There’s a Reason Black Voters in Detroit Don’t Like Abdul

 

I don’t know where you grew up, but I grew up six blocks north of the Detroit border and one block south of 8 Mile Road, on “the bad side.” It wasn’t bad when I was a kid, or at least not as bad, and as I got older, I spent more time in the city. I went to college downtown at Wayne State and lived for a time in the Cass Corridor, back when that was not a place you wanted to be (it’s quite different now). I saw firsthand why there is distrust and dislike between black Detroiters and Arabs in the city, and I’m kind of surprised no one has talked about it in regard to why Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is doing so horribly with black voters.

Back in college, you didn’t really want to be on the streets in the Cass Corridor at night for too long, and you had to keep your ears open for sounds that set off your senses. I spent a lot of time there, and lived on 3rd Street and Cass for a while, because it was cheap, and that’s where the people from the theater department lived, as it was right near where our classes were. (Yes, I was a theater major for a year, mostly because I was aimless; it was fun and easy, I was good at it and the girls were good-looking.)

There were liquor stores and bars all around that neighborhood; most are still there. The bars were full of regulars of all ethnicities, but largely Vietnam veterans, which was not great for meeting girls (it is a very large commuter college, something like 25,000 students, with very limited on-campus housing and very few people living off campus because it was dangerous).

The liquor stores, or as they’re called in Michigan “party stores,” were a sea of fluorescent lights and plexiglass.

One thing you learn about party stores in Detroit is most have an unwritten rule: if you can carry it to the counter, they will sell it to you. If you look lost, confused, guilty or scared, they won’t. But if you act like you’ve done it before, you can buy anything, even the alcohol behind the glass. Money is money.

But the tension between the people on each side of the plexiglass was palpable. As a white kid, I was in the distinct minority, though by no means alone. Arabs owned and worked in the stores, sitting inside the glass, and black people were the vast majority of the people shopping there, as the city is more than 75 percent black. And they did not like each other.

Not everyone; there were plenty of older black men who’d hang out in the stores and shoot the breeze with the older Arab owner of the store, as they’d likely been seeing each other the majority of their adult lives. But younger men, on both sides of the glass, did not have that history or the respect that goes with it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d seen shouting matches through the glass over price, the amount of money handed over or the amount of change given back; claims that someone was ripping them off, or the other person was literally stealing. So many threats of “kicking your ass” and calling the police, and the police were called a lot.

 There was no trust – as the owners saw their customers as likely thieves, and the customers saw the owners as racists ripping them off and taking the money out of the city, back to Dearborn.

It was a weird dynamic that didn’t involve most customers – black, white or whatever. Many times there would be yelling while the normal transaction was taking place between them, and others you’d conduct your transaction while the argument happened around you.

But it was clear that these two groups did not like or trust each other. Which was right and which was wrong did not matter, and does not matter; the animosity is there, and it’s not being addressed.

Abdul can’t take the side of Detroiters; that would anger his Arab voter base and a large group of his donors by calling them racists. And he can’t come right out and side with the store owners, as that would just reinforce the racism black Detroiters experience when they walk into those stores to buy milk, a loaf of bread or a six-pack. He’s stuck.

Mike Rogers can win more of the black vote out of Detroit than usual for a Republican by a couple of simple steps. First, ask for it – too many don’t bother. Second, skillfully point out how Abdul is more interested in the well-being of people on the other side of the planet than the people on the other side of the plexiglass, and Rogers will put Michiganders and Detroiters first.

Abdul can’t do that; it would cost him votes.

Unlike Abdul, the fight through plexiglass is one-sided for Rogers. He’s not going to win the Arab/Muslim vote, no matter what. What he can do is use that to take a chunk of the black vote from Abdul, or at least hope many people will stay home, as they’re unhappy with their usual party’s offering.

This is a prime example of the Left’s identity politics coming back to bite them. It plays well in gerrymandered districts, but less so statewide, and even less so statewide when a member of one of the groups they pit against each other for local control is on the ballot.

Let’s hope Mike Rogers knows this and spends some time in the last two weeks of this election taking advantage of it. Call me, Mike, I’ll hook you up.

We Know What Tipped Off the Feds About Ilhan Omar's Alleged Immigration Fraud

 Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) had her D.C. home raided this week as part of an ongoing immigration fraud investigation. We’ve known the rumors for years; now the Justice Department seems to be acting on them. Federal agents searched her home and seized her phone, computer, and passport. Omar’s personal life is rife with discrepancies. 

We know she misfiled campaign finance reports and her taxes — it’s all fishy. Now, we’ve learned her staff may have altered her date of birth in 2018 to align the timelines for her naturalization process. This probe began under President Joe Biden, so it’s not a witch hunt. And later learned that a major break in the case came from text messages from Omar’s sister, whose phone was taken earlier this year (via NYT):

    Federal investigators have been reviewing family text messages as they aim to build a case implicating Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, of conspiring to commit immigration fraud, three people familiar with the matter said this week.

    The messages were obtained from a phone that officials seized earlier this year from one of Ms. Omar’s sisters, Sahra Noor, a health care executive and author, according to the three people.

