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Well, it has finally happened. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the left is predictably melting down at the news. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) repeatedly vowed to take this action against Omar and Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), and now he has fulfilled that promise.
As a result, Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media are already making the usual accusations of bigotry because there is absolutely nothing else that could ever explain an action taken against a racial or religious minority – unless they happen to be conservative, of course. Leftists are taking to the airwaves and interwebs to convince the American public that Omar’s removal, in particular, was motivated by anti-black and anti-Muslim hatred.
As RedState reported, directly before the vote to remove Omar from the committee, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gave a fiery and completely disingenuous rant on the House floor, decrying the vote and lashing out at House Republicans who would vote in favor of her removal. She claimed the move was “about targeting women of color in the United States of America.”
Omg 🤡AOC just threw a temper tantrum on the House Floor, slamming her notebook on the podium as she finished speaking.
"This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America." pic.twitter.com/pgAIfQEUwW
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) February 2, 2023
A teary-eyed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) excoriated Republicans for introducing a bill to ban federal employees from engaging in censorship while supposedly censoring Omar. “The hypocrisy is obvious to the American people. You are showing who you all are,” she wailed.
Rashida Tlaib literally breaks down in tears over Ilhan Omar being removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee. pic.twitter.com/Q81minIxvJ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 2, 2023
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) took to Twitter to attribute the development to “white supremacy.” How predictable. “Just voted NO on kicking @IlhanMN off of the Foreign Affairs Committee,” he wrote. “I’m so disgusted that we are even voting on this. White supremacy is alive and well.”
Just voted NO on kicking @IlhanMN off of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I’m so disgusted that we are even voting on this.
White supremacy is alive and well.
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) February 2, 2023
Conservative commentator Jesse Kelly slammed the GOP for a different reason: Not being honest about the true motivation behind the move to strip Omar of her committee assignment:
GOP just blew it again my kicking Ilhan Omar of a committee and saying it’s because of her comments about Israel. That sets a bad precedent.
Kick her off. But admit that it’s about retribution for them doing it to us. And say it will happen again if they ever do it again.
GOP just blew it again my kicking Ilhan Omar of a committee and saying it’s because of her comments about Israel. That sets a bad precedent.
Kick her off. But admit that it’s about retribution for them doing it to us. And say it will happen again if they ever do it again.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) February 2, 2023
However, it was former lawmaker Justin Amash who nailed the situation perfectly:
Congress is just political theater. Republicans themselves approved Ilhan Omar’s election to the Foreign Affairs Committee just yesterday in a unanimous consent on the House floor. In other words, they put her on the committee only so they could pass a resolution to vote her off.
Congress is just political theater. Republicans themselves approved Ilhan Omar’s election to the Foreign Affairs Committee just yesterday in a unanimous consent on the House floor. In other words, they put her on the committee only so they could pass a resolution to vote her off. pic.twitter.com/7w3FYW19qu
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) February 2, 2023
Republicans cited Omar’s past anti-Semitic statements as the reason for her ouster. But it is abundantly clear that they took this action as payback for Democrats’ decision to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), which is a move I supported back when McCarthy was promising to move against Democrats when the GOP took over the House. Indeed, Kelly is right when he says Republicans should have made clear what they were doing: Giving Democrats a taste of their own medicine to make them think twice about removing other members for purely political purposes.
But even if McCarthy had been forthright about the impetus behind targeting Omar, Schiff, and Swalwell, Democrats would have still gone through their “everything is racist” routine. The problem for Democrats is that nobody buys that claptrap except for those who want to believe it. Most can see what is going on here, so the performance art leftists are displaying is ridiculous.
In fact, a deeper look at this situation reveals just how absurd Congress has become. To be clear, Democrats know Omar’s ouster had nothing to do with bigotry. But instead of taking this as a cue to cool it on the politically-motivated approach to these issues, they are only ramping it up even more. Meanwhile, Americans are still dealing with inflation, crime, and other pressing issues. Nobody actually thinks it is essential for Omar to serve on the Foreign Affairs committee nor do they think this political theater will make a positive impact on their lives. Unfortunately, Republicans and Democrats seem to believe the show must go on regardless.
