Oh, Those Evil Jews

On August 10, 2022 Majority Report with Sam Seder became Majority Report without Sam Seder, with his co-host, Emma Vigeland, conducting a bash Israel session with a fellow (hereafter, "fellow") unnamed in this clip. (Given his ignorance, he's better off unnamed, anyway.)

On Tuesday, Ilhan Omar squeaked through a primary challenge from what Vigeland and fellow referred to as a "centrist," Don Samuels. Given that Omar is progressive and probably the most virulent anti-Israel member of the House of Representatives, this greatly concerned Wednesday's hosts. Fellow stated at 2:01 of the video below

it's another in a pattern of these attacks. Samuels implied that Omar was alienating certain communities, particularly Jewish folks, which I think is a smear on Ilhan Omar and I think it is a smear that is being weaponized against progressives all over the place.

How could anyone possibly believe that Omar has alienated the Jewish community? In January of 2019, Omar

defended her 2012 tweet in which she accused Israel of “evil doings” and said that Israel had “hypnotized the world.”

“Those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment,” Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired Wednesday night.

The tweet, which said that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” came in reaction to Israel’s November 2012 operation against Hamas in Gaza.

In February of 2019

Omar responded to a tweet from journalist Glenn Greenwald, who posted about House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy threatening to punish Omar and another congresswoman for being critical of Israel.

Omar wrote back, "It's all about the Benjamins baby," a line about $100 bills from a Puff Daddy song.

Soon afterward, Omar invoked the old stereotype of Jews possessing a dual loyalty when she remarked

I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. I want to ask why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA (National Rifle Association), of fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policies?

Omar also has accused Israel of being an "apartheid regime," which is standard fare for critics who don't know what constitutes apartheid. However, it is an effective smear because it simultaneously accuses Israel of being evil and of copying the regime of apartheid South Africa. It thus perpetuates the inaccurate and dangerous perception of much of the anti-Semitic left and anti-Semitic right of Jews as constituting a race.

Worse, Vigeland adds

Ilhan is particularly susceptible to it because of her bravery in speaking out against the Israel lobby and Israeli apartheid in Palestine, right, and because of her status as someone born out of the United States; came here as a refugee and being Muslim. I mean, straight up there is a bigotry that it- and being a black woman- all of those things intersect in this toxic stew of bigotry that makes her an easy target for these kinds of folks...

Oh, give me a break.  On two occasions in early 2019, the House passed a resolution rebuking Omar, yet on neither occasion was her name mentioned. You may not believe extraordinary courtesy was prompted by her "status as someone born out of the United States," becoming "a refugee and being Muslim."  You also might believe that I could beat Kevin Durant one-on-one.

No bigoted screed is complete without the imputation of racism, so beginning at 7:11 the fellow comments

I think anybody who takes money from that particular wing of Zionist lobbying groups like AIPAC basically, like, anti-labor, pro-settlement folks like that's the modern Jim Crow wing of the Democratic Party.

Sorely tempted to make the bad even worse, Vigeland adds

Yeah, you're a supporter of apartheid if that is the case and it's just being exported instead of being here.... it's an extension of white supremacy. I mean, let's be real and especially in with the news of over a dozen Palestinian children being murdered....

Israelis as practitioners of white supremacy is a particularly repugnant theme. In a guest column in the Los Angeles Times three years ago, Hen Mazzig noted

Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, was not established for just one type of Jew but for all Jews, from every part of the world — the Middle East, North Africa, Ethiopia, Asia and, yes, Europe.

He explains

I am Mizrahi, as are the majority of Jews in Israel today. We are of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Only about 30% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or the descendants of European Jews. I am baffled as to why mainstream media and politicians around the world ignore or misrepresent these facts and the Mizrahi story.

The race-obsessed left now can add Emma Vigeland to the likes of others. Mazzig writes

The likes of Women’s March activist Tamika Mallory, Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill and, more recently, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) falsify reality in their discussions of Palestinians’ “intersectional” struggle, their use of the term “apartheid” to characterize Israeli policy, and their tendency to define Israelis as Ashkenazi Jews alone.

I believe their misrepresentations are part of a strategic campaign to taint Israel as an extension of privileged and powerful white Europe, thereby justifying any and all attacks on it. This way of thinking signals a dangerous trend that positions Israel as a colonialist aggressor rather than a haven for those fleeing oppression. Worse, it all but erases the story of my family, which came to Israel from Iraq and Tunisia.

For most of history, the Mizrahim have been without sovereignty and equality in the Muslim world. In Iraq, despite being “equal citizens” on paper, my family experienced ongoing persecution. The first organized attack came in 1941, the brutal Farhud, a Nazi-incited riot that claimed the lives of hundreds of Jews and forced the survivors to live in fear. My great-grandfather was falsely accused of being a Zionist spy and executed in Baghdad in 1951. My mother’s family was permitted to emigrate that same year, but with only one suitcase.

