It’s been a rough week for “the Squad.”
The Squad is an informal group of eight Democratic House members who represent the far left of the party. They typically receive glowing media coverage as they promote various progressive causes, but things haven’t gone so well for them in recent days.
Not only has this gaggle of far-left legislators revealed the extent of their extremist views, but one even finds herself in potentially serious legal trouble.
Here’s a quick rundown of the Squad’s troubles, as posted by A.G. Hamilton, a prominent conservative, on X, formerly Twitter.
Given how much the Squad has generally been feted by left-wing and corporate media, I thought it was worth digging a little further into each one of their cases.
Jamaal Bowman
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., the socialist former high school principal who claims not to know what a fire alarm is, got himself in hot water for being too radical, even for his left-wing allies.
On Monday, the Daily Beast reported on a blog he posted when he was a high school principal in New York. The blog was filled with 9/11 conspiracy theories and included this poem:
“Planes used as missiles / Target: The Twin Towers
“30 minutes later / Both buildings collapsed / Onto themselves
“Later in the day / Building 7 / Also Collaspsed [sic] / Hmm …
“Multiple explosions / Heard before / And during the collapse / Hmm …
“Allegedly / Two other planes / The Pentagon / Pennsylvania / Hijacked by terrorist [sic] / Minimal damage done / Minimal debris found / Hmm …”
The prose isn’t exactly Wordsworth, but it is revealing.
Bowman responded to the report saying that while he was working on his doctoral degree he “explored” books and literature across the political spectrum. He then tried to justify his ramblings by saying that he’s spent his career standing up to what he called the “far right.”
That’s a common tactic for those on the left who get themselves stuck in a controversy: Just say that you will double your efforts to attack conservatives with the assumption that all will be forgiven.
That tactic works sometimes, but it looks like Bowman has become enough of an embarrassment for his allies to cut him loose.
Following the 9/11 poetry reveal, Bowman lost an endorsement from J Street, a left-wing Jewish organization, for being too anti-Israel and for accusing the country of genocide.
“When the rhetoric, the framing and the approach go too far, that’s where we are going to hold our line,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in an interview with the Forward. “And that’s when we felt that Bowman crossed the line here.”
Tom von Essen, a former commissioner of the New York City Fire Department who held the position at the time of 9/11, ripped Bowman in an interview with The New York Post.
“Bowman is definitely unfit to be in Congress. He’s definitely someone we don’t need,” Von Essen said.
Cori Bush
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., is in a bit of trouble with federal authorities. She’s currently under investigation by the Justice Department for using taxpayer money on private security, paying it to a man who is now her husband.
“Bush’s husband and former security guard, Cortney Merritts, who she married in February 2023, has pocketed more than $100,000 in payments since Bush added him to her campaign’s payroll in January 2022 for what they marked as ‘security’ payments before switching their description to ‘wage expenses’ in April,” Fox News reported.
This is one part of a larger federal investigation triggered by a watchdog organization’s complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Bush has confirmed that she is under investigation, but she remains indignant about it.
“Since before I was sworn into office, I have endured relentless threats to my physical safety and life,” Bush said in remarks on Tuesday, according to NPR. “As a rank-and-file member of Congress, I am not entitled to personal protection by the House, and instead have used campaign funds as permissible to retain security services.”
While Bush is allegedly using federal funds to pay for unlicensed private security—that now happens to be her husband—she’s done her best to demand that average Americans have no security of their own.
Bush has been a longtime champion of the “defund the police” movement. What are the plebs supposed to do when crime spikes in their neighborhood as a result? “Suck it up,” apparently.
“I have private security because my body is worth being on this planet right now. I have private security because they, the white supremacist, racist narrative that they drive into this country,” Bush said, when asked in 2021 about her use of private security. “So, if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend 10, 10, 10 more dollars on it, you know what, I get to be here to do the work. So, suck it up, and defunding the police has to happen.”
As of 2022, filings showed that Bush had spent more than $500,000 on private security.
Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez
Perhaps the most (in)famous member of the Squad, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., lashed out at the Biden administration for pulling funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA.
“Cutting off support to @UNRWA—the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans—is unacceptable,” the New York congresswoman posted on X. “Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible. The US should restore aid immediately.”
The U.S. has sent $122 million to the agency since October, according to The New York Post, before pulling the plug. And why did the Biden administration pause the funds?
A damning Wall Street Journal report revealed that employees of the agency were directly linked to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. It also found that about 10% of the 12,000-person staff were linked to terrorist organizations in Gaza.
The signs of this organization’s links to the Hamas terrorist group have been there for years, The Wall Street Journal later reported.
That hasn’t deterred Ocasio-Cortez.
Batya Ungar-Sargon, the opinion editor of Newsweek, wrote on X that Ocasio-Cortez’s digging in her heels about UNRWA at this time truly shows “where she stands on the issue.”
Ilhan Omar
I wrote a bit about Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., earlier this week.
She was in the news for a speech she gave in the Somali language at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Minneapolis on Jan. 27.
In the speech, she seemed to be declaring herself Somali first, Muslim second. America apparently didn’t even rank in her hierarchy except for the purpose of using American power to settle political problems on behalf of Somalia.
“We, as Somalians, we love each other,” Omar said in a translation of the speech posted on X by conservative Alexandria, Virginia, lawyer Marina Medvin. “There are areas of friction … that led us to kill each other, but in reality, we are an organized society: brothers and sisters, people of the same blood, people who know they are Somalians first, Muslims second.”
Omar later insisted that the translation of the speech wasn’t accurate, but it still seems like from what she said—in either version—that she feels that her primary responsibility is to Somalis, not the United States.
Funny enough, Omar has criticized American Jewish supporters of Israel for having dual loyalty.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she said in a 2019 panel discussion about Israel.
Following the speech, many commentators called for the Somalia-born Omar to not only be expelled from Congress, but deported.
One such call came from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Ayanna Pressley
This one is less of a scandal and more of an absurdity.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., called the closure this week of a Walgreens drugstore in the Roxbury area of Boston a case of the company engaging in a “life-threatening act of racial and economic discrimination.”
She said this in a speech she made on Tuesday. Pressley essentially called Walgreens racist for closing their locations due to crime and lack of profitability.
“When a Walgreens leaves a neighborhood, they disrupt the entire community, and they take with them baby formula, diapers, asthma inhalers, life-saving medications, and, of course, jobs,” she said.
The pharmacy responded to the allegations in a comment to The New York Post.
“Roxbury’s closure was due to several factors, including the cost of operating, low prescription volume and low reimbursement rates,” a Walgreens spokesperson told The Post.
While there are possibly other factors in play, Walgreens and other retailers have been hit hard in areas where retail theft is soaring. This has caused chaos for brick-and-mortar retail chains that have struggled to recover from COVID-19 lockdowns.
Pressley, like most other members of the Squad, has called for defunding the police.
She apparently wants to live in a world without police, where businesses are essentially controlled by the government and routinely looted by gangsters, and where only the rich and well connected can afford security.
Sounds like a paradise.
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