Following Trump’s questionable tweets suggesting “The Squad” — i.e. the vocally critical Democratic congresswomen with ties to, and activist policies regarding, other nations — should “go back” to their favored countries or countries of origin to fix their problems, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) insisted the tweets were racist and “clapbacked” they had no fear of Trump.

The unfortunate result of Trump’s tweets (I’m not willing to call them racist but they were certainly thoughtless) is it makes people who are otherwise critical of the policy positions of these ladies pause to defend them when they ought to be evaluating the congressladies’ own questionable statements, like this one from a day or so before Trump’s tweets.

“One thing I tell women of color is that we never needed to ask for permission or an invitation to lead,” [Rep. Ilhan] Omar said in a keynote panel at the Netroots Nation conference, which included Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Deb Haaland (D-NM). “We were sent to Washington to lead with our values and have an agenda that really pushes that forward.”

She continued: “There is a constant struggle with people who have power about sharing power and we’re not in the business of asking to share that power, we’re in the interest of grabbing that power,” Omar said. “We are not carrying the water for this cruel administration. We are doing the job that people in this country put us forward to do.”

Omar is touting her “values” as a reason she seeks to “grab” power. I mean, yikes.

The power grab thing is weird enough, but let’s examine her values for a second. This is a woman who is being investigated for campaign finance violations, has an odd first marriage which may have led to IRS fraud, and recently flat-out fabricated a story of racial injustice and told it to schoolchildren. In short, she lied to kids.

Then there’s AOC, who recently posted a picture to twitter of VP Mike Pence and compared him to Hitler stooge Heinrich Himmler, likes to say the world will end in 12 years to compel people to support her climate change hysteria, and also pulled this quaint little stunt the other day:

At a hearing on migrant children and border security, @AOC is sworn in for dramatic effect.

"We usually don't require a swearing in, but you want to be sworn in?" —@RepCummings

"Yes." @AOC pic.twitter.com/lqeQrDoTT0

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 12, 2019

Then there’s Tlaib, who bangs the drum of racism over Israel’s relationship to Palestinians, and uses the American struggle with equality to do it (thereby demonizing both countries in one fell swoop).

In an interview published Saturday by Jacobin, a democratic socialist quarterly magazine based in New York that offers American leftist perspectives on politics, Tlaib – America’s first Palestinian-American in Congress – compared the happenings in Israel with racial segregation in the United States.

…

Playing the intersectionality card – the idea that different forms of oppression and discrimination and its effects overlap – Tlaib said that, “Just like we looked at the struggle for black Americans for true equality and access to opportunity to thrive. The same thing that has happened to the LGBTQ community. All of that is why I say free Palestine, that Palestinians deserve human rights. I see young people understanding that. When I see young Black Lives Matter activists with t-shirts that say ‘Free Palestine,’ and I’m wearing the Black Lives Matter t-shirt, I know it’s working.”

For her part, Pressley seems the least willing of The Squad to race-bait and outright lie, but she sure does like abortion.

As is his way, Trump doubled down Monday and asked the ladies to apologize to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — and the country at large — “for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said.”

“So sad to see the Democrats sticking up for people who speak so badly of our Country and who, in addition, hate Israel with a true and unbridled passion,” Trump wrote online. “Whenever confronted, they call their adversaries, including Nancy Pelosi, ‘RACIST.’ Their disgusting language … and the many terrible things they say about the United States must not be allowed to go unchallenged.”

If he was trying to draw attention to their behavior by baiting them, so be it. But Trump really needn’t bait these ladies to reveal what they are and how they think. Their “values” speak for themselves.