"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, February 03, 2023

Congress ousts Ilhan Omar from foreign affairs committee

It's good to see the GOP's done something right here, banishing antisemitic Omar from a committee she doesn't belong on, any more than the rest of the modern Democrats:
The House voted Thursday along party lines to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee through a resolution that cites her past derogatory remarks about Jewish people and anti-Israel posture.

The vote passed 218 to 211, with all Democrats voting against the resolution and one Republican, Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), voting “present.”
If Joyce didn't support the resolution, it demonstrates how the GOP still has problems of its own with bad apples.
The vote is a win for House Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the chamber, after a few from their conference initially objected to the resolution. The three who had vocally opposed it, Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Ken Buck (R-CO), had flipped their vote by Thursday morning.

Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), a key player in the successful whip operation, told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement that Omar, a fellow Minnesotan, had “no place representing American interests” on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

“There is no debate that Ilhan Omar, the face of antisemitism in the Democrat Party, has no place representing American interests on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Ms. Omar is an embarrassment to Minnesota and our country,”
Emmer said.

[...] Republicans’ opposition to Omar serving on the committee comes after the two-term Minnesota Democrat gained a reputation for promoting antisemitic tropes, such as claiming Israel had “hypnotized the world” and that support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins.”

Omar later apologized for the remarks but continued to take anti-Israel positions.

In 2019, Omar introduced a resolution that supported the anti-Israel “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement. In 2021, she lumped “atrocities” supposedly committed by the U.S. and Israel in with those committed by the Taliban and Hamas. Equating the U.S. and its Middle East ally to the two terrorist groups led to condemnation from her own party’s leadership and again resulted in Omar apologizing. Later in 2021, Omar was one of just nine members of the House to vote against a $1 billion investment in Israel’s defense system.
The harm she caused on her part is considerable. And her "apologies" were entirely false, seeing how she continued with the same behavior long after. Sadly, she could still be reelected to Congress in the next election, and that's why efforts are still needed to make sure people like her aren't allowed to continue working in Congress.

"Hijab Day" is a disgrace and harms women

Robert Spencer's discussed how Newark, New Jersey is celebrating Hijab Day, at a time when Iran's women are suffering horrifying oppression by being forced to wear it:
Back on Sept. 16, 2022, in Tehran, the Iranian morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, for not wearing her hijab properly. Amini later died in a hospital in Tehran, and numerous Iranians charged that she had been tortured to death while in custody. All over the country, protesters took to the streets to protest not against the hijab laws, but against the repressive and brutal Islamic Republic itself. Other women, and male protesters as well, were killed as the Iranian regime ruthlessly applied the Qur’anic injunction to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60). The protests went on for months until the regime began summarily executing protesters, and even then some indomitably courageous Iranians continued to take to the streets to demand their freedom.

It is against that backdrop that the Newark World Hijab Day resolution will be introduced. For innumerable women in Iran, the hijab is the most visible sign of their second-class status, and of the brutality of the regime that will imprison them for years or even kill them outright for daring to venture out in public without wearing it. The Iranian authorities call their morality police the “Guidance Patrol,” an Orwellian name that makes them sound like a bunch of benign, avuncular individuals selflessly dedicated to helping young Iranians avoid moral pitfalls and stay on the straight and narrow. A more accurate name, however, would be the Terror Patrol, for the morality that these officials enforce is not the virtuous person’s free choice of the good, but the enforced obedience of those who are frightened into submission.
In a Democrat-run area like NJ, this is sadly no shock they'd give this insult to the fairer sex their approval. But it does serve as a tragic example of where the USA is headed today.

And how mysterious nobody wants to organize a World Hat Day, which could serve as a way to celebrate headware that does honor humanity and dignity.