"Somebody's knocking. Should I let him in? Lord, it's the Devil. Would you look at him. I've heard about him, but I never dreamed. He'd have blue eyes and blue jeans." Terri Gibbs, "Somebody's Knocking"
March 13, 2019
By: Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
Stupidity is never a good excuse, but sometimes it's the only viable explanation.
And it was the one Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pulled out of her little bag of tricks to defend the indefensible anti-Jewish comments of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
"The incident that happened with, I don't think our colleague is anti-Semitic," Pelosi said this week, in her painfully, convoluted way.
"I think she has a different experience in the use of words, and doesn't understand that some of them are fraught with meaning, that she didn't realize."
Pelosi, third in line to the Presidency, is telling us that a member of Congress does not have the verbal, nor the intellectual skills to know what she is saying, when she's saying it.
That description of the 37-year-old Omar, twice-married and the mother of three, is hard to swallow.
Since taking her seat in Congress, Omar has tweeted her way into the Anti-Semitic Hall of Fame.
In 2012 she wrote, "Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
In 2018, "Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews."
And her support for BDS, "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions," a Palestinian-led organization against Israel, was information she kept under wraps.
Until after she was elected.
Despite Pelosi's claim of naivete on the part of Omar, suggesting she might not understand the nuances of cultural differences, Omar seems to know Puff Daddy enough to tweet, "It's about the Benjamins, baby," a reference to a song about $100 dollar bills, she used to suggest Jews are buying political support.
They just don't make immigrants the way they used to.
They used to weep at the sight of the Statue of Liberty, grateful to leave lives of privation, rigid class systems and and persecution behind.
They actually liked this country.
It was a country built on Judeo-Christian values, and a Constitution which ensured that any religion could be practiced.
It's the reason why a Muslim member of Congress can wear a hajib.
But Rep. Omar doesn't see it that way. She rejects capitalism and is not teary-eyed to be an American citizen.
And it's understandable. In her home country from which she fled after the start of the Somali War in 1991, is a dangerous one, fraught with kidnapping, terrorist threats, and where piracy isn't just something Johnny Depp is into.
It's a lucrative business.
Ordinary pirates can earn between $30,000 to $75,000 per heist. And it is estimated that between $339 and $413 millon dollars were paid to pirates in ransoms between 2005 and 2012.
So, maybe Nancy Pelosi is right. Ilhan may be experiencing cultural PTSD since arriving here. When she was 14.
Or, conversely, it could be plain and simple stupidity.
This week another of Omar's cohorts showed the depth of the knowledge she brings to her job.
During a House Committee Hearing on Wells Fargo Business Practices, New York Rep. Ocasio-Cortez grilled CEO Timothy Sloan, and criticized Wells Fargo for financing industries Committee Democrats oppose.
"The Keystone XL Pipeline in particular had one leak that leaked 210,000 gallons of oil across South Dakota," Ocasio-Cortez accused.
"Since Wells Fargo financed the building of this pipeline, in an environmentally unstable way (she offered no proof of that), why shouldn't the bank be held responsible for financing the cleanup of the disasters from these projects," she asked.
The problem was that she had the wrong pipeline. The Keystone XL hasn't been built yet. And Sloan's bank didn't finance it.
But hope springs eternal. If the Congress thing doesn't work out for Omar and AOC, there are always plenty of ships to be plundered off the coast of Somalia.
Hold the line, America.
Where We Go One, We Go All
Stay strong, Patriots.
Rest in Peace, Ponder Blue