Members of the “Squad” are running into some trouble
They’re young, they’re female, and they’re bold. And they’re having some difficulties:
The three most prolific members of the so-called “squad” of freshman Democratic congresswoman face allegations of violating campaign finance laws and House ethics rules for their personal or political benefit 10 months into their terms.
The article describes the charges against AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. They certainly seem to be fast learners – in terms of political corruption.
They and their supporters will say the charges are (ahem) trumped up, and that they are being persecuted.
“…rules…”
Rules are for chumps. (And Republicans. And “deplorables”.)
Corrupt leftists?
Never heard of such a thing!
That’s Palsi Pelosi telling them to fall in line. Selective enforcement is the norm with these laws, which is why they should be scarified.
Art Deco nails it.
Newt Gingrich removed Speaker Wright because of real corruption (pointing out Dem malfeasance is not allowed), so Gingrich had to be removed based on bogus charges.
You would have to be pretty naive to think that these people, who believe themselves to be on the leftist equivalent of a divinely-ordained crusade, would have any scruple about breaking any petty rules that seemed to be obstructing their path.
They’re just young and sassy!
Perhaps the squad will become known as the fraud.
“The three most prolific members of the so-called ‘squad’”? What does “prolific” mean here? I don’t think it refers to how many offspring they have; Tlaib and Omar have children, but I don’t believe Cortez has any. Does it refer to how many pieces of legislation they have introduced, or what?
bof,
Good catch, I missed that word. The old saying on Capitol Hill was that “the most dangerous place to be on Capitol Hill was between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.” That my guess for “prolific.” Prolific spouting on camera.
“Tlaib and Omar have children”.
Ewww. Little Chesa Boudins in the making.
Con men, criminals, traitors and politicians (but I repeat myself) always claim to be innocent and unjustly persecuted.
More Coven, than Squad.
How about substituting “ubiquitous” for “prolific”?
Here’s something wild:
Ilhan Omar was recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive information through intermediates to Iran, a Florida court has been told.
The claims came during testimony by Kuwati-born Canadian businessman Alan Bender, who was giving evidence in the trial of Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani. The Qatari emir’s brother stands accused of ordering his American bodyguard to murder two people, and of holding an American citizen hostage. His deposition, obtained by Al Arabiya English, was authenticated by the attorney for the plaintiffs, according to the publication.
Speaking from Toronto by video link, Bender told the Florida District Court that he met with Qatar’s Secretary to the Emir for Security Affairs Mohammad bin Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Masnad and two other senior Qatari officials.
According to his sworn deposition, the three officials told him: “If it wasn’t for our cash, Ilhan Omar would be just another black Somali refugee in America collecting welfare and serving tables on weekends.”
Bender testified that the officials asked him to recruit American politicians and journalists as Qatari assets, and that when he objected, was told that several prominent figures were already on the payroll. US Congresswoman Omar was described as the “jewel in the crown,” he said.
Qatar “recruited Ilhan Omar from even way before she thought about becoming a government official. […] They groomed her and arranged the foundation, the grounds, for her to get into politics way before she even showed interest. They convinced her,” he added.
The deposition shows he further told the court that, during a 2017 meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Omar swore allegiance to him. At the time she was a junior state representative in Minnesota.
“Ilhan Omar ‘Qatari asset,’ Florida court hears”
https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Ilhan-Omar-working-for-Qatar-Florida-court-hears-609003
That’s a story to keep up with. I believe Omar will be the first Squad member to lose her seat.
She certainly should not be on the House Intel committee.
Omar appears to have a long history of corruption, beginning with a fraudulent sham marriage to her biological brother, apparently to game the student loan system in South Dakota, and to get the brother a visa. This is according to reporting at Power Line and PJ Media.
They’re young, they’re female, and they’re bold and their all very strident women first feminists.
None of the squad made it into Congress without careful coaching and well-directed resources supporting their efforts. Their behavior and press coverage in office has been managed and shaped to benefit the party objectives. They are not autonomous. Think of them as over-aged teenagers, subsidized and embued with limited freedoms until they are able to prove their mettle to the adults.
Call me when the indictments are delivered.
Female
Leftist/Socialist
D
Hate the President.
Ticks all the boxes for which the media will dutifully ignore the problems.
Color me skeptical.
I was reading a post by Turley that Neo quoted on her Impeachment post, and found this cartoon by Branco in the comments.
