Week in Review: The Outrageous Story About the Postal Service Too Many Know Nothing About

 

Help inform our work in 2022. We're conducting our annual reader survey. Whether you’re a new Common Dreams reader or a long-timer, we want to hear from you. START SURVEY The Week in Review Russian Official Denounces 'Peak Hysteria' Following Putin-Biden Call Over Ukraine "We don't understand why false information about our intentions is being passed to the media," said Yury Ukshakov, a top foreign policy advisor to the Russian president. by Jon Queally Afghan Central Bank Calls US Theft of $7 Billion 'Injustice to People of Afghanistan' "The real owners of these reserves are people of Afghanistan," the bank declared in response to the seizure of over $7 billion by the U.S. government. by Jon Queally 'Nothing More Grotesque Than a Media Pushing for War,' Says Edward Snowden The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill similarly notes that "the talking heads on cable news are almost drooling over the prospect of a ratings-boosting war." by Jessica Corbett Why Does Lauren Boebert Want to Annihilate the Sage-Grouse? Follow the Money The GOP lawmaker called the threatened species a "mediocre bird," but one watchdog group says her husband's ties to a major oil and gas firm better explain it. by Kenny Stancil MORE NEWS Opinion The Outrageous Story About the Postal Service Too Many Know Nothing About Following a 16-year bet Republicans laid down in 2006 to block Postal EVs, DeJoy just told Biden to go screw himself: he’s going to buy fossil-fuel vehicles for 90% of the fleet instead of electric. by Thom Hartmann The Republican Embrace of Trumpian Fascism Is Complete—and Now Must Be Defeated The question is no longer whether Trump and the MAGA movement are fascist, but where they are taking the country. by Bill Blum MORE OPINION Support our independent journalism. Without our readers, we simply wouldn't exist. PLEASE DONATE TODAY www.commondreams.org Common Dreams PO Box 443 Portland, ME 04112 United States

The hateful attacks won’t stop

 

Last week at a fundraiser, conspiracy theorist Lauren Boebert described a fictitious encounter with Ilhan Omar, in which she implied that Capitol Police mistook Ilhan as a terrorist. This isn’t the first time right-wing extremists have targeted Ilhan and the rest of the Squad with hateful and dangerous rhetoric.

Since Ilhan Omar was elected, right-wing extremists have attacked Ilhan for her identity as a Black Muslim woman fighting for progressive change in Congress. Donald Trump frequently used attacks against Ilhan to energize his base, and now his supporters in Congress are doing the same thing.

We’re working to elect more women of color, including more Muslim women, to Congress this year. 

Ilhan didn’t come to Congress to fight with Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or other right-wing extremists. She was elected to fight for racial justice, economic equality, health care for all, and so much more. But when Lauren Boebert makes inflammatory comments about Ilhan and Rashida Tliab, she perpetuates the anti-Muslim bigotry used to dehumanize and attack Muslims across the country.

Anti-Muslim bigotry has no place in Congress, and we know that these hateful attacks won’t stop. 

In solidarity,

Justice Democrats

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RSN: FOCUS: Juan Cole | Lauren Boebert Is the One With Terrorist Ties, Not Ilhan Omar

 

 

28 November 21

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FOCUS: Juan Cole | Lauren Boebert Is the One With Terrorist Ties, Not Ilhan Omar
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "We should be clear that there is no difference between talking this way about prominent Muslim Americans and using the N word for African Americans or various negative epithets for Jewish Americans and Asian Americans. It is bigotry and hate speech."

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was caught on camera boasting of taunting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that she is a terrorist.

The taunt was ironic given that Hunter Walker at Rolling Stone reported that Boebert was one of a handful of representatives on the Hill who repeatedly met with conspirators planning the January 6, 2021, Capitol Insurrection in which angry armed mobs invaded the halls of Congress chanting “hang Mike Pence” and seeking to harm legislators.

Walker said of his two two top sources within the insurrectionists, “Rolling Stone has separately obtained documentary evidence that both sources were in contact with [Arizona Rep. Paul] Gosar and Boebert on Jan. 6.”

On Jan. 6! That is, while the insurrection was taking place!

That is, Boebert is the one with terrorist ties.

Rep. Omar is a refugee from the violence of warlords and terrorists in Somalia who came to the U.S. as a girl and rose to become a congresswoman because of her devotion to her new country and the trust she gained among her constituents that she would carefully steward their interests. Hers is a quintessential American story. Seven of the thirty-nine signers of the U.S. Constitution were foreign-born, one in the West Indies. For Rep. Omar to be tagged unjustly with the very violence that drove her from her homeland as a child must be deeply upsetting.

Boebert, addressing a small group of constituents in a living room, told a story (which Rep. Omar contests) that she was getting into an elevator in the Capitol when a policeman came running toward her with alarm on his face. Puzzled, she looked around and saw that Rep. Omar was in it with her. She alleged that she reassured the policeman that Omar did not have a backpack and so it was probably safe. She said that she then used the phrase “jihad squad.”

