July 31, 2018
Jul 31 07:22 Ilhan Omar, violations specialist Jul 31 11:22 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's activism Jul 31 23:52 Housley's infectious optimism
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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Ilhan Omar, violations specialist
Rep. Steve Drazkowski is one of my favorite state legislators in Minnesota because he's a straight shooter and an honest man. In contrast, Ilhan Omar is my least favorite state legislator because she's dishonest and she apparently thinks that the rules don't apply to her. I'm basing my opinion on information contained in this article .
According to the article, "After learning that State Representative Ilhan Omar accepted payments from MNSCU campuses last year - a violation of Minnesota House rules - State Representative Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) is calling on Omar to return the thousands of dollars she received. 'It's clear to me that Representative Omar abused the power of her office and her committee assignment for personal financial gain, which is truly disappointing,' Drazkowski said. 'Despite being fully aware that accepting these payments violated the rules of the Minnesota House, she not only kept the money but failed to disclose it for as long as she could to avoid an ethics hearing and an endorsement headache.'"
The article also says "Minnesota House Rule 9.20, Acceptance of an Honorarium by a Member: A member must not accept an honorarium for a service performed for an individual or organization that has a direct interest in the business of the House, including, but not limited to, a registered lobbyist or an organization a lobbyist represents." There's no excuse for Ms. Omar's behavior because "every newly-elected member attends an orientation where non-partisan House research staff explains potential conflicts of interest to incoming lawmakers, including gifts, travel and lodging, and honoraria." Plus "Rep. Omar voted to adopt the Permanent Rules of the Minnesota House - which includes Rule 9.20 - on February 16, 2017, 12 days before her first paid MNSCU speaking engagement."
Rep. Omar is a violations machine. Check out this video:
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Scott Johnson has done the digging into Ms. Omar's marital difficulties. He explains what he found in this article :
I originally checked out the SomaliSpot story online through the Minnesota Official Marriage System. Inputting Omar's name, I found that the two marriages cited in the discussion board post checked out as indicated. The site reflected Omar's 2002 marriage to her advertised husband, Ahmed Aden (later Ahmed Hirsi), and her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (identified in the SomaliSpot post as Omar's brother). A few days after the primary, I submitted written questions to representatives of the Omar campaign, citing the SomaliSpot post, and asking whether Omar's second marriage had been entered into with her brother for dishonest purposes.
Predictably, Omar deflected the questions Scott Johnson had to an attorney:
Dear Mr. Johnson:
I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:
"There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trump's playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omar's campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy. Ilhan Omar's campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone."
If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.
Sincerely,
Jean Brandl
Apparently, Rep. Omar is a complaint factory:
- On May 17, 2017, Rep. Omar was fined $1,000 due to the late filing of her 24-hour notice reports.
- On November 30, 2017, Rep. Omar was fined $150 due to the late filing of her campaign finance report. That 2016 report listed a non-campaign disbursement in the amount of $2,250 in legal fees to the Kjellberg Law Office, which specializes in divorce law, and is listed as her representative during her 2017 divorce case. It also noted that she paid her now current husband $3,100 for unspecified campaign services.
- On June 20, 2018, Rep. Omar was fined the maximum $1,100 due to the late filing of her Statement of Economic Interest.
There's more:
"Representative Omar's willingness to accept money from institutions that are dependent on her committee and her vote for their funding is the textbook definition of unethical," Drazkowski said. "Because of her decision to withhold disclosing this information until after the Legislature adjourned sine die, we are unable to formally file ethics charges against her."
Drazkowski said Omar must return the MNSCU payments, and he said that she may not use campaign funds to make the repayment. "If the ethics committee were to find Representative Omar in violation of House Rule 9.20, and I have no doubt that it would, the end result would be a demand for her to return the payments," Drazkowski said. "With that in mind, Representative Omar needs to return these payments to the MNSCU campuses immediately."
For all of Omar's complaints about being the victim of Islamophobia, etc., the truth is that she's just a typical unethical politician who thinks that the rules don't apply to her. There's nothing Islamophobic about that. That's just a long-held belief that people in positions of authority shouldn't extort money from the people they regulate.
Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2018 7:36 AM
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's activism
In his open letter to the NFL, it's pretty apparent that NBA superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar forgot to read the Constitution. In his letter, Jabbar said "In May, you implemented a childish policy about how grown men must respond to the national anthem: a player can stay in the locker room during the anthem, but if he takes the field and then protests, the team and the player can be fined. Oh, Dear Owners. You stood at the precipice of history tasked with deciding whether to choose the principles of the US Constitution over profits of commerce, patriotism over pandering, morality over mob mentality, promoting social justice over pushing beers. Sadly, you blinked. Courage, it seems, is expected only of players."
Actually, the Constitution gives employers the right to squash free speech if that speech hurts their business. Each individual NFL franchise is worth lots of money. For instance, the Dallas Cowboys' franchise is worth $4,800,000,000. The NFL's TV contract is literally worth billions of dollars each year.