It is much more applicable to this thread.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2019/11/22/turley-tells-disappointed-cbs-hosts-impeachment-designed-fail#comment-4699882859
The Fraud Squad bites the hand that feeds them.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/483e00ca3ef7459867b3b3bf9d1f142ebae9d29e695e5d762cf90b5123866616.jpg
Well, Omar, as a Qatari asset, was fun while it lasted:
I’m as skeptical as can be of the Qatar/@IlhanMN story, based on my MN sources. @JordanSchachtel calls it 100% nonsense, presumably based on his excellent natsec sources. ‘
–David Steinberg, tweet passed on by Powerline
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/11/an-omar-sideshow.php
Just when I was getting into the fantasy of her as a Somali Mata Hari.
huxley, this is why I trust conservative news sources and not leftist ones. When they see a story that looks bogus, they will say so, even when the story doesn’t help their “narrative.”
Kate: I didn’t know JPost was leftist….
In the 2000s I used to read Debkafile until I realized I didn’t have the background to assess what I was reading. Not that Debkafile is leftist.
https://www.debka.com
I guess I’ll have to settle for Omar as a tawdry, anti-semitic scamster-bigamist. I had such hopes for her.
It may not be leftist, and I didn’t mean to nail the JP. But if such an uncorroborated foreign collusion story about anyone with an R after the name surfaced, it would be all over the web. In this case, conservative media didn’t pick it up until the JP did (although they knew about it) and they don’t have verification of the story, and two reporters who have been hounding Omar on other issues immediately say they don’t believe it.
At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig ( I am not; I have a daughter whom I fully support in all her endeavors and my wife is very successful) many of the females that have come to the political fore in recent years are total wackos, radicals, losers and yes, complete idiots (as in just plain stupid; literally dumb as rocks).
True, men in govt. have been running the show the longest and there are plenty of examples of their stupidity and really really stupid policies they promote, but it was hoped that with more females in Congress, etc., they,, females, would be more “reasonable” or “sensible”.
Well, perhaps they are – the majority of those females in Congress – but they have opted to keep quiet and take orders from Pelosi /Schumer. They fall in line just as readily, if not more so, than the men.
Recall during one of Trump’s state of the union addresses in which the liberal female congress women dressed in white to protest something or other.
This display of junior high school “mean girls” was a perfect display of immaturity one would expect to see in a movie entitled “mean girls.”
Schiff, of course, is the best example of incompetence, dishonesty, sleaze and deceit in Congress, and of course his supporters ( I assume they are mostly males) are no less culpable in his “legal insurrection.”
But the female members of Congress in his aisle are right there with him as well. And let’s not forget Hillary..
So if anybody had the notion that more females in Congress or in politics would help right the ship, well, …….sorry folks. When it comes to politics, gender is irrelevant.
Some of my comments here have been about the Left’s manipulation of language (and, therefore, downstream thought, analysis, and action) and here comes AOC, who has now declared that she does not want to ever hear the term “free stuff” used again.
She’s tired of being accused of wanting to give people “free stuff” because, it’s not really free stuff, it’s really “public goods.”
So I guess, then, that if it’s really “public goods” were talkin’ about—the same thing–says AOC–as public roads and libraries, only this time were talkin’ about free public college education, free public housing, free health care, and such—well, then every member of the public is entitled to his or her share of those “public goods.”
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/ocasio-cortez-says-she-never-wants-to-hear-term-free-stuff-ever-again/
From what I’ve read — meaning, FWIW — the JP is possibly somewhat left-leaning, but not to the standard of Haaretz.
Again FWIW, Caroline Glick writes for the former, but not for the latter that I’ve noticed.
FURTHER. I searched DDG for “Caroline Glick” Haaretz . The very first result on the page (my boldface):
More from Haaretz, all referring to Miss Glick’s activities on the Israeli version (I guess) of The Right.
So maybe JP not particularly left-leaning at all.
“Schiff, of course, is the best example….”
He certainly does have his uses.
In this case, it seems he’s really given Trump’s re-election hopes a huge boost (along with many of his goofy colleagues, of both—sorry, ALL—genders).
Perhaps he’ll be as helpful in 2020 as Bernie was (along with Hillary, of course) in 2016. Well, one can always hope….
Anyway, here’s Schiff (in the glasses), a person of many talents—and probably very likeable when he’s not trying to destroy people and trample the Constitution—doing a pretty decent imitation of Debbie Harry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIXIsYWS8CA
You want to know how all the knuckleheads get voted into office, and how they are able to bamboozle the public when they talk about this or that plan or program these knuckleheads are proposing or championing?
One reason would be our increasingly ignorant–and deliberately so—electorate.
Here is an article about George Washington University’s History Department which—in order to become more “popular” with incoming students, and to increase the declining number of students who choose History as their major, to become more “flexible” and “responsive” to student interests—is eliminating their former requirements, that in order to get a degree in History you had to take foundational courses in U.S., North American, or European History, had to study and have some proficiency in a foreign language, and had to research and write an actual thesis (alternatively students can now present a “capstone digital project” instead of a thesis–whatever that is).
