Tuesday’s Quick Hits

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Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s independent commentary: 

  • Three Weeks Out
  • October Surprise
  • The Raid on Ilhan Omar
  • One More Thing

THREE WEEKS OUT:

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OCTOBER SURPRISE:   

In an MS NOW opinion piece, Montana Democratic Party Chair Shannon O’Brien announced her resignation and endorsed Independent U.S. Senate candidate Seth Bodnar. 

O’Brien writes:

And right now, the Montana Democratic Party is more divided than ever not because of our values but because of the race for the U.S. Senate. One thing I hope we can all agree on is this: The Republican Senate candidate, Kurt Alme, does not share our values, and we should do everything in our power to stop him. He will be a puppet for President Donald Trump and rubber-stamp the corruption, backroom deals and abuse of power tearing our country apart. Alme will be a guaranteed vote to strip women of the right to make decisions about our own bodies. Trump already has an automatic yes-man in Sen. Tim Sheehy — we should not send him another one. 

And that is why today, I am resigning as party chair, effective immediately, and joining stalwarts like Carol and Denise Juneau, Steve Bullock, Nancy Keenan, Jon Tester, Max Baucus, Carol and Whitney Williams, and many others to endorse independent Seth Bodnar for the U.S. Senate.   

O’Brien’s October surprise lands some solid blows against Alme, Trump, and Sheehy, but it won’t save Bodnar. It’s simply too late. With ballots already being cast, even if Bankhead drops out today, the concrete has set. Strategic stubbornness and a lack of vision permanently blinded both campaigns to the bigger picture, sealing their fates. 

THE RAID ON ILHAN OMAR: 

I have been a fan of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar for several years. Omar made history as the first Somali American in the U.S. Congress and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota. Along with Rashida Tlaib, she is also one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.

To escape the Somali Civil War, she and her family fled to Kenya, living in the Dadaab refugee camp for four years. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 after securing asylum. After a brief stay in Arlington, Virginia, they relocated permanently to Minneapolis, where her father worked as a taxi driver and post office employee. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old. 

President Donald Trump has viciously attacked her over the years. He has called her “garbage” and said she was “totally crooked.” Trump has even said she should be deported. He recently said she should be impeached, which shows Trump’s ignorance because members of Congress cannot be impeached. 

Now the Department of Homeland Security has raided her home in Washington, D.C. Sources say the raid pertained to a criminal fraud investigation concerning her immigration paperwork. Omar’s late father filled out that paperwork when Omar, a Somali-born, naturalized US citizen, was a child. (Source)

Will Trump and his MAGA allies ever stop targeting Ilhan Omar? They are desperate to derail her reelection, so they’ll inevitably manufacture or twist anything they can to hurt her campaign—whether there is any truth to it or not. 

Anti-Muslim rhetoric from MAGA hardliners often completely ignores the law. Recently, a viral post demanded that America “shut down all mosques and ban Islam.” Ironically, those pushing this forget that the First Amendment explicitly protects freedom of religion—making any federal ban on Islam or closure of mosques completely unconstitutional and illegal.

ONE MORE THING:

I recently bought my wife a mood ring. When she’s happy, it turns blue. When she’s mad, it leaves a red mark on my forehead.

## THE END ##

10 thoughts on “Tuesday’s Quick Hits”

    • Just found this.

      Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s staff reportedly got her birthdate changed in public records shortly after she was elected to the House in 2018, which would make her a year younger than previously documented, according to records.
      The revelation comes amid concerns that the congresswoman misrepresented her age to secure American citizenship. Omar has claimed that she was 17-years-old when she became a citizen in 2000, but previous records noted that she was born in 1981, meaning she was either 18 or 19 when she became a U.S. citizen.

      • It’s probably a nothing burger.
        The 2019 request to change her publicly listed birth year is documented. Whether the change corrected an earlier error or concealed a misrepresentation—and whether her citizenship was obtained improperly—requires additional evidence. The publicly available records cited in these reports do not, by themselves, settle those questions.
        -JmB

    • I am not a Democrat. I am an independent.
      That being said, no one is above the law, which is why I want the same standard applied to everyone: same evidence, same process, same consequences. The question is whether you’ll hold your side to it too, or if it only counts when the target wears the other jersey. -JmB

      • Not always, but it’s true of the independents currently in Congress. Bernie Sanders and Angus King are the only two independent senators, and both caucus with the Democrats. Kyrsten Sinema did too until she left the Senate in January 2025.

        As for me, I use common sense to decide which way I lean on an issue. -JmB

  2. Think about it – If the Bodnar backers had their way and Bankhead had dropped out, our choice now would be an election between two rich white men handpicked by their respective rich white men machines, who both basically bypassed the entire primary process to appear on the general ballot as the chosen ones, cutting us voters totally out of the loop of choosing our own candidates. “Here are the choices we give you little sheep, Thing A or Thing B.”

    I’ll vote for Alani out of sheer spite.

  3. I look forward eagerly for the video clip from CSPAN in a couple of months showing Ilhan Omar voting on trumpsky’s impeachment. Any guesses what her vote will be?

    • Haha. I’m sure she will vote for his impeachment.
      Trump should be nervous. He may not have too many Republicans stand with him after this next election. He’s done.
      Thanks,
      -JmB

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