The Party of Bias and Bigotry
Let’s review: one individual, namely Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), consistently minimizes terrorism while condemning efforts to combat it. Prior to coming to Congress, she wrote to a judge to request leniency for a man convicted on terrorism-related charges. She laughed in an interview when discussing how a professor’s reaction to mentions of Al Qaeda or Hezbollah differed from when America or England were referenced.
And during a speech on behalf of a group created at the behest of the Muslim Brotherhood, she expressed an offhand dismissal of the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history.
A second individual, President Donald Trump, tweeted a video of her comment alongside images of the horrific act of terrorism to which she referred, pointing out how callous it was to brush off that traumatic event as “some people did something.”
Without question, one of these two individuals made comments “designed to incite hatred” that are putting “life at risk.” But according to leading Democrats, that would be the President, rather than Rep. Omar. One could hardly look for a better example of the inversion of morality, and of hater and hated.
The more one studies her remarks, objectively and in full context, the more obvious it becomes that Ilhan Omar is a bigot of the most vile sort. Her “some people did something” speech was a whitewash of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which she claimed was founded after 9/11 to protect Muslim-Americans from Islamophobia. In reality, CAIR was founded in 1994, long before 9/11. Its goal was not to defend the rights of Muslims, but to promote the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and thus offer indirect support for global terrorism.
The United States, because it looks narrowly at the proven activities of each individual organization, does not classify CAIR as a terrorist organization. But the United Arab Emirates looks at the broader ecosystem behind the Muslim Brotherhood, and on that basis it does so characterize CAIR. That is the group Rep. Omar portrayed as a civil rights organization.
Her characterization of Jews as a secret cabal hiding its evil from a gullible world, using ill-gotten gains to buy influence and control, is by no means original. It is without question the single most dangerous, murderous lie in world history. Yet, after her latest go-round with this same sad canard, Democrats found themselves unable to condemn it — instead producing a hopelessly limp-wristed resolution that listed Pacific Islanders before Jews on its list of those targeted by hate.
The only group not mentioned at all? White Christians, such as Nick Sandmann and his fellow students from Covington Catholic High School. To Democrats, the widespread defamation of those teenagers, due to a host of assumptions based solely upon their identity characteristics, apparently did not qualify as a “hateful expression of intolerance… contrary to the values and aspirations of the United States.”
What does this tell us?
It’s not as though Democrats fail to acknowledge the power of words in other contexts. Just days earlier, they celebrated Rep. Ted Lieu for playing a short video of Candace Owens in a way designed to distort her meaning. She expressed herself poorly, but in context was merely saying that nationalism should not be regarded as inherently evil due to an association with Hitler, because Hitler was not truly a nationalist. To be certain, she was challenged immediately, but she then affirmed that Hitler was “a homicidal, psychotic maniac.”
This has rapidly become a pattern. On her popular Fox News program, Judge Jeanine Pirro wondered aloud whether Rep. Omar derives her anti-American values from her adherence to Sharia law. This, we were told, was hate speech rather than a reasonable question.
Just weeks later, New York City’s leftist Mayor Bill De Blasio called for an Orthodox Jewish city councilman to be removed from New York’s immigration committee for having the temerity to point out that “Palestine does not exist.” Acknowledging reality was deemed offensive to Palestinian Arabs, and Council Chairman Corey Johnson agreed.
Of course, liberals were experts at distorting words and meanings long before they decided to portray a condemnation of terrorism as hate speech. And since 2016, their favorite target has been President Trump. So it should surprise no one that they are staying true to form.
The President never mocked a reporter’s disability, for instance — in fact, due to his actual medical condition, that reporter could not replicate the weak, waving gesture used by the President if he tried. Yet the lie persists. The President never called neo-Nazis “fine people,” either, as anyone capable of reading English can readily confirm. And no, in no way did the President’s condemnation of Rep. Omar’s hate speech amount to hate speech itself — much less incite anyone to violence.
Now Democrats are sponsoring a bill to reverse the President’s decision to restrict immigration from countries on a terror watch list, due to the President having called this a “Muslim ban” during his campaign. Unsurprisingly, Rep. Omar is a co-sponsor.
The countries in question represent less than 10 percent of Muslims worldwide, and all of them were identified as harboring terrorism on a list created during the Obama Administration. It is sound and rational policy, rather than an expression of “Islamophobia,” to limit immigration from those countries until America can distinguish true refugees from those radicalized to hate our values and to murder us in the name of Jihad.
Omar and her fellow Democrats are playing games with the President’s poor wording, in order to make all of us less safe.
When people are twisting words to support bigotry and minimize hateful violence, calling them out for it isn’t “hatred,” but something we should hope to see from any responsible leader.
Originally published in American Greatness.
I have made it a recent practice to NOT read the news papers NOR watch ‘news’ on TV – it is all opinion and both sides have a bias. This perversion of the truth has led many to be angry all the time.
I do not find your comment to be biased or a perversion of the truth. Thank you for standing up for values many in the media and government seem to have forgotten.
I think that focusing on her dismissal of 9 11 over the clear lie re CAIR was a major tactical error on the part of every journalist and politician who covered that speech.
