Ilhan Omar’s letter to the judge asking for mercy for the man who threatened to kill her is a diversion from the smears of today’s hearing. Open thread.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…
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Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!
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Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.
I personally stopped the public option…
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How has Obama failed you today?
We have all the best words.
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Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.
Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter
Usually wrong but never in doubt.
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Naturally gregarious and alpha
Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.
It’s a tarp!
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Lighten up, Francis.
Militantly superior in their own minds…
Women: They Get Shit Done
debbie
That’s more compassion than he deserves. Proof Omar is not an American! //
Redshift
Class act.
AxelFoley
Couldn’t be me. I’d let the fool do the time.
Baud
I know certain moral codes place value on mercy, but I’m not sure I’m on board in this case.
Mary G
Next year her Republican opponent will call her weak on crime.
debbie
@Redshift:
Especially quoting Mandela at the end.
Chetan Murthy
@AxelFoley: Same here. She’s 10x the decent person I am.
David Hunt
@AxelFoley: I didn’t get the impression that she was asking for him to do no time. She asked that he not be given as “severe prison sentence.”
AxelFoley
@David Hunt: Still, I’d let him do the severe time. Then again, I’m not a politician. Plus, this probably goes a way of rehabbing her image a bit.
Ohio Mom
I knew I liked her.
After watching today’s hearing, I had a very nice afternoon, stepping away from the news. Took a nap, ordered a few Hanukkah presents, cooked a slightly more elaborate than usual dinner. Now waiting for Ohio Dad to come home from work so supper can be served.
Even though this is the moment I’ve long waited for, the moment Trump’s presidency begins to implode, I find that I am running out of tolerance for witnessing it. I just want to fast forward to whatever is next.
Yutsano
Omar is taking from the books of Medina, which emphasise compassion and mercy. I don’t know the exact surah off the top of my head but to express compassion for the prisoner is in the Qu’ran. She’s also shading all the supposed Christians with how true empathy is supposed to work. She’s definitely showing the better side of humanity here.
Zinsky
Islam values mercy higher than Christianity, at least the Christianity we see being “practiced” in America today.
Yutsano
@Zinsky: Jinx. :P
Jay
@AxelFoley:
her image needs no rehabbing, large numbers of so called Americans on the other hand, need to pull their heads out of their asses.
Dan B
@Yutsano: Do you know the difference, if there is one in this area, between Wahabbi views of mercy and other forms of Islam?
I have Muslim friends who can answer this if it’s outside your sphere of expertise. At the moment they are focused on the outrages to the Palestinians and the GI the President pardoned after he shot a young girl in a flowered hijab walking with her girlfriends, stabbed a teenage boy who was being treated for injuries, and many more, including shooring his machine gun randomly from a bridge on the Tigris.
Ruckus
Many of the sentences in this country are overly excessive and send the message that there is no rehabilitation for crimes. Well except for the wealthy. That doesn’t mean everyone can be rehabilitated, they can’t. But it sends the wrong message for society as a whole. People have to pay for their crimes, they shouldn’t have to pay several times over.
AxelFoley
@Jay: I disagree. She has a habit of putting her foot in her mouth and has said things that have been construed as anti-Semitic. Speaker Pelosi has had to cover for her because she has no filter.
jayjaybear
@AxelFoley: Because of course none of that was propelled forward by Islamophobia or “Squad”phobia. Everything that other people say about Rep. Omar’s state of mind is 100% correct, and her own witness to her state of mind is 100% suspect.
Ruckus
Also, right now, and yes, several times in my life, our government has had its head up it’s ass in punishing other countries, as well as in not punishing some at all, for all the wrong reasons, or in making the action so severe that it was retribution, not punishment.
Tata
@AxelFoley: If you’re looking for something to construe as anti-Semitic you could find it anywhere, even in things that specifically aren’t. But that’s if you’re looking.
Are you looking for something anti-Semitic?
Jay
@AxelFoley:
anti-semites and nazis have accused her of being anti-semetic.
funny that.
it’s always fun to see nazi talking points trotted out here and elsewhere by so called Democrats.
NeverAgainNow and similar Jewish groups have no issue with her.
Sheldon Addelson, APAIC and others do.
in Trumps America, one is known by ones enemies.
Chetan Murthy
Perhaps you are referring to things that coudl be reasonably construed as anti-Israeli? Or anti-Zionist? Because those aren’t the same as anti-Semitic.
jackmac
The first three paragraphs of Rep. Omar’s letter make a pretty convincing case for severe punishment.
