I’ve Got Questions

As we’ve noted, Ilhan Omar gave a speech to a Somali audience last week that’s gotten some flak. It’s been in all the papers…

…Well, OK. It’s been in none of the Twin Cities papers. As usual.

Until now.

While “coverage” is out of the question, the Strib posted a “fact check” of the conservative response. There’s less in the fact check than meets the eye – but it hews closely to Rep. Omar’s claim that the translation is ambiguous, or just plain wrong.

The Strib’s claim (emphasis added, to return to later):

Omar’s office pointed to a more accurate translation of her speech posted online. A Star Tribune reporter who speaks Somali listened to the speech and reviewed the transcript, and found it matched Omar’s actual comments. It said:

“My answer was the U.S. government will do what we tell the U.S. government to do. We as Somalis should have that confidence in ourselves. We live in this country. We pay taxes in this country. It’s a country where one of your own sits in Congress. As long as I’m in Congress no one will take Somalia’s sea. And the United States will not support other people to rob us. Rest assured Minnesotans. The woman you sent to Congress is aware of you and has the same interest as you.”

The translation now under dispute characterized Omar’s comments this way: “The U.S. government will only do what Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interest of Somalia … together we will protect the interests of Somalia.”

As someone who knocks around in German and Norwegian, I know that translation begets ambiguity. It’s not unheard of for nuance to drift, or be yanked, in directions that weren’t intended.

So – is Somaliland’s Deputy Finance Minister, presumably a native speaker of Somali, as able to translate the Representative as the Strib’s translator?

She seemed pretty convinced:

Still waiting for the Strib/MPR/the Big Four to tell us whether and why the Somali Deputy Finance Minister’s take was wrong.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Nothing To See Here

I guess everyone is just finding ways to economize, these days.

I suspect that’s one of the radionaliztions batted around the Strib, WCCO and MPR newdsrooms after learning that questions about the ethics of pouring “consulting“ money into a firm owned by her husband, Omar has been spending a lot less on consultants:

A lot.

Fox News is reporting that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign has paid out comparatively little in consulting fees after cutting ties with a firm co-owned by her husband.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reviewed by the outlet, Omar’s payments to political consultants fell to around $1 million during the 2022 midterm election season.

That is a two-thirds decline from the nearly $3 million she had paid to E Street Group, a firm co-owned by her husband, Tim Mynett, during the 2020 election cycle, when she faced a far less competitive primary challenger.

By the way, they’re referring to her current husband. Not the guy who was no way, no how her brother, you racist.

Never Forget

Yesterday was the date of a horrific atrocity.

No, not some people kicking Ilhan Omar off of something. The 21st anniversary of the – words fail – supernaturally brutal murder of Daniel Pearl.

You should read Yid With Lid’s entire piece on the subject, which writ larger is the fiction of the notion that “Antizionism” isn’t in fact antisemitism. Pearl’s murder showed this to anyone who isn’t too blinded by bigotry to see it.

Twenty-one years and one day after Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered, Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was tossed off a committee because of her putrid public Antisemitism and regular use of anti-Jewish canards on Twitter. Omar was tossed because of her hatred of Jews, but many in congress, the media, and their supporters are claiming it’s political.

If you ask people why Daniel Pearl was murdered, they will give several reasons but leave out the Antisemitism part. Because the key lesson was never learned.

May God teach the people in the world to recognize that Antisemitism is real and pervasive.

“Never Forget”, they used to say.

Dirty Harry Meets Batman

Shot: Representative Omar with a devastating riposte to Jim Schultz, GOP candidate for Attorney General, giving us all a civics lesson:

Chaser: Keith Ellison, himself giving, in turn, a, uh, civics lesson of his own:

Which is it?

Is prosecuting violent local crime a job the AGO does when asked? Or is Keith Ellison a caped crusader patrolling the streets and heading off crime…

…badly and half-heartedly, and not at all until a month before an election?

That Brave Stance Thing

Rep. Omar:

So, Rep. Omar – are you condemning the regime’s actions?

Because by your logic, the women of Iran are fighting against being forced to don the hijab

…which you call “Islamophobia” when Americans say it.

Just want to be clear, here.

Welfare Check?

I almost wondered if someone hacked into Ilhan Omar’s Twitter feed earlier this week:

I mean, talk about biting the hand that fed her.

