During the House Speaker fight last week that eventually led to Kevin McCarthy being elected after 15 ballots, Democrats predictably criticized Republicans who hold a slim majority.
‘Squad’ member and Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar was no exception, calling Republicans who want to cut spending “far-right insurrectionists.”
Some rightly laughed at this.
Only far-right insurrectionists want to cut spending? LOL https://t.co/izLyBKB8vd
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) January 7, 2023
Omar’s ridiculous, pro-big-government partisan rhetoric was not so different from what Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, or any goofy regular Dem might say.
But something else that Omar said last week was far more interesting—it has gone largely unnoticed—and is something Pelosi or Biden would never say.
On some of the demands by anti-McCarthy Republicans during the Speaker debate, Omar told MSNBC, “Obviously cuts to the Pentagon budget is pretty exciting, for folks like me who have been putting up amendments to do so.”
So Omar is excited about at least one kind of spending cut. The kind more libertarian-leaning Republicans have long favored.
.@IlhanMN says that some of the GOP concessions in the McCarthy standoff, namely cutting the Pentagon budget and establishing a new Church Committee, are "pretty exciting." pic.twitter.com/tulq9lWmAS
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 9, 2023
She continued, “I also think the Church-style committee that they are thinking about to look into if there has been any violations of First Amendment rights of Americans by the FBI and others also interests me, so we’ll see what ends up happening and if Republicans are able to actually be able to get anything done.”
What Omar is referring to is the revelations from the recent Twitter Files that the FBI worked with the social media giant to censor Americans’ speech, a direct violation of the First Amendment.
This would make Omar one of the VERY FEW left-leaning folks not named Glenn Greenwald to be concerned about these seemingly rampant free speech violations.
Speaking of independent journalist Greenwald, he was quick to remind everyone that these deviations from the Democrat hivemind were not new for Omar. He specifically cited her independence and long held civil liberties principles, even when the rest of her party didn’t seem to care about them.
As one more example: here was @IlhanMN denouncing journalists for investigating and exposing citizens who donated relatively small amounts of money to the Canadian Truckers' strike. I can't think of another Dem who would've done this:https://t.co/mdVAU55H9P
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 10, 2023
And remember, Rep. Omar was the first – from either party – to warn against a New War on Terror in the name of fear generated by 1/6. Obviously, she's on the left and conservatives will disagree with her but there's more common ground than people realize:https://t.co/ZIFubnP2gQ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 10, 2023
Left and Right habitually hate each other for any reason and often no reason at all. As I’ve said often, it’s all pro wrestling.
But as a man of the Right, when someone from the Left is agreeing with me on issues important to maintaining our basic liberty, I’m going to point it out. I’m going to admire it.
And hopefully find practical use for it in the future. Ilhan Omar joining Republicans on a new bipartisan Church Committee might be a good start.
Huuuuge! Thomas Massie negotiates a select committee to investigate FBI abuses of freedom of speech! https://t.co/CsmIEZYQ5v
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 7, 2023
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