Any erasure of the Mizrahi experience negates the lives of 850,000 Jewish refugees just like them, who, even in the successor states to the Ottoman Empire of the early 20th century, were treated as “dhimmis,” an Arabic term for a protected minority whose members pay for that protection, which can be withdrawn at any time. Demographic ignorance also works to deny the existence of almost 200,000 descendants of Ethiopian Jews who were threatened by political destabilization in the early 1990s and airlifted to Israel in a daring rescue operation.

Those "dozen Palestinian children being murdered" in Vigeland's telling? That loathsome disingenuousness awaits another post. 

A significant portion of the anti-Semitic right pretends race is no factor in American society while anti-Semites on the very far left continually perceive race where it is not. That's not the way to find common ground.

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Rudeness Up High

It's awkward enough blogging about something which occurred well over a week ago. It's even more awkward when I have to agree with Ilhan Omar. Awkward, and uncomfortable. 

Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, who agreed with the Minnesota congresswoman approximately 90%, is even more on target. He wrote

Ilhan Omar was right. In fact, it’s not even close. That will come as heresy and apostasy to those now feigning moral indignation over a tweet the Minnesota congresswoman sent out on Sunday. But that makes it no less true. 

In the video Omar shared — about its origin, little is known — a man with a guitar stands in the aisle of a crowded plane singing a Christian worship song. While some passengers sing along, others seem annoyed or studiously ignore the commotion. A little boy plugs his ears. It all moved Omar, a Muslim born in Somalia, to write: “I think my family and I should have a prayer session next time I am on a plane. How do you think it will end?”

The answer, as any honest and intelligent person well knows, is that in a post-9/11 world, it would end with them tackled to the floor and duct taped to their chairs as the pilot radioed ahead to the nearest airfield requesting permission for an emergency landing.

Personally, I think it more likely that there would have been a request and serious attempt to disband the prayer group, which probably would have been successful. Only if it weren't would there have been violence and permission requested for an emergency landing. Still, point well made.

Pitts notes that Omar's comments prompted a torrent of hostile and/or bigoted responses, which

affirms that so-called conservatism remains a doctrine of hate, it also raises a telling question of entitlement, of who gets to do what in the public square. 

Take religion out of it for a moment. Imagine a group of rappers held a rap battle in the aisle of a transatlantic flight. Imagine some bickering couple had a loud argument about his infidelity or her infertility. Imagine a troupe of actors performed a scene from Shakespeare. 

Imagine, in other words, any scenario in which a group of people is held captive to a disruptive performance they did not choose and cannot escape. Do that, and one word suggests itself with crystalline clarity. 

Rude. That’s what every principal in those imagined scenarios would be. And it’s what the singers on that plane were, too.

Exactly. It comes down to courtesy. The singers deny the right of the fare-paying customer to be left in peace to read, sleep, or talk to the individual sitting next to her. As David Doel can be seen remarking here, "all people want you to do on flights is to sit down and shut up for the duration of the flight. That's all the vast majority of people want."

Pitts recognizes

It bespeaks a certain level of social privilege that this seems not to have occurred to them, that they never questioned whether they had the right to commandeer the public square and take hostages, never stopped to think there might be atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans, Jews or, for that matter, even other Christians on that flight who had no interest in hearing them sing. 

It’s unlikely the experience brought any of those people to Christ. If anything, it probably drove some the other way.

It is a matter of privilege and, to Pitts' credit, he doesn't refer to it as "white privilege" or "Christian privilege" or invoke any adjective. It's the perception people increasingly have that they are entitled to do whatever they can get away with.

Emphasizing that the performers demonstrated "a show of their entitlement," Pitts adds "Omar’s tweet was on the relatively narrow issue of a double standard against Muslims. But the larger issue is about the hubris that comes of being at home in every setting, of never having to ask permission."

More reprehensible yet, the behavior prompted me to praise, or at least largely agree with, Ilhan Omar.

 

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Punishing Nothing By Punishing Everything

The House of Representatives has punished two of its GOP members, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, for what Daily Beast reporters Sam Brodey and Ursala Perano label "their own insulting moves." Now House Democrats are considering penalizing Republican Lauren Boebert of Colorado because of bigoted remarks about colleague Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota.

Yet Brodey and Perano maintain

But this time, Democrats are weighing how to respond knowing full well that very response could serve as exhibit A in the GOP case to retaliate should they, as is expected, take control of the House in 2023....

But the dynamics of taking such a step have shifted since Democrats took the rare step of doling out consequences to Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) for their own insulting moves. The party voted to remove both of them from their committees and to censure Gosar.

Assuming they regain control of the House, Republican won't "respond" at all.  These are people who voted overwhelmingly against investigating an armed insurrection against the United States government, and they won't be responding. They will come after Democrats- and not only members of the "Squad"- in one of their first moves to end representative government.

Nonetheless, Alexandria Ocasi-Cortez was wrong, albeit not as naive as the reporters, when she

told The Daily Beast on Thursday she was “saddened” by Democratic leadership’s delay in calling for action. “This should not take a long time,” she said.

“We have to have even enforcement against these things, because having that consistency is what actually draws the line. When we enforce and make these actions on some of these offenses, but not others, it actually encourages an increased frequency of them trying to test this boundary,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

“Because they think that, you know, if one of every four times you can get away with it, then they’re going to roll the dice,” she added.