And here I naively though that the job of a university was to teach students what they needed to know to become well-rounded and actually educated graduates, and not to be “popular” and serve up whatever students—by definition not yet fully educated—wanted; to serve up the vegetables, for instance, broccoli, to their students, instead of a steady diet of pizza, fries, onion rings, beer, and ice cream.
I presume that for many of today’s “snowflake” students having to study, read material, think, analyze, and write is just way, way too “hard.”
See https://www.gwhatchet.com/2016/11/13/history-department-changes-major-requirements-to-draw-in-students/
P.S.–I note that AOC never mentions just how those “public goods” might have appeared out of thin air, about who grew, showed up, planted, and nurtured that ol’ “Money tree,” who chipped in for those “public” roads and libraries, and who didn’t.
P.S.–I note that AOC never mentions just how those “public goods” might have appeared out of thin air, about who grew, showed up, planted, and nurtured that ol’ “Money tree,” who chipped in for those “public” roads and libraries, and who didn’t.
About 50% of state and local receipts are attributable to sales, excise, and property taxes. These have an impact on the real income of anyone who buys something or pays rent.
The point is that some things are paid for by the general public via taxes, and are used by the general public and for the collective good–things like roads, bridges, K-12 education, police departments, and libraries.
Other things, however, that people need and “want” are paid for by individuals for their own individual, personal benefit–things like education beyond the 12th grade, housing, food, clothing, transportation by car, bus, and plane, medical care, etc.
AOC and others are trying to do their little flimflam act, and claim that those things –which are individual responsibilities, wants, and needs–are, in fact, things that each individual has an inherent “right” to, and are, thus, public responsibilities and should, therefore, be paid for by the public.
Thus, if Jimmy wants to go to college, or to get medical care beyond basic emergency room care (which is already provided free to everyone according to law–a fact that illegal aliens take advantage of, as do pregnant illegals who enter our country just ready to give birth), wants food to eat, or to have an apartment, well, not only is Jimmy–by virtue of being a human being– “entitled to” and has the inherent “right” to those things–and others–but all of us taxpayers should have to pay for them–to supply his needs and wants.
The point is that some things are paid for by the general public via taxes, and are used by the general public and for the collective good–things like roads, bridges, K-12 education, police departments, and libraries.
One of these things is not like the other. Schooling is a fee-for-service activity which emerges naturally on the open market. It’s not akin to road construction or police services, which are what economists call ‘public goods’. Common provision of schooling is a species of welfare, even if by convention suburban residents never think of it that way. Transportation costs ca. 1840 were such that economically viable schooling meant some mix of home instruction, instruction by household employees, instruction by itinerant providers, or public provision. That doesn’t apply anymore, but we retain a descendant of that system. Except, of course, local discretion is minimal nowadays. (I do wonder if some of the suburban hostility to voucher systems is derived from the effective acknowledgement that provision of schooling is a species of welfare).
Thus, if Jimmy wants to go to college, or to get medical care beyond basic emergency room care (which is already provided free to everyone according to law–a fact that illegal aliens take advantage of, as do pregnant illegals who enter our country just ready to give birth), wants food to eat, or to have an apartment, well, not only is Jimmy–by virtue of being a human being– “entitled to” and has the inherent “right” to those things–and others–but all of us taxpayers should have to pay for them–to supply his needs and wants.
Without a doubt, gliberal and leftoid politicians lack a clear sense of what the limits are (much less can they formulate a sophisticated argument for those limits). That having been said, markets for medical care, l/t care, schooling, and legal services have some problems. The problems do not go away because AOC hasn’t a clue how to address them without generating more politico-economic pathology.
is eliminating their former requirements, that in order to get a degree in History you had to take foundational courses in U.S., North American, or European History, had to study and have some proficiency in a foreign language, and had to research and write an actual thesis (alternatively students can now present a “capstone digital project” instead of a thesis–whatever that is).
I think 35 years ago you’d have had to scrounge to find a school for which foreign language proficiency was required for history majors (or a senior thesis, while we’re at it; these were commonly called ‘honors theses’).
There’s been a secular decline in the length of semesters and in the number of credits composing a BA degree (and I think that’s ongoing). There’s also been dreadful grade inflation (though I think that ran its course between about 1962 and 1975).
P.S.–Fortunately, our Founders thought that the only things we, as human beings and Americans, are “entitled” to–that they could arrange our government to try to make the conditions conducive to were–“Life,” and “Liberty” and–given those things–the chance for each one of us to use their talents, education, and will–and whatever luck we could scare up–to pursue our own individual versions of “Happiness.”
Nothing else was given to us, or should be guaranteed, handed to us, as a gift, by our government.
Given “Life” and “Liberty,” we are all, thereafter, on our own–to use our God-given talents, to do well or badly, to “play the hand we are dealt,” to make the best of the circumstances we find ourselves in, and the chances that may come our way to obtain the things and circumstances we each might want.