Does Anyone But Me…

…get the impression that the members of the power-clique known as “the Squad” – AOC, Ayanna Presley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – got the way they are because they were the “Mean Girls” in Junior High, and either never grew out of it or recovered that inner character flaw when they got into power?

Not sure why that occurred to me…

House (Of Representatives) Poor

Ilhan Omar has been paying her husband’s firm $2.7 million in campaign donations.

Under most of your community property laws, that means she’s been paying herself a whole lot of money.

And yet while prospering mightily from Omar’s campaign (they grossed $4 million in the 2020 cycle, a nearly 25-fold increase on the firm’s 2018 billings), they received Covid payroll stimulus money:

Public records show that E Street Group, co-owned by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, received nearly $135,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and $500,000 in Economic Injury Disaster loans. …

Public records show that E Street Group, co-owned by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, received nearly $135,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and $500,000 in Economic Injury Disaster loans.

Federal Election Commission filings also show that the firm received payments for other campaigns, including $175,000 from the committee of Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and nearly $130,000 from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

When Democrats say “never waste a crisis”…

Ilhan Omar – Libertarian Heroine

Rep. Omar on Twitter yesterday:

There’s hope here!

If your healthcare, tuition and housing are “Free” (ergo, paid by me, the taxpayer who gets none of those benefits), I am your slave, and being a slaveholder is a moral burden on you as well.

I’m pretty sure Rep. Omar didn’t intend it that way, of course – as her droogs make pretty clear in the thread (and if there’s a 2020’s analogue to “never read the comment section”, it’s gotta be “never read the thread of someone with a blue checkmark).

But you never know.

Maybe Omar will finally get into trouble with Squad leadership for this gaffe…

Ilhan Omar: Back To The Sixties

Back in the sixties, when “affordable housing”  – i.e. having places more or less fit for human habitation to put the poor in – became a thing, America (like the UK) went on a binge of building it.  It was awful – Soviet-style high-rises, or endless blocks of cheap townhouses and low-rise buildings, with brutalist architecture and inhuman landscapes…

…and that was when they were brand new. 

Which wasn’t for long. 

The results are a roll call of failure: Cabrini Green; Marcy Homes; Riverside Plaza; “Council Flats”.   Places where generations of inmates, bereft of any free-market desire to improve things, didn’t; buildings that fell apart around their inmates, because they were “affordable” housing in markets that were growing more expensive by the year; places that became synonymous with crime, addiction, mental illness, bottomless despair.  

Ilhan Omar wants to bring all of that back:

The “Homes for All Act” will invest $800 billion over 10 years and invest an additional $200 billion in a Housing Trust Fund, according to a release from the congresswoman.

In all, the bill aims to create 8.5 million new units of public housing with the $800 billion and 3.5 million private, permanent affordable housing projects for low-income families with the trust fund money.

The act repeals the Faircloth Amendment, which will allow the federal government to invest in new public housing for the first time since the 1990s.

Omar’s office noted the bill will make public housing expenses mandatory in order to “prevent future investment bias.”

“Making this spending mandatory ensures that the funding needs of all current and future public housing are fully met and cannot be cut in the event of a budget crisis or a change in Administration,” reads the release. Omar compared the mandatory spending to that of Social Security and Medicare.

On the one hand, what was that definition of “insanity” again?

On the other hand?  The Twin Cities media won’t cover this, either. 

The Leading Causes Of Death In Minnesota

#3) Cancer

#2) Heart disease and its complications

#1) People dying while holding their breath waiting for the Star/Tribune, MPR News, and the Big Four TV stations to cover Ilhan Omar’s successive bits of corruption.

Fortunately, we’ve got that conservative-biased New York media to do it for them.

Rep. Ilhan Omar paid another $150,000 to Tim Mynett’s political consulting group in the three months after The Post first revealed allegations the pair were romantically involved, records show.
The 37-year-old Minnesota congresswoman’s campaign has funneled $146,712.63 to Mynett’s E Street Group since The Post in August reported allegations she was having an affair with her paid consultant, records show.
The latest payments to Mynett’s group were for digital advertising, fundraising consulting and video production.
When news of the alleged affair broke, Omar had already paid $223,000 through her campaign since 2018 for fundraising consulting, internet advertising, digital communications, and travel expenses to the E Street Group — taking the latest total to $370,000.