There is no consistency when your target is "these things." Nor can your opponents, radically hateful Republicans, be testing a boundary when your boundary is unknown.

Ocasio-Cortez has set no boundary, nor does she intend to. "When we enforce and make these actions on some of these offenses," she states, urging a Democratic response to whatever may offend. That is a whole universe of things, especially (not exclusively) for the New York congresswoman. Congress can set boundaries, of course, if it chooses to disregard her standard that whatever offends at the time is forbidden. 

Trying her hand at stand-up, Boebert ridiculed Islam and implied that a Muslim colleague was a terrorist.  Gosar threatened the life of one colleague, Greene the lives of two colleagues. There is a difference from Boebert's stand-up act, which should impel House Democrats to establish boundaries, in which some acts are within, some outside.

The importance of Democrats' establishing those boundaries is only highlighted by their disinclination to do so. If they wished to take a stand against political violence, they could do so most effectively by denouncing bigotry but recognizing that tolerance requires acceptance of speech that is reprehensible, even insensitive and biased.

By contrast, there should be consequences if members commit or encourage violence against colleagues or other elected officials.  That can be clearly distinguished from speech that is antithetical to decency and respect for others. One is awful; the other, dangerous. It shouldn't be hard to understand nor to explain to the American people. Consistency established; boundaries set.

 

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Shoe Merely On Other Foot

There is more than a little truth in the axioms "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" and "turnabout is fair play." 

Saying I am a suicide bomber is no laughing matter. @GOPLeader and @SpeakerPelosi need to take appropriate action, normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims. Anti-Muslim bigotry has no place in Congress. https://t.co/A0VxI3uTmH pic.twitter.com/QTmqaGaZrM

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 26, 2021

At a town hall gathering in Pueblo, Colorado, Representative Boebert had given an account of an alleged encounter in Washington, D.C. with Representative Ilhan Omar, well-known Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota. ending with "well, if she doesn't have a backpack, it should be fine."

After the anticipated outcry, Boebert apologized, thankfully not attempting to rationalize the fictionalized story as a joke, which it obviously was, which would not have excused the remark. It clearly does foster an atmosphere encouraging violence against Muslims and as Move On noted, merits accountability.

So there is an obvious solution, one which will be ignored by Congress. In February, 2019 Omar herself posted tweets (thereafter deleted), in which she "accused Israel of having 'hypnotized the world.' She then sparked more outrage with tweets criticizing the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups. "

Reacting to the congresswoman accusing American Jews of dual allegiance, House Democrats drafted a resolution steeped in bothsiderism, condemning "anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, "and other forms of bigotry." The resolution was meaningless and therefore passed easily, avoiding mention of the Minnesotan. Worse than meaningless: in response to a resolution addressing anti-Semitism of a Muslim,  two Muslim members of the House joined Omar in a statement boasting "It's the first time we have voted on a resolution condemning Anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation's history."

Coupling the two didn't curtail bigotry, but that never was the point. For Democrats in 2019, it was a willingness to call out anti-Semitism as long as they could do the same with anti-Muslim and anti-black animus. For Republicans now, it could be the reverse: condemning anti-Islamophobia while denouncing anti-Semitism and, for good measure, supporting Israel. 

It wouldn't solve the problem displayed by Omar in 2019 and Boebert in 2021. Many members of Congress, wise enough to keep their preferences to themselves, will continue privately to judge fellow Americans by their religious or racial identity. However, a superficial resolution would offer Representatives an opportunity to make a statement about their values- however twisted- and give them a warm feeling inside.

 

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Unnecessarily Inflammatory

It was a shoddy bit of bothsiderism. However, it still would have been a fairly innocuous, even forgettable question of a Secretary of State about domestic courts and the International Criminal Court.

.

We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.

I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 7, 2021

Instead of passing harmlessly into history

Tensions among Democrats over Israel grew Thursday after a group of 12 Jewish Democratic lawmakers criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) over a tweet she wrote that seemed to equate the actions of the United States and Israel with those of Hamas and the Taliban, calling it “offensive” and demanding she “clarify” her words.

Omar said her comments were misconstrued and that she was not suggesting a moral equivalency. She and other Democratic women of color in the House accused their colleagues of advancing Islamophobia and, in one case, “anti-blackness” in their public chastising of the lawmaker.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her Democratic leadership team addressed Omar’s comments in a joint statement, saying that equating the United States and Israel and terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Taliban “foments prejudice.” They said they welcomed Omar’s clarification.....

"Clarification" seems to have replaced "walk back" in instances in  such instances, though Omar's statement was no clarification. Prior to Omar amending her original statement

The Jewish Democrats, led by Rep. Bradley Schneider of Illinois, released a joint statement late Wednesday denouncing Omar’s tweet.

“Equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided,” they wrote. “Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one’s intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice.

“The United States and Israel are imperfect and, like all democracies, at times deserving of critique, but false equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups. We urge Congresswoman Omar to clarify her words placing the US and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban.”

Later, Omar did offer a clarification, saying she was not making “a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel.”

