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Sunday, January 12, 2020

REP. ILHAN OMAR ENRAGED AS MINNESOTA COUNTY BANS REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT~CONDEMNS TRUMP'S KILLING OF SOLEIMANI

REP. ILHAN OMAR ENRAGED AS MINNESOTA COUNTY BANS REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT 
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:
“What Beltrami County is doing is denying refugees a chance at a better life,” said Omar. “Native Minnesotans blame the influx of Somalis for spikes in crime. Minnesota statistics released in July 2018 showed that incidents of violent crime including murder decreased compared to 2017, but rape and involuntary sex trafficking rose to the highest rate seen in almost a quarter-century.”
So apparently Minnesotans aren’t allowed to try to provide a better life for themselves and their children. They must instead be wholly concerned with providing Muslim migrants a better life.
“Omar sounds off after Minnesota county bans refugee resettlement – aided by Trump executive order,” by Danielle Wallace, Fox News, January 10, 2020 (thanks to the Geller Report):
After an executive order by President Trump made it possible, a northern Minnesota county on Tuesday night opted to ban the resettlement of refugees within its boundaries, becoming the first in the state and the second in the nation to do so.
The vote at a crowded public meeting in Beltrami County, a sparsely inhabited area surrounding Red Lake, drew condemnation from many Minnesota Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The move was viewed by many as a reaction to spiking crime in the state since large numbers of Somali refugees began arriving, according to reports. But supporters say it was simply an exercise of their rights, as facilitated by the president.
“President Trump empowered counties to have a voice in the decision-making process for the federal refugee resettlement program,” state Rep. Matt Grossell, a Republican, told the Duluth News Tribune. “Tonight, Beltrami County exercised that option.”
In a Twitter message Wednesday, Omar – who immigrated to Minnesota from Somalia as a teenager – saw the vote differently.
“Over 20 years ago, the state of Minnesota welcomed my family with open arms. I never would’ve had the opportunities that led me to Congress had I been rejected,” Omar wrote. “What Beltrami County is doing is denying refugees a chance at a better life.”
Omar fled Somalia with her family near the beginning of the country’s civil war in 1991 and lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years until immigrating to the U.S. in 1995.
The Trump administration announced in November that resettlement agencies must get written consent from state and local officials in any jurisdiction where they want to help resettle refugees beyond June 2020. The order says the agencies were not working closely enough with local officials on resettling refugees and his administration acted to respect communities that believe they do not have the jobs or other resources to be able to take in refugees. Refugees have the right to move anywhere in the United States after their initial resettlement, but at their own expense.
The vote drew applause from many of the crowd of more than 150 people present at the board chambers in Bemidji, Minn., which is about 140 miles northwest of Duluth. Native Minnesotans blame the influx of Somalis for spikes in crime.
Minnesota statistics released in July 2018 showed that incidents of violent crime including murder decreased compared to 2017, but rape and involuntary sex trafficking rose to the highest rate seen in almost a quarter-century, The Duluth News Tribune reported, citing the state Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The report did not give a definitive reason for the spike….
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Ilhan Omar On the Warmongering Trump and the Killing Of Qassem Soleimani