The real question is, how much shaming can the Twin Cities media withstand before they start even making cursory motions toward doing their ostensible job?

Ilhan Omar Doesn’t Need To Think Things Through

Ilhan Omar on Twitter over the weekend:

Wouldn’t make property taxes the equivalent of a poll tax?

Of course, politicians in safe blue sinecures don’t have to make sense.

Some People Did Something To Some Armenians

Ilhan Omar votes “present” on a resolution recognizing Turkey’s genocide of Armenians.

And in her statement about that decision, she appears to have learned her rhetorical skills from leaving comments in the Star-Tribune comment section:

Put another way – “the resolution’s silence about other genocides – mostly the ones involving the US, the country that welcomed me to it – speaks volumes“.

And if accounting for genocide is “Paramount”, then what’s “academic consensus” got to do with it?

And we did “acknowledge” the slave trade, Rep. Omar: with the bloodiest war in our country’s history.

Note to Tom Emmer: Write a resolution condemning the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide. See what she does.

The Minneapolis Way

https://pjmedia.com/davidsteinberg/ilhan-omars-husband-no-longer-works-for-minneapolis-councilwoman-sources-say-omar-asked-for-him-to-be-fired/

Ilhan Omar’s soon to be ex husband’s days of being part of the lifetime sinecure the DFL gives its “elite” are apparently at an end. His job as a bag man…er, community liaison for Alondra Cano apparently got terminated over the summer.

David Steinberg – who hasn’t quite shamed the Strib or MPR to cover the story yet – writes:

My sources stated that Ahmed Hirsi was terminated following a request by Rep. Omar. They added that Omar’s motivation for the request was to force Hirsi to become reliant upon her assets and income.
For the majority of 2019, Ahmed Hirsi has reportedly borne the responsibility of raising the three children he has with Omar. (One source used the term “abandoned” to describe Ilhan’s recent share of the parenting.) Since June 14, Hirsi does not appear to have a reliable source of income.
Meanwhile, Rep. Omar currently draws a $174,000 Congressional salary, and reportedly received a $250,000 book advance in January.

Read the whole thing. Pass it along.

Cold

When Ilhan Omar starts attacking the Strib – which has been rhetorically painting her toenails ever since the beginning of her state-managed-to-a-fault career – you might be forgiven for wondering if the wheels aren’t starting to fall apart over at Team Ilhan.

Scott sums up where the Omar story was as of earlier in the week.

The scandal has pushed the incredible panoply of scandals we have covered in depth on Power Line into the background: the identity fraud, the marriage fraud, the immigration fraud, the tax fraud.
In the past three weeks I have circled back to interview sources whom I have found to be highly reliable in the Omar saga. They open a window onto the scandals from the perspective of Ahmed Hirsi, her long-time partner and the father of her three children. According to sources, Hirsi is telling friends:
• that he will not go to jail for Omar;
• that while Omar did indeed marry her brother (Ahmed Elmi) for fraudulent purposes, Hirsi did not know at the time that she had married Elmi;
• that Omar is threatening Hirsi he would be in trouble along with her if the truth were to come out;
• that Omar has asked him to state publicly that all is well with their marriage even though it is completely done and finished; and
• that in fact they are living apart and have been divorced under Islamic law (although they remain legally married).
Having humiliated Ahmed Hirsi by her affair with Tim Mynett, Omar now wants Hirsi to perform public relations services for her to suppress the scandal. That is cold.

While hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, a husband tossed under the bus for a newer model can do a lot more than write country-western songs. I’m kinda rooting for Hirsi.

And without Power Line and Scott Johnson, the story – her alleged fake marriages, immigration and identity fraud, her tax problems, to say nothing of the philandering – would have stayed safely buried.

Documents Ex Machina

Not to cast aspersions, since the only “evidence” I have is an uncanny coincidence.

But it seems almost uncanny, the way mouth-breathing “threats” “against” Rep. Ilhan Omar tend to pop up into the news when disorderly elements of the media start poking where they aren’t supposed to poke, into news of Rep. Omar’s marriage, philandering, campaign finance issues and tax problems.