If Wikipedia is accurate, there actually are 21 Jewish members of the House of Representatives, which suggests that there are several who curiously believe the USA and Israel act in a similar fashion to Hamas and the Taliban. Or they feared criticizing a colleague.

The questioning of the Secretary Blinken by Representative Omar probably would have gone unnoticed and not become an incident if the congresswoman had not unwisely issued the tweet. It was there, and only there, that she reprehensibly stated "We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. " Notwithstanding Omar's claim, that is making "a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel." Failure to substantiate a comparison does not obviate the effort.

Ilhan Omar isn't the first politician to express on Twitter something stupid, bigoted, or untethered to reality. Some public figures evidently think that Twitter is a platform upon which their most unacceptable thoughts can be harmlessly disclosed.

Presumably, most politicians have a social media director responsible for posting tweets. However, they need to realize that  what's posted there is there, and is there until and unless it's deleted, which will not be before a critic(s) takes a screenshot. Individuals are accountable for their use of social media.and ultimately their remarks may expose they themselves as loathsome. Of this, someone as acquainted with anti-Semitism as Ilhan Omar should be keenly aware.

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Best Of Luck With Those Issues

This not about Ilhan Omar or anti-Semitism, nor even about Michael Bloomberg or apologists for Communist China.  This pertains to Democratic party activists or, alternatively, the race to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2020.

In a segment Saturday on Michael Smerconish's CNN program, proudly centrist and Independent host Smerconish and NYU professor Scott Galloway fawned over Michael Bloomberg's "evidence-based" or "data-driven" governing. At 5:17 in the video below, Smerconish's producer puts onto the screen an excerpt, from a recent Politico article, which explains why strategists for the ex-New York mayor believes he could be nominated: 

The evidence for the alleged noncraziness is based on polling, an emphatically low regard for the current field of Democratic candidates, and an emphatically high regard for Bloomberg’s purported assets. These include a compelling life story, a record of accomplishment as mayor, credibility with activists on gun control and climate change, and an ability to nationalize the race this coming winter and early spring with a historic torrent of money and messaging.

It would be enervating if someone (other than Bloomberg, friend of plutocrats everywhere) passionate about gun safety or climate change were to become the Democratic nominee and elected President. It won't happen.

Do we recall Washington governor Jay Inslee and his campaign dedicated to fighting climate change? Gone. How about Beto O'Rourke (who turned out to be a bad candidate, partly for other reasons) and his passion for gun control? Gone.

Ilhan Omar is not gone. She's still a member of the US House of Representatives, still (barely) arguably an anti-Semite, and victim of a plot to assassinate her by someone threatening to "put a bullet in her (expletive) skull," evidently because she is a Muslim.  Last month, after Patrick W. Carlineo Jr. had pled guilty in federal district court and was scheduled to be sentenced, Representative Omar sent a letter to the Judge urging leniency because

The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion.  Punishing the defendant with a lengthy prison sentence or a burdensome financial fine would not  would not rehabilitate him.It would not repair the harm he has caused. It would only increase his anger and resentment.

Paired with the rest of Omar's argument, the letter is misguided on several levels. However, as John Oliver would put it, the point is that Patrick Carlineo Jr. should not be the poster boy for the need for criminal justice reform. An FBI agent had signed the complaint against him and

About a week later, the authorities found a loaded .45-caliber handgun, three rifles, two shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at Mr. Carlineo’s home, prosecutors said. Because of a 1998 felony conviction, he was legally prohibited from owning a firearm.

In Omar's case, reasonable regulation of dangerous weapons is merely a nice thing to support because the public overwhelmingly supports it. However, it takes a back seat to compassion for felons.

It would be less of a problem if Omar were alone. However, she is not. In June I wrote of passage in the House of Representatives of

the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which would have would have "required background checks in private sales, including gun shows and online transactions. by a vote of 220 to 209.The bill would ensure that all sales (with a few exceptions) are run through the national criminal background check system. Having passed the House with 232 votes from Democrats but only 8 from Republicans, it was dead on arrival in the Senate.

The bill included an amendment (since reintroduced in the House by a Virginia Republican but stalled in committee) to require that law enforcement be notified "when an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a federal background check," which notably would have included illegal immigrants. After first being rejected, the amendment passed the House with 194 Republican votes (one against) but with only 26 Democratic Representatives in favor and 208 opposed.

Let that sink in.  The party which supports sensible gun regulation overwhelmingly rejected a measure which would have effected notification of law enforcement when an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a federal background check. Presumably, it would have been acceptable were it not likely to inconvenience a few illegal immigrants who wanted to buy a firearm.

Support for illegal immigration or criminal justice reform.  Whatever the sentiments of the Democratic popular base- more positive for the latter than for the former- Democratic elites will sacrifice gun control for other causes.   And concern about climate change is sufficiently weak even in the Democratic Party that a legitimate presidential candidate who based his campaign on the threat it poses was out almost before he was in.

If Michael Bloomberg is predicating his presidential run on the basis of the interest he has shown in gun control and/or global warming, his chances are slim and none, with slim on its way out of town.  It would be as likely to survive as would have Ilhan Omar, had the man whom she suggested is the mere victim of "systemic alienation and neglect" had his way.