I find the lies of Ilhan Omar and AOC despicable and the democratic party’s inability to issue a full-throated condemnation the canary in the coal mine. While Trump and his supporters hem and haw before issuing condemnations of right-wing racism, and sometimes do not do so at all, Democrats using that as an excuse, are hardly being honorable. the middle is looking increasingly threadbare; hotheads can shout knowing they are not even close to being in control. But God help us if they even came close.
My only question is… when do you see Trump and supporters hem-ing and haw-ing? Did Trump ever fail to condemn Nazis or call them “fine people?” No. Did Trump actually fail to disavow David Duke? Well, prior to his confused reaction to being confronted with Duke’s support, he already, previously, had condemned him. Did Steve King actually say anything openly racist? No, actually, he got railroaded when the NY Times reporter misquoted him. [He has a history of foot-in-mouth, but never anything openly racist.]
This is the D’s playbook, as you know – ignore the criticism and just counter accuse your accusers of racism, sexism, etc. One can wring his hands at this, as Republicans have done fruitlessly the past 20 years while we came not-to-slowly to this point. Or one can fight fire with fire. No one likes to get in the gutter with his opponents, but unfortunately, it is necessary. Every attack from the Ds must be met with counterattacks of racism (against whites) sexism (against men) religious bigotry, etc. A lot of conservatives never wanted to go down that path, but its become necessary. In most cases such a counterattack will actually be true, but its irrelevant. These Ds don’t believe themselves their defense posturing, its just become a knee jerk reaction.
To clarify my above comment – to worry about Omar and Co.’s critique of the President is to play to their hands. The biggest lesson of the Trump campaign, in fact, it seems to me, is that the best defense is a good offense. Trump knows what all those on the right should know, and what those on the left have known for many years – you don’t advance your agenda by nitpicking the other side. You don’t waste your time mocking them. Instead, you articulate your goals high, and let the other side waste their time attacking it. At the end of the day, in whole or in part, you will be the one setting the agenda, and that’s all that matters.
No way for even you to spin Trump’s despicable comments about women. Or about immigrants. Or about a Mexican judge. Or the people of Puerto Rico after a hurricane (imagine those were Orthodox Jews he threw towels at). Or John McCain, whom he insulted for being a prisoner of war (from a guy who did his best to lie his way out of ever seeing Day 1 in our armed forces). And continues to insult after his death.
That’s Trump. He bullies and cruelly insults those who are the most vulnerable and the most needy. He emboldens other bullies in this climate of hate. White nationalists love him.
The climate of hate, of course, did not begin with Trump. It was cultivated by the real party of bias of bigotry which led us down the road to Breitbart, the NRA (which Trump recently spoke to) and the rise of right wing white nationalist terror attacks on mosques, churches and synagogues (funny how you haven’t posted about the latest terror attack in San Diego) by folks with assault weapons that nowhere else in the world could they obtain and use with such ease.
BDS and leftists haven’t killed anyone in a school or house of worship. That responsibility is borne by those who back the real party of bias and bigotry.
Really, Reb Yid, give it a rest. “BDS and leftists” encourage every terrorist act of Hamas, yet you claim they “haven’t killed anyone.” I did not imagine anyone capable of rational thought and aware of reality could say such things… and I’m not sure my opinion has changed. Meanwhile, you claim Republicans are responsible for the actions of two crazed Nazis, both of whom stated their hatred for Trump — precisely due to Trump’s incredible affinity for Jews. Talk about ungrateful!
With Trump you and your fellow leftists decided he was a racist and then tried to paint the bullseye around the target. You called John McCain a racist in 2008, and Mitt Romney a racist in 2012, so everyone knew it was coming, and how bogus it would be. After all, Trump is the one who forced Palm Beach to integrate, refusing to join a country club that would not admit blacks or Jews, and then creating his own that did. He was lionized for this by liberals right up until the moment he decided to run for President. It’s slander, and you should be ashamed. For saying that other US territories hit by hurricanes were doing much better that Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico needed our help, he’s a bad person?
Here are more relevant measures for you: how many Jews have been attacked in the streets by neo-Nazis, as compared to “BDS and leftists,” like the black man who sucker-punched a Chassidic Yid in Brooklyn yesterday? How many Jewish students have been made to feel unsafe or unwelcome by neo-Nazis, as compared to “BDS and leftists,” in the past 40 years? Whereas the Republican party hates and rejects the neo-Nazis, the Democrats encourage and celebrate the bigots. That’s the difference. AOC is “the future of the Democratic party:” ignorant, clueless, socialist, and Antisemitic.
When the mainstream media and a political party cannot condemn and view as beyond the pale the consistently anti Semitic comments of such representatives, that is proof that such comments and POVs are being mainstreamed ala the Labor Party in the UK. When anti Antisemitism is viewed as one form of prejudice but not high in the intersectional pecking order and when racial charlatans are flocked to by the same leaders who cannot openly condemn anti Semitism the time has come for a frank exchange of views with the same politicians who pay for pre YT greetings in the Jewish media and troll at our communal functions for votes.