For that reason, these owners have the right to protect their financial interests. Abdul-Jabbar's whining about owners choosing "the principles of the US Constitution over profits of commerce, patriotism over pandering, morality over mob mentality, promoting social justice over pushing beers" sounds like socialist blather.
The Constitution is just fine. Just because it doesn't give you the outcome you prefer doesn't mean it isn't intact. The truth is that the Constitution is built on the premise that there's constantly competing principles that have to be balanced against each other. That's why the First Amendment doesn't prohibit business owners from limiting their employees' speech.
Further, this didn't help the players' cause:
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The entire Hands Up, Don't Shoot thing was a myth. That isn't opinion. It's a finding of fact. If players want to be activists, let them do it on their own time. NFL fans tune in, at least partially, to escape politics. Then, too, if the players want to use the opportunity to be activists, I'm certain that lots of fans will be willing to eliminate the NFL from their TV schedule. I'm certain because lots of them already have eliminated it from their TV priorities.
For all of Abdul-Jabbar's high-minded talk, he apparently hasn't figured out that free market capitalism still drives this nation.
Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2018 11:22 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 01-Aug-18 11:34 AM
Free market capatilism drives this nation?
If so, we need to fix that!
So, what's "free market capatilism"? Money talks and bullshit walks, like Ozzie said, back during Abscam?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 01-Aug-18 01:15 PM
Let's be clear. Socialism fails every it's tried because it forces people to do things they don't want to do. That's why socialism relies heavily on regulations. Further, the things you'd characterize as capitalist are mostly categorized as crony capitalism. Capitalists hate crony capitalism because it gives certain people special treatment. Finally, no system is without rule-breakers. That's why we enact laws.
Housley's infectious optimism
Karin Housley's optimism is infectious. Reading through this article , it's obvious that she sees her campaign as the right elixir at the right time. It's equally obvious that she thinks that Tina Smith is Sen. Schumer's shill. She's right about that, BTW. Sen. Smith has opposed everything that President Trump is for. New York already has 2 senators. They don't need another one.
In an interview with the Brainerd Dispatch Editorial Board, Sen. Housley said "I had been in the Minnesota Senate for the last six years and seen the failures of the Dayton-Smith administration and I thought, 'There's no way that woman represents everyone in Minnesota or what we really stand for in Minnesota.' I decided to jump into the race and fight for Minnesotans."
Sen. Housley is right. Sen. Smith doesn't represent Minnesota's priorities. Contrary to Smith's beliefs, there's much more to Minnesota than the Twin Cities. In her brief time in the US Senate, Tina Smith has traveled often outside the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, she's brought her Twin Cities beliefs with her. Rather than listening to Minnesotans' worries, Smith has tried selling the Twin Cities' priorities. That's disrespectful.
By comparison, Sen. Housley has met with (and listened to) lots of groups from Owatonna to Bemidji to Walker. As she says in this interview, she and her husband have had a cabin in the Walker area for several decades:
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That means they understand rural Minnesota. That isn't all. They know that Washington's policies have made life difficult for rural residents. Then there's this:
By replacing Smith, Housley said she hopes to help break the deadlock in the nation's upper house - 750 bills left on the debate floor, undebated and not voted upon because of rigid partisan lines. Sen. John McCain's absence leaves the Senate in a state of limbo, a razor-thin 50-49 Republican majority.
In doing so, Housley said, she'll look to restore a kind of representation that actually represents the interests of everyday Minnesotans - not blind dogmatism, not run-of-the-mill Capitol Hill and not an out-of-touch Democrat who favors big government and the big problems that brings.
Smith is a not-so-bright radical. Don't forget, she's a Berniecrat:
People can't seriously think that Tina Smith isn't a Twin Cities-centric socialist. Further, let's ask this simple question: Are you better off today than the day before President Obama left office? Honest people would emphatically say they're better off today. Business investment is improving quickly. Consumer confidence is sky-high. Unemployment for blacks and Hispanics are at all-time lows. Unemployment for women is at a 65-year low. The energy sector, which President Obama tried to intentionally kill, has turned around so dramatically that we've gone from importing oil to being a net exporter of energy. We're so strong with energy that President Trump struck a deal with the EU to export Liquefied Natural Gas to them.
Tina Smith is a closet environmentalist who hates fossil fuels. She's also (quietly) anti-mining. She has to pretend that she's pro-mining because she needs lots of Iron Range votes but she isn't a big fan of mining. By comparison, Karin Housley is enthusiastically pro-mining. This is the type of straight talk that Minnesotans insist on:
Since 2003, Housley has been a small business owner and is also a real estate agent by trade - though, she admitted, she almost closed up shop in 2010 because of restrictive policies by the state at that time. "It got to a point where you're working so hard and everything you've earned is going to the government, but the government is spending your hard-earned money not on things you want it spent on," Housley said. "That's the reason I ran. We're just starting to reverse that. People are keeping more money in their pockets, and so are our business owners, so we just have to continue that trend."
Tina better buckle up for a tough campaign. Thanks to her mistake-riddled campaign, she's earned a tough campaign.
Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2018 11:52 PM
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