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Continuing Problem

She did it again. Newsweek reports

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar has been accused of making a veiled anti-Semitic comment in a tweet about Michael Bloomberg.

While sharing an article on Twitter about Leon Cooperman expressing his support for "fellow billionaire" Bloomberg's possible run for president, Omar commented "I wonder why?" alongside a thinking face emoji.

Cooperman, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, told CNBC on Friday that he would back the former mayor of New York City for president should he enter the race for the White House. He added that he would also help with fundraising as long as Bloomberg stuck with his moderate policies.

But while some viewed Omar's reaction to the article as an observation about "billionaires sharing similar political views", others believe she is implying that Cooperman's support for Bloomberg is because they are both Jewish—and accused her of anti-Semitism.

This may have been an anti-Semitic remark, a jab at two billionaires, or.... both.

It is most likely the first, though it is open to interpretation. But when seven months ago Representative Omar referred to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 as "some people did something" and President Trump slammed her, David Frum recognized

Against Omar’s propensity to provoke, the Democratic Party seems institutionally almost defenseless. Pelosi was thwarted when she attempted to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitic expressions by House members. Instead, the House substituted more muddled language in which Jews appeared in a laundry list condemning all expressions of intolerance against “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others.”

After Trump’s tweeted attack, Omar will become even more internally uncriticizable and unmanageable, without becoming any more careful or responsible. Indeed, the speech by Omar that provided Trump with the sound bite he exploited—“some people did something”—itself exemplifies her carelessness and irresponsibility. . The speech was delivered at a fundraiser in California for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Here’s the full sentence from which Trump took his sound bite: “CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

CAIR was, in fact, founded seven years before 9/11.... 

Omar acted as Frum suspected she, either irresponsibly- knocking two guys because they're Jewish- or carelessly.  She could have made a reference to the wealth of the two men but failed to do so because she is intellectually incoherent or is congenial to bigotry. Having once tweeted "Israel has hypnotized the world," the anti-Semitic and/or linguistically Omar seems to have changed little.

Either way, the "carelessness and irresponsibility" Frum cited continues and will not go unnoticed by critics of the Democratic Party. However, the congresswoman's remark will not be condemned by Bernie Sanders nor any other Democratic candidate, the one because he has been endorsed by the Minnesota congresswoman, the others from a fear of being accused of slighting a "woman of color."

Rationalizing such remarks by noting that Donald Trump makes worse statements daily would be insufficient, possibly even futile. The very regularity of his incendiary comments renders him almost immune to criticism or shunning by a huge chunk of American voters. It is an extraordinary luxury, one no other American has claimed or can successfully claim, and that includes Ilhan Omar.

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Vulnerability

Co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

Can someone name something better than @IlhanMN dancing to @lizzo? Because I can’t think of anything. #CBC2019 #CBCWeek #cbcweekend pic.twitter.com/KvsCRvgKQX

— Adam Green (@AdamGreen) September 14, 2019

I can think of a few, perhaps beginning with campaign finance reform and re-regulation of the financial services industry, two of the things Green's organization advocates when its co-founder isn't falling in love with the idea of a congresswoman dancing.   I'd figuratively kill to be a salesman selling this guy a beautiful new car, at double the invoice price.

This gave comedian and conservative commentator Terrence K.Williams the opportunity to tweet out a video- showing footage of Omar dancing- with the comment "Girl, what in the world were you celebrating on the anniversary on 9/11?"

As vigilantfact-checker Daniel Dale pointed out, Omar and colleague Ayanna Presley (D-Ma) were enjoying themselves at an event, connected with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference, which actually occurred on September 13.

Williams took down the tweet but not before the nation's Liar-in-Chief re-tweeted him with the comment "IIhan Omar, a member of AOC Plus 3, will win us the Great State of Minnesota. The new face of the Democrat Party!" As of 3:20 p.m. eastern on Wednesday, Trump's tweet remained on his feed.

Defending Omar, even when she is gracelessly smeared, is not a road congenial to Democrats. However, there is no reason this incident can't be legitimately and justifiably turned back on Donald Trump, whose 9/11 career is vulnerable.

Campaigning in Alabama in November of 2015, candidate Trump boasted "I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering." Politifact rated that claim "pants on fire."

On the morning of September 11, 2001 itself, Trump bragged “40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan. Before the World Trade Center it was the tallest. Then when the built the World Trade Center it become known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest.” The building did not sustain any damage in the attack but Trump still applied for, and received, federalrecovery money intended for small businesses.

It is not a joke, and not mere hyperbole or dishonesty. It takes someone thoroughly hostile not only to American Muslims, but to Americans of all backgrounds, and a kind of evil only Donald Trump and that giant in Dante's Inferno is capable of. This is an issue just begging for a campaign. When President Trump gives Democrats an opportunity, they should take advantage by turning lemons into lemonade, garbage into gold, and exposing him for what he is.