Last week, as bits and pieces of the local DFL PR firm we call our “media” started to get shamed into, y’know, covering the news, and the depravity of DFL rank and file started edging into i headlines, , that this “death threat” suddenly ate up a news cycle or two:

Now, we don’t know who wrote this, and it’s for certain we’ll never find out due to local media’s efforts (although I’d like to know where William Davis was last week).

But of course, this takes us back to February, 2018 – on the hard-fought caucus night where Omar and the West Bank “progressive” machine needed to gin up turnout to beat out some strong “moderate” DFLers, this was “slipped under the doors” of some Cedar Riverside apartments by “Trump Supporters” who, notwithstanding the cameras and scads of Somali witnesses all over the place, seemed to disappear, zephyr-like, without a trace all night long:

The local party “community organizer” promised an investigation, which went as far and as fast as all ward heelers’ “investigations” always do.

So have at it, hive mind. Similarities? “Tells?”

Let’s DanRather ’em.

As The World’s Smallest Violin Plays The World’s Saddest Song

According to a writer for the ever-simpering Brit Independent, no politician has ever been treated as scabrously as…

…Mitt Romney?

Brett Kavanaugh?

No, no no no!

It’s Ilhan Omar!

She’s got a sinecure seat in a district no less one-party than East Berlin in 1974. She’s politically bulletproof; she could shoot down an Israeli airliner and get 75% of the vote. Chicago ward heelers wish they were as set up as she is.

She’s got a local media that paints her toenails for her. 

She’s looking forward to a lifetime of wealth, on the public, media and non-profit dime at the very least, for her and her family. 

Someone treat me that “badly”, stat.

Sovereign

Joe Biden, reacting to Israel’s decision to deny entry to people who advocate its destruction, said:
I have always been a stalwart supporter of Israel—a vital partner that shares our democratic values. No democracy should deny entry to visitors based on the content of their ideas—even ideas they strongly object to. And no leader of the free world should encourage them to do so.”
But Joe, if you support Israel’s right to exist as an independent nation, then you concede it has the right to manage its own internal affairs, including deciding who to admit and who to deny.  Otherwise, if Israel lacks that power, then it’s not an independent nation, it’s a colony and you’re playing the role of emperor, telling the locals what they can and cannot do.  Which is precisely what you accuse President Trump of doing. 
So why should I vote for you, and not for him?
Joe Doakes

The extent to which the Democrats need their supporters to be uninformed morons is frightening.

Minnesota’s Intellectual Titan Strikes Again

Former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan lights up Rep. Ilhan Omar – and Muslim extremism:

“Omar does not represent me as a Muslim, (she) does not represent millions of Muslims in the Middle East. You know like in Arab countries we call her the Muslim Brotherhood,” Idan, 29, said on the podcast The Sara Carter Show on Aug. 4.

Now, do you remember when Omar was sworn in? The way she got lionized for representing the future for Muslim women in America?

Apparently Rep. Omar does not (I’m adding emphasis):

Shortly after the interview aired, Omar, 37, fired back at Idan on Twitter, saying, “Hey, I might be wrong but I don’t think you are a #MN05 resident and like that makes be [sic] not your representative.”

#IntellectualHeftAtWork

The former Miss Iraq replied, “Seriously @IlhanMN this is your intellectual come back?” She then went on to lambaste Omar as anti-American and antisemitic. In a series of follow-up tweets she accused Omar of pursuing a “Muslim Brotherhood agenda using this democracy to further YOUR & YOUR FRIENDS Islamic socialism goals of dividing & weakening our country.”

I don’t know who I want to see reading this piece more; DFLers, or the rump Xenophobe coalition in the GOP, who keep asking “where are the Muslims pushing back against the extremists?”, and ignoring when…well, Muslims push back against extremists:

On Friday, Idan also blasted Omar for using her platform as congresswoman to advocate for the freedom of Hoda Abdelmonem, a senior member of the Muslim brotherhood, but not to help women “enslaved by mandatory sharia/in jail awaiting an imminent death for speaking out against dictatorial regimes.”
Idan, who now lives in the US, called out antisemitism taught in Muslim countries and voiced support for Israel at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, last month. She was forced to flee Iraq with her family after receiving death threats in November 2017 for taking a selfie with Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman at the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

Maybe Idan can be persuaded to come to Minnesota and run against Omar?

I doubt the DFL will have her, of course.