I know she goes on to call for compassion. But has Patrick W. Carlineo, the man who pleaded guilty to threatening her, offered any apology? Has he exhibited any remorse?
He needs a lengthy sentence and time to ponder his crime . He also should serve as an example to others thinking about taking shots at people like Rep. Omar.
Chetan Murthy
I have a Jewish-American friend, who, once over dinner, extolled the many great qualities of Israel, and urged me to visit. In my line of work (computer science) there are many opportunities to do so. After that dinner, I wrote him, and let him know that as long as Israel continues to oppress the Palestinians, I could not in good conscience set foot in Israel.
Was that anti-Semitic? Might be anti-Israeli (the state) and anti-Zionist. But anti-Semitic?
I also expressed to him that notwithstanding, I fully supported the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and America’s support for Israel’s existence. How does that change your determination above, of my position?
trollhattan
We sure it’s not Stockholm syndrome?
Jay
@jackmac:
the US is by far the global leader in incarcerating citizens, what’s a few more.
Jay
@trollhattan:
some understand that the US Prison Industrial Complex neither provides reformation, nor rehabilitation. People who manage to survive the system and come out as “better” people, do so, despite the best efforts of the system to destroy them as human beings.
Yutsano
@Chetan Murthy:
I can agree that Israel should exist as a state primarily for the Jewish population. But pushing as an exclusive Jewish state pushes the apartheid of the Palestinians. It needs to be a shared democratic land or Israel is going to fail.
EDIT: I know you’re on my side here that the Palestinians need to have their own right to self-determination either inside or outside Israel. I wasn’t accusing you of agreeing with current Israeli policy. My apologies since that doesn’t look clear.
Omnes Omnibus
When everyone finishes shitting righteously on AxelFoley, they could take a moment and notice that he said that she has said things that were construed as anti-semitic and that this letter could help her image. Both of his statements were correct.
p.a.
But conservatives believe in personal responsibility, amirite?
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
given the whom of whom is “construing” her statements as anti-semetic, a letter suggesting mercy to a man that targetted her, is not going to help her image, with “them”.
in Trumps America, you are known and your quality is shown, by the enemies you keep.
Kent
I like Omar and to the extent that I have followed her, I have never seen her say or write anything anti-Semitic. Not once. I have seen her be critical of Israel which is not the same as being anti-Israel. My wife is Chilean and I have been recently critical of Chile when it comes to the recent crisis. But that doesn’t make me anti-Chilean any more than being critical of Trump makes me anti-American.
What she has been is deliberately and maliciously misquoted by right wing scandal mongers with bad intentions. Which I expect has been a learning experience for her and something she seems to have learned from. Her only real misstep I’m aware of is the opposition to the Armenian Genocide resolution in the house last month and her apparent closeness to Assad. That’s the only thing I think she has to explain.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: People barely pay attention to news could see the surface nature of both bits.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: “People who barely…”
Jay
@Kent:
the Armenian Genocide Resolution was a “no brainer”. It was not a “good faith” Resolution, nor did it do “anything”.
her support/closeness/whatever to Ergodan on the other hand, is problematic, but then there’s a lot worse wearing D’s and pure Monster’s wearing R’s.
forget the pundit that pointed it out, but politics is like Public Transportation. You take the bus that takes you closest to your destination. You don’t wait for perfect when perfect doesn’t exist.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
When known white supremacists, nazis and their media enablers were shouting it out. Once the quotes were placed in context, it quickly became no biggie.
Generally, that’s what often happens when you live under a Nazi regime and it’s myriad of enablers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Most of the world and most of its people are not like the denizens of Balloon Juice. They don’t pay close attention to the news.
OzarkHillbilly
She is a far better person than I. Hence my continuing contributions to her.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
which is why it had traction for a couple of days but no longer has any traction except amongst nazis and other islamophobes.
something about “the company you keep” has more traction,
Amir Khalid
@Chetan Murthy:
You spoke out of respect for the humanity of Palestinians, not out of hate towards Jews or Israel. So, clearly not anti-Semitic. Anti-Zionist? Well, if you think (as I do) that the creation of Israel, which involved an imperial power giving to European Jews the land from under another people’s feet, was a very unjust remedy for a great injustice, then you are anti-Zionist; but you weren’t expressing that opinion.
I'll be Frank
compare with Gaetz wanting a year in the fed pokey for the person who threw a drink on him