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"Bend To My Will"

He may be a scoundrel, but when even a former member of the Irgun doesn't like your attack on perceived enemies of Israel, you don't really have a case:

First-class friends don’t treat U.S. representatives like second-class citizens. Trump and Bibi are both wrong. While I disagree with Reps. Tlaib and Omar about their views on Israel, they should be allowed to visit. https://t.co/GeOaBmn9Po

— Rahm Emanuel (@RahmEmanuel) August 15, 2019

It was not a total loss for the Likud government running Israel, however. It at least made one of the congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib, cry uncle.  NPR reports that Israel has (barely) partially relented after the Michigan Representative sent Israel's Interior Minister a letter whose contents read in full

I would like to request admittance to Israel in order to visit my relatives and specifically my grandmother, who is in her 90s and lives in Beir Ur el-Fouqa. This could be my last opportunity to see her. I will respect any restrictions and will not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit.

Nor was the concession extracted probably an empty gesture, given that the visit by Tlaib and Omar to the West Bank and (presumably East) Jerusalem was "under the auspices of" a nongovermental organization staunchly committed to an independent Palestinian state. Now, however, Tel Aviv has gotten one of the congresswomen (Tlaib) to make a concession she probably did not want to make- that she would "not promote boycotts against Israel during" her visit.

Nonetheless, Israel has suffered a net loss, having bought itself some distrust within both the American Jewish community and the Democratic Party for its refusal to concede that all members of the US Congress can travel freely to Israel.

Not so President Trump, however.  Tel Aviv initially extended permission to the two Democrats, only to reverse itself when

It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2019

This is what Donald Trump calls "winning." He blocked two political foes from performing an official duty, also bending an entire nation to his will.  Obviously, his action was reprehensible, and not only because an American president (successfully) recommended that a foreign government deny admission of duly elected members of a branch of government (constitutionally) equal to the presidency.

It might not have worked had this saga remained in the news for several days. However, it did not, with the Administration cleverly floating the idea of buying Greenland, thus diverting attention from an act of bigotry and hostility toward Americans, sentiments shared by many Trump disciples.

The President of the USA challenged a foreign government to say "no" to American citizens, yet another instance in which Trump has demonstrated his contempt for Americans.  And he prevailed. He again demonstrated what passes for "strength" in his eyes and those of his supporters by hitting back at the people they hate.

Opposed by Rahm Emanuel, AIPAC, and supported by virtually no one, the tactic viewed in isolation may have been a (very slight) net loser. However,it was a fine addition to Donald J. Trump's overall strategy.

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Crime-Infested Places From Which They Came

By now, everyone has seen President Trump, in a series of three tweets, has proclaimed

So interesting to see 'progressive' Democrat congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run.

Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.

These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

In response, the Washington Post's Philip Rucker tweeted

During the 2016 campaign, whenever Trump made racist or xenophobic comments there was a small but reliable chorus of Republican office holders who spoke out. Today, there’s silence, nine hours later.

Of course, there is little reason for GOP members of Congress to respond. If they condemn Mr. Trump for these remarks, they may face the wrath of the President. By keeping silent, they avoid a Trump-approved primary opponent. And otherwise excellent journalists such as Rucker imply that, just maybe, Republicans finally have regained their probity.

But of course they haven't. They know they merely have to sit back and watch Democrats remind voters already convinced that Donald Trump is a racist that he is a racist... and voters who resist that conclusion once more get annoyed at Democrats for seemingly attacking as a racist anyone they disagree with.

One of Trump's (unspecified) targets was Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who referred to the President's "hate filled agenda" and accused him of "stoking white nationalism." No kidding. Another, Representative Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts put out a screenshot of Trump's tweets, remarking (emphasis hers) "THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy looks like."  Nothing new there, either.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders noted "when I call the President a racist, this is what I'm talking about." The Speaker's reaction may have been most emblematic of the instinctive Democratic response to, well, almost anything:

However,what they will not see Democrats do is linking Trump's condemnation of the four Democratic congresswomen as attacks on their own Americanism. The New York Times explains

.... only one of the women, Ms. Omar, who is from Somalia, was born outside the United States. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx to parents of Puerto Rican descent. Ms. Pressley, who is black, was born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago. And Ms. Tlaib was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants.

New York City. Ohio. Michigan. These are the states of birth of three of the four subjects of Trump's invective. Two of these  states cast their lot for the winning nominee in each of the last three elections, for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Trump in 2016.

It shouldn't take a marketing genius to craft an ad, maybe even a campaign, charging the President- plausibly- with having denigrated the residents of Ohio and Michigan as being a "complete and total catastrophe" and "crime-infested." Though Trump ran successfully in 2016 on the "Obama and the Democrats have made the USA into a hellhole" platform, he was then a challenger. Now he is the incumbent.

It's conceivable that it won't work. Politics now may be completely bipolar, with Democrats infuriated by the odor of racism and misogyny, and Republicans determined to look the other way no matter the affront.

Nonetheless, much of the mainstream media, never-Trump Republicans, and centrist Democrats  portray voters, especially those of the rust belt central to electoral victory in presidential elections, as hungry for a Democrat who blisters Trump yet is not very liberal. If there is any- any- validity to that argument, Democrats would prosper by an argument that a president fond of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and other anti-American despots is contemptuous of his fellow Americans.