Rep. Omar Tweeted:

“Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.

Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”

Boebert, having seen how Rep. Gosar was stripped of his committee assignments, must have feared something similar would happen to her, because she uncharacteristically backed down and apologized if any Muslims were offended by her remarks.

We should be clear that there is no difference between talking this way about prominent Muslim Americans and using the N word for African Americans or various negative epithets for Jewish Americans and Asian Americans. It is bigotry and hate speech. There are on the order of 3.7 million Muslim Americans, a little over 1% of the population, and they are the pillars of their communities. A proportional number are physicians and nurses, keeping us healthy and risking their lives at the front lines during the pandemic.

Moreover, as Omar herself noted in a tweet, tagging Muslim Americans as terrorists is an incitement to mobs to lynch them, and Rep. Omar is already the victim of large numbers of death threats. Anti-Muslim hate crimes spiked during the Trump administration when the president himself ladled out copious amounts of anti-Muslim bigotry in public comments.

In what has become a widely cited and classic essay, “Top Ten differences between White Terrorists and Others,” I pointed out that “white terrorists are never called white.” Boebert and her violent friends use this privilege to avoid the consequences of their deeds and plots, smugly sitting in Congress while conspiring to commit terrorism with Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Boogaloo Bois.

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Fox News regulars QUIT over Tucker’s dangerous lies

 

SUV attack in Wisconsin Xmas parade leaves 5 dead, 40 injured

Today's Top Stories:

2 Fox News commentators resign over Tucker Carlson whitewashing of MAGA riot
Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, network regulars since 2009, trashed Carlson's series on the insurrection as "incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with... damning omissions."

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Jen Psaki just mopped the floor with a Fox News reporter after his dumb question
The party that added $7.8 trillion to the national debt has yet again become hawkish on the deficit now that a Democrat is in office, and Fox is predictably carrying their stagnant water.

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Kevin McCarthy HUMILIATES himself with ultimate fail
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: What an embarrassment.

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GOP Senate candidate boasting about unvaccinated status on campaign trail is profiting from companies that make COVID-19 vaccines   [Republican US Senate candidate Mark Pukita of Ohio]
Oops.

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"Racist and incompetent": Critics blast attorney for man accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery
Sometimes you get the representation you deserve.

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AOC says the idea that "we're not Trump" is enough for Democrats to win elections is "deeply demoralizing"
Lamenting cuts and compromises made in Biden's signature spending packages, Ocasio-Cortez noted, "the talking points are not enough. You've got to give me something to work with, with my communities. And if you're not, how can I make the argument that [voters] should turn out again?"

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Rittenhouse tells Tucker Carlson he's "not a racist person," supports BLM movement
Before his trial for killing two protesters and wounding a third with an AR-15 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Rittenhouse was photographed in a bar with apparent members of the far-right Proud Boys.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, and Lauren Boebert's extremism costing them support from their voters
United Rural Democrats: New extremists in Congress are taking their districts for granted while delivering nothing for them. United Rural Democrats are organizing on the ground to shock Republicans by winning back Middle America. But they need your help!

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Elon Musk and Lauren Boebert lament Biden IRS plan on Twitter
Musk, who paid ZERO federal income tax in 2018, and GOP "law-and-order" Rep. Boebert sure don't like the idea of the IRS collecting the taxes rightfully owed to the US Treasury to, you know, keep the country functioning and whatnot.

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Activists urge Biden to push for intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines
Fifteen human rights groups are urging President Biden to get personally engaged in a long-running fight to enact an intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines at the WTO, noting that fewer than 7% of people in low-income countries had received a first dose and vaccines remained scarce.

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Interview with Virginia’s incoming lt. gov veers off the rails as she spreads COVID misinformation  [Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears]
Republicans are willingly and knowingly spreading dangerous misinformation on the ongoing pandemic and voters simply don't seem to care.

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Judge faults Trump for deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Federal Judge Amit Mehta squarely placed the blame for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Trump, suggesting his role in seeding lies about the 2020 election — and the effect it had on his followers whom he referred to as "pawns" — has been an underappreciated part of the entire episode.

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Seriously?

GOP embraces natural immunity as substitute for vaccines

Lin Wood says he's suing Rittenhouse lawyer for calling him an 'idiot'

Nursing home where 83 residents died of COVID still in business under new name

Trump receives honorary taekwondo black belt

Yes. Seriously.

White supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Florida

US added to list of ‘backsliding’ democracies for first time

Report: Putin eyes possible Ukraine invasion

Top GOP senator slams Republican blockade on diplomatic nominees

Hope...

GoodGoodGood: Milan on mission to cut food waste in half

After slow starts, some Asian vaccination rates now soaring

Black men wrongfully convicted of 1949 rape nearing posthumous exoneration

2 of 17 kidnapped missionaries are freed in Haiti