers in the trade. They lobby for protectionist laws. They negotiate better insurance rates. They do group marketing. They stand for their trade, trying to make it better for every member.

    The Minnesota State Bar Association is a trade association for lawyers. What do they stand for? Check the red box on the right hand side of their login screen:

    https://www.mnbar.org/

    Standing up for members trying to make a living in our trade is dead last on the list. I suppose I should be happy it made the list at all. But I’m not.

  32. Final post. Furnace out again. Wasn’t working, then it was, now it’s not. Naturally, I called to cancel the service call so I lost my place in queue. [sigh].

    In the olden days, when we had a pilot light and the round thermostat on the wall, this stuff didn’t happen. Now that the furnace ignition is controlled by computer, and the programmable thermostat is also a computer, I strongly suspect the technician will tell me I need a replacement circuit board.

    I can’t even light a fire – modern houses are too energy efficient for a fireplace. The Indians living in a teepee, had it better than I do.

    Looking on the bright side, my carbon footprint is much smaller today, so I’ve got that going for me. Is my moral superiority bothering ya’ll? Should I signal my virtue a little louder?

  33. It was cold as hell here yesterday; windy too. We have a lot of very old oak trees in the area, so there’s always one being taken down.

    Last summer, I made the rounds with my trailer and collected a full cord 4’x4’x8′, and then some. Most of it was already cut into splitting size pieces…all free.

    We have two working fireplaces; big one with a stove in the LR and a smaller one in the bedroom (there’s actually another in the adjoining bedroom, but I have to repair the firebox). The compound was warm as could be, all day; plus I get the satisfaction that comes with playing with fire and setting some carbon free.

    After reading Joe’s post, I tried the furnace and sure enough…bupkis. I’ll fix it this spring.

  34. Joe, some furnaces will try to start a few times, if that fails it will go into a lock-out mode. Could be gas pressure, or a problem with the igniter, or maybe an air flow proving switch, flame sensor, any number of things that all have to work for the brain to say things are good.

    Pulling the power resets that lock-out mode. So you’re running now, but watch the furnace closely to see if something is iffy.

  35. Hi Dan,

    If it lights off and runs a bit, it’s probably not gas pressure, or a problem with the igniter, or air flow proving switch. The controller won’t open main gas valve unless all that is OK first.

    It’s more likely a sketchy input on the controller board, or if it only stays lit for a minute it could be the flame eye is dirty. I think you’re right about the lock out though.

  36. I was right. It was a computer. I hate those things.

    The circuit board in the programmable thermostat suddenly refused to send a “start” signal to the furnace. 20 years old so it cannot be repaired, must be replaced. Just wait until your self-driving car gets a mind of its own.

    I paid about 10 times as much for the new thermostat as I would have paid at the big box home improvement retailer, but that only works if you know where the problem is and what to do about it, which I didn’t. As the old story says: it’s not a fee for pushing the button, but for knowing which button to push.

    My new thermostat was delivered and installed at 7:00 on a Sunday evening by a very nice young man working for a St. Paul company bearing the name of an Irishmen and his lads, who explained my options and even let me “help” by looking over his shoulder. Worth every penny. I’m satisfied. And warm.

  37. I have a Linux Pi with some Pi zero I/O running the compound security system, landscape watering and outdoor lights. The motorized camera on the roof cost more than the whole control system.

    Next year it will run the HVAC system too.

  38. Just remember, Swiftee, computers are like cats. They’re willing to allow you to believe you have control so long as you provide them with care and feeding and aren’t too annoying. But the notion that you are actually their master is an idea they find . . . amusing.

  39. Good point Joe. But in my house, computers, like cats, are commodities. I can replace them in a jiffy!
    I also always make sure I have a way to run stuff manually.

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