Meanwhile, the image of the Democratic Party among many voters in the "heartland" as one which sees not one country but gay vs. straight, women vs. men, "people of color" vs. white would be undermined.  If Democrats don't even recognize that Donald Trump has given them an opening, they're placing their faith in the notion that the nation's changing demographics, which was almost to guarantee them a victory in 2016, is their ticket to victory in 2020.

Or maybe these well-healed critics mean only that the Democratic Party must not nominate Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or anyone else who would upset the economic status quo. But give it a try.

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How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ilhan?

These two seem to have a disagreement:

Clean up your own party, dude. https://t.co/ip1NPPXCbF

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) April 14, 2019

It does appear that David Frum has remained a registered Republican. However, he has barely been in position to influence the Republican Party since he was effectively thrown out of the American Enterprise Institute in 2010, and probably not at all since he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In the article to which Frum linked in his tweet, he addressed the most recent controversy surrounding Democrat Ilhan Omar, in which the Minnesota congresswoman at a meeting of the Council of American-Islamic Affairs in March indelicately stated  “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

Frum notes that two Democratic presidential candidates already "have offered full-throated endorsements" with other Democrats having defended her.  He reasons

Having promised not to “let him drive us apart” from Omar, Democrats are now stuck with responsibility for the reckless things the representative from Minnesota says, not only about Jews, but about other issues, too. Omar has already served notice that she does not intend to behave more circumspectly in the future. In a Friday-night interview, Stephen Colbert asked Omar whether she would heed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s advice to back-bench it for a while. Omar answered, “I think Nancy knows this very well. Women have been told to go slow and not be seen and not be heard for many years. She wouldn’t have made it to where she is if she did. And it’s certainly the case for minority women … We are not there to be quiet. We are not there to be invisible. We are there to follow the lead of people like Congressman John Lewis and make good trouble.”

Well, this is trouble, and not only because John Lewis suffered a skull fracture when clubbed by an Alabama State Trooper in de facto enforcement of de jure segregation.  Some 54 years later, Representative Omar, her family, and her staff  (thankfully) are being given increased security by Capitol Police in response to a death threat from a civilian, who already has been apprehended.

It's a problem also because, as Frum wrote

The Democrats are on notice. More remarks will be coming...

After Trump’s tweeted attack, Omar will become even more internally uncriticizable and unmanageable, without becoming any more careful or responsible. Indeed, the speech by Omar that provided Trump with the sound bite he exploited—“some people did something”—itself exemplifies her carelessness and irresponsibility.

CAIR was founded in 1994, which was seven years before 2001, a not insignificant distinction in light of the statement by the freshman Democrat. Nonetheless, her Democratic defenders rightly believe that the comment must be considered in context, in which it appears less callous than the GOP is making it out to be. However, the full context impels also the recognition that

Against Omar’s propensity to provoke, the Democratic Party seems institutionally almost defenseless. Pelosi was thwarted when she attempted to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitic expressions by House members. Instead, the House substituted more muddled language in which Jews appeared in a laundry list condemning all expressions of intolerance against “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others.”

And then at the Republican-Jewish Coalition convention, President Trump told the assembled American Jews that Benjamin Netanyahu is "your prime minister" and a Democratic victory in 2020 "would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves." Thus having accused Jews of dual loyalties, Trump could have been censored by the House of Representatives for anti-Semitic remarks had House Democrats not taken a pass on justifiably accusing Omar of a similar expression of hate.

And now, as Frum realizes, the Democratic Party is stuck.  Representative Omar, far more intelligent than careful, got the message when her Party refused to address her statement on its own (lack of) merit.  Therefore

It cannot be pleasant for Omar’s colleagues to have to wonder and worry what that next remark will be—knowing that Donald Trump and his Twitter feed will be waiting to blame all Democrats for the provocations of one. But by not putting themselves on record about Omar when they could, Democrats now find themselves bound to her for the duration. This problem will get worse, and its political consequences will become ever more costly for Democrats who want to win national elections and govern the country.

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Anti-Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Too

Though Protestant, I must be anti-Protestant, for I dislike Donald Trump, a professed Presbyterian, Mike Pence (Catholic turned evangelical Protestant), and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, presumed to be the Baptist her father is.

On Monday Ilhan Omar tweeted

Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage. https://t.co/7NyMDgojd7

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 8, 2019

Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.

Slamming Omar, GOP strategist, Trump campaign adviser and Orthodox Jew Jeff Ballabon remarked

The fact is, Jews are not only minority. Jews are the most victimized minority in this country, far more than blacks, Muslims and women, which is what Ilhan Omar keeps on being characterized as though she’s being attacked.

That's an actual quote from one of Stephen Miller's defenders, another of whom is Donald Trump:

'What’s completely unacceptable is for Congesswoman [sic] Omar to target Jews, in this case Stephen Miller.' Jeff Ballabon, B2 Strategic, CEO. @Varneyco," Trump tweeted, referencing a segment on Fox Business Network.

Eager to please the boss, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York tweeted "During my time in Congress before @IlhanOmar got here, I didn't once witness another Member target Jewish people like this with the name calling & other personal attacks. In 2019 though, for @IlhanOmar, this is just called Monday."