BY HUGH FITZGERALD
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:
Many people – Americans, Europeans, Sunni Arabs — approved of the killing of Qassem Soleimani. Others did not, fearing an “escalation” or even a “war.” But even those Americans who disapproved of the targeted killing made sure to declare that Qassem Soleimani was a very bad man, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, including at least 600 American soldiers. There was one person, however, who stood out, not just for deploring the killing of Soleimani, but because she didn’t bother to state, as everyone else has, that Qassem Soleimani was a very bad man. Quite possibly she doesn’t think he was. Perhaps she sees him as a warrior for Islam. That person is Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. She has become known for the many inaccurate and outrageous things she has a habit of saying. We all remember when Ilhan Omar charged  that the lobbying group AIPAC bought political support for Israel with donations (“it’s all about the benjamins, baby!”); she did not realize that AIPAC does not make any donations to politicians. She famously described the 9/11 attack as an event  where “some people did something.” But she should also be remembered for what she has not said about Soleimani – that he was, at the time of his death, the most dangerous terrorist in the world, with many Americans among his victims, and was in the midst of planning other attacks on Omar’s fellow Americans. Everyone else thought it necessary to express that judgment, but not Ilhan Omar. She has yet to say a bad word about Soleimini, whom she neutrally described as a “foreign official.”
This is what Omar said just after Soleiimani’s death was announced: 
Let’s not mince words: the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was an act of war undertaken without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America,” said Omar in a statement, “Following the assassination, thousands of additional troops were sent to the Middle East in one of the largest rapid deployments seen in decades. This follows years of saber-rattling and threats of war against Iran by President Trump and his accomplices. We in Congress must exercise our Constitutional duty—and do everything in our power to stop another disastrous war.
The word “assassination” — which Omar  uses twice – suggests to many minds something nefarious, a political crime. Lincoln was assassinated. Kennedy was assassinated. Crazed killers assassinate. But in this case, the man who was killed, Qassem Soleimani, was a criminal, the world’s leading terrorist, who was in the last stages of a series of attacks planned against Americans. Ilhan Omar spoke about “years of saber-rattling and threats of war against Iran by President Trump.” What is she talking about? The “years of saber-rattling and threats of war” have come from Iran, for the last forty years, directed at America and Israel. How many thousands of “Death to America” demonstrations have been held, how many occasions when sinisterly smiling ayatollahs threatened to destroy the Great Satan? Trump has not been “saber-rattling,” but has relied on economic sanctions to constrain Iran. He has recently shown great patience with the Iranians. Perhaps Ilhan Omar did not notice that Trump held back from retaliating when the Iranians shot down two American drones. Did she not notice that he held back, too, when Iran attacked Saudi oil installations? Are those the signs of a saber-rattler, threatening war?  When it came to Soleimani, however, there was clear intelligence about an “imminent” attack that could only be prevented by taking out Soleimani himself. Trump had no choice. Ilhan Omar, so contemptuous of Trump and those she describes with malice aforethought as his “accomplices” — in contradistinction to everyone else, including those who opposed the killing — had nothing to say about Soleimani, not even a laconic summary such as “Soleimani wasn’t a great guy.”
Ilhan Omar was mad not because Trump’s action failed, but because it succeeded. First, the terrorist Soleimani was put permanently out of action. His plotting, scheming, murdering days are over, and he will not easily be replaced. Second, far from leading to “escalation,” much less to a “disastrous war,” as Ilhan claimed to fear, the Iranians understood that Trump was not like Jimmy Carter enduring the 444-day hostage crisis, and that they had better not test either Trump’s resolve, or his ability to inflict great damage on Iran. The Iranians huffed and puffed, but in the end, after all their threats, they only lobbed 20 missiles at two bases used by the Americans in Iraq. The Iranians gave the Iraqis a warning one hour before the attack was launched, knowing that it would be relayed to the Americans, giving our soldiers time to take cover in shelters. And the Iranians also made sure, it appears, that their missiles were far enough off the target so as not to actually hurt any Americans, while they could still be seen as doing something. Those attacks did not constitute an “escalation,” and as for that “disastrous war” Ilhan Omar warned about, it is less, not more likely, now that Qassem Soleimani has been killed. Had he lived, and gone through with the kind of attacks that the Americans feared were imminent, then there would have been a much greater likelihood of a  major escalation. Trump has restored our deterrence. Now things have quieted down; Iran has had its innocuous retaliation, and defying Omar’s prediction, both the U.S. and Iran have toned down the rhetoric. Trump has made clear he does not want a military escalation, and has said he is now prepared to return to economic sanctions, tightened even further, as the most effective weapon against the Islamic Republic. But don’t expect Ilhan Omar to admit that Trump proved adept both at removing a mortal threat, and at containing the aftermath; her mind is made up: Trump is a saber-rattling islamophobic warmonger who needs to be stopped.
Let’s remember Omar’s original tweet about the killing of Soleimani: “We are outraged the president would assassinate a foreign official, possibly setting off another war without Congressional authorization and has zero plan to deal with the consequences.” Soleimani is described innocuously as a “foreign official”; we are expected to overlook that he was no ordinary “official,” but a terrorist planning more murders; one commentator compared his killing to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942. “Possibly setting off another war”? Didn’t Trump, rather, by his action make war far more unlikely, by making clear to Iran the new rules of the game? Trump, claimed Omar, has “zero plan to deal with the consequences.” It looks as if the President understood perfectly well that the “consequences” would be nothing more than a symbolic attack, because he knew he had clearly frightened the Iranians. And when the Iranian response came, it was clearly aimed at impressing the Iranian public, but at the same time, Iran attempted to limit or ideally, to avoid altogether, American casualties. Where’s that “escalation” Ilhan Omar worried about? Where, hysterical Ms. Ilhan Omar, is that “war”?
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SEE ALSO:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/01/ilhan-omar-calls-soleimanis-death-an-assassination-of-a-foreign-official-and-slams-trumps-economic-sanctions