For Lee Zeldin (and Donald Trump). this is just called dishonest.   Omar did not criticize a Jew; she criticized someone she considered a white nationalist who happens to be Jewish, whose religion would have escaped the attention of most of America if the President hadn't pointed it out.

Successfully straining to be objective, Eric Levitz explains

Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not it is worth maintaining a semantic distinction between individuals who openly identify as white nationalists and those whose words and deeds betray an ideological commitment to maintaining the United States as a majority-white nation.... But we do know that he has tried to ban Chinese students from American universities and pushed for the deportation of Vietnamese refugees who have been in the United States for decades — a policy with no national-security, economic, or assimilationist rationale. We also know that Miller reportedly told a colleague, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil”; and a middle-school classmate, that they couldn’t be friends anymore because of the classmate’s “Latino heritage.” And we know that he wrote in his high-school yearbook, quoting Teddy Roosevelt, “There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”

But as Levitz would understand, facts are not at issue when the objective is to stir up animosity among religious and ethnic groups.  There was no mention or hint of Miller's religion, heritage, or ethnicity in Representative Omar's statement. Maintaining merely "Stephen Miller is a white nationalist" who should not have " influence on policy and political appointments," the congresswoman was criticizing someone impersonating a white supremacist who happens to be Jewish.

The GOP response, invoking anti-Semitism out of thin air, was taken following a particular comment by a particular member of Congress. That would qualify me as anti-Protestant, given that I believe that the entire GOP Congress, about half of which is Protestant, is a pack of cowards cowering before a president doing a bad impersonation of a President, a worse one of a human being.

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The Moral High Ground, Lost

Blown opportunity.  On March 6, I wrote (typed)

Yet 6-7 days after Democrat Omar made her comment decrying alleged dual allegiance, House leadership has been unable or unwilling either to remove Omar from the Foreign Relations Committee or to denounce anti-Semitism.

In the coming days, Pelosi and her caucus will do something. The optimum decision would be to remove her from a committee which has jurisdiction over foreign affairs, including in the Middle East, which includes the Jewish state and American ally, Israel.

They did do something. Under the Speaker's leadership, House Democrats pushed through a measure with the support of every Democrat and most Republicans. Omitting the name "Ilhan Omar," the resolution argued "whether from the political right, center or left, bigotry, discrimination, oppression, racism and imputations of dual loyalty threaten American democracy and have no place in American political discourse."

One Democratic aide, perhaps generously, labeled it "a kitchen-sink resolution." Nonetheless, after its passage I hoped "Omar will learn to curb her tongue and Twitter finger."

So far at least, it appears that she has. However, no one has ever lost money betting against Donald J. Trump making a vile remark- or two. And so it was that when he was

Addressing American Jews on Saturday in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump casually invoked the anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty by referring to Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, as “your prime minister.”

Given that Trump was speaking to Jewish Republicans — including Sheldon Adelson, the American casino magnate who is one of Netanyahu’s biggest donors — the president was not wrong to assume that the crowd was strongly pro-Israel, but the accusation that the loyalty of non-Israeli Jews to their home countries is somehow suspect has a long, ugly history.

Later in his address to the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering, Trump referred a second time to American Jews as if they were Israelis by saying that a victory for Democrats in the 2020 election “would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves.”

Several journalists expressed discomfort as Trump went on to suggest that his Jewish supporters should explain “to some of your people” in business and finance that they should stop opposing his imposition of tariffs on imported goods.

Prepare to be shocked! shocked! Trump elevated his hypocritical game by remarking during the same speech “Special thanks to Rep. Omar of Minnesota. Oh, I almost forgot. She doesn’t like Israel ... I’m so sorry!”

Trump will be Trump, hypocritical, bigoted, partisan to an unprecedented degree.  But it was a missed opportunity a month ago for the Democratic Party which the President slammed and slandered, and which decided that the words "Ilhan Omar" or even "the congresswoman from the 5th district of Minnesota" could not be uttered in an "anti-hate" resolution.

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over the process which led to the resolution, the Democratic Party considered criticizing the individual who had made the remark(s) which precipitated the vote.Then it whiffed, instead settling on a grab bag of victims, thus (as one GOP opponent properly quipped) "left out the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we left out Wiccans, we left out Jehovah’s Witnesses, we left out disabled people."

Democrats ceded the high ground on anti-Semitism. It was theirs to lose, and they lost it, lost it under Coach Nancy Pelosi, responding to concerns of the black and progressive caucuses. Now President Trump clearly has accused American Jews of dual loyalty, and the Democratic reaction is....... silence.

It didn't have to be this way. Democrats could have placed in front of House members a statement of disapproval of an apparent anti-Semite, passed it overwhelmingly, and now credibly condemned President Trump.

Instead, leadership made an unforced error in deciding not to offend its pro-Palestinian bloc. Now President Trump, whom Democrats realize is reprehensible, has reinforced one of the oldest tropes about American Jewry. In (lack of) response, congressional Democrats, Jew and non-Jew, cannot find their voice. This was a failure of leadership, and for once it was not of Donald Trump's making. 

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