    The messages contained information that investigators had used to get a federal judge to authorize homeland security agents to search Ms. Omar’s Washington-area residence on Monday, the three people said. Agents spent hours searching the home of the congresswoman and were seen walking away with several boxes of seized items.

    The people familiar with the seizure of Ms. Noor’s phone spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open criminal investigation that is before a federal grand jury in Minnesota. Federal officials have issued subpoenas in recent days to Ms. Noor and several other people in Ms. Omar’s orbit.

    The investigation seeks to determine whether Ms. Omar and her relatives lied or omitted crucial information in immigration paperwork they filed since moving to the United States in the 1990s. They were admitted as refugees after fleeing Somalia’s civil war.

    Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, suggested last month that the investigation could ultimately result in Ms. Omar’s deportation.

    The Justice Department on Friday did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Noor’s phone. It was not clear when or where her phone was seized.

    Ms. Noor, who recently published a memoir about her upbringing and the family’s journey to the United States, did not respond this week to several requests for comment. In recent years she has split her time between the United States and Kenya, and she spoke at events in the Minneapolis area this month to promote her book.

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A Democrat judge also signed off on the warrant, and raiding members of Congress’s homes isn’t exactly something a judge wants his or her name affixed to. If they do this, it means the evidence is pretty damning. Federal agents were also sifting through Omar's trash looking for DNA evidence, suggesting this might go beyond immigration fraud. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

It's Not a Christian Theocracy People Should Be Worried About

 

Wall Street Apes (WSA) is a popular account on X with 1.4 million followers. Among other issues, the author frequently posts about threats to the United States and other Western nations from Islamic migration and uses interviews with Muslims (and ex-Muslims) themselves to bolster his arguments.

Earlier this week, WSA posted about a new 5,000-square-foot Islamic superstore in Richardson, Texas, called Modefa and included what looks to be a commercial produced for the store. Smiling Muslim men and women walk the viewer through various departments, highlighting the store's offerings, including "a huge selection of women's modest fashion," "a variety of beautiful hijabs," kufis and thobes for men, prayer rugs, and Islam-themed home decor. The store also boasts of a family lounge and a prayer room.

WSA warns that this is just another step in the "Islamification" of America. He is not alone; others post similar warnings, including scholars Raymond Ibrahim and Robert Spencer, who point to Islam's history of infiltration, domination, and, ultimately, conquest. One sees plenty of social media posts urging Americans to band together to prevent the construction of mosques, madrassas (Islamic schools), Islamic centers, mini-cities, and retail establishments like Modefa that seek to "normalize" Islam.

Christians far outnumber Muslims here in the United States. According to polls, somewhere between 62 percent and almost 70 percent of Americans identify as Christians. Counting only adults (people 18 and over), that's nearly 180 million people. (Counting children in Christian families would add millions more.) By contrast, Muslims represent no more than 1.6 percent of the entire population — somewhere between 4.5 million and 5.5 million people.

And yet we now have cities governed by Muslims: Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, for example. The current mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, was videotaped at a mosque recently, saying, "If the Muslim community votes, if the Arab community votes, we will determine every single position in the whole city." My friend Margot Cleveland, who lives in Dearborn, has sued the Muslim-dominated city government, alleging that it preferentially promotes Islamic religious displays while being "hostile to Christians and Jews" by forbidding the display of their religious holiday symbols.

The Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, is Muslim. Rashida Tlaib, the congressional representative from Michigan's 12th district, is Muslim. Ilhan Omar, the congressional representative for Minnesota's 5th district, is Muslim; the 5th district has one of the largest Muslim populations in the country. And of course, Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, is a Muslim.

Why is such a small population having such an outsized impact?

One reason is because so many Muslims want Islam to be central to every aspect of their lives, and they make their decisions accordingly. Whereas American Christians — despite their far larger numbers — have grown comfortable with the idea that Christianity need not be central to every aspect of their lives, and they make their decisions accordingly.

Additionally, too many Christians are cowed by inflammatory headlines or silenced by pervasive viewpoints that link Christianity with ignorance and violence.

A perfect example is former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said last year that white men "of a certain religion" (Christianity) were responsible for "so much damage." Author Jer Swigart called white American evangelicals "the most dangerous people on the planet." Charles Matthews has written in the Washington Post, "White Christianity is in big trouble. And it's its own biggest threat." Christianity is often falsely linked to "white supremacy," as when former President Joe Biden bizarrely announced that "white supremacy is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland." (Biden's administration wasn't just concerned about evangelical Protestants; his FBI went after Catholics who attend the Latin Mass, calling them "radical traditionalist Catholics," or "rad-trads," and painting them as "potential domestic violent extremists.")

And then there are the secularists' accusations that, left to their own devices, American Christians would create a "theocracy."

That is nonsense on stilts. This country was founded in opposition to that very idea. The goal is not government-mandated religion but a culture dominated by Christians who live their values in their daily lives, so that government, with its inevitably oppressive force, can be limited and people can exercise ordered liberty.

By their silence, Christians have allowed the culture — our educational systems, our media, our entertainment industries — to be purged of Christianity and Christian values. The result is crime and societal chaos. That, in turn, produces demands for more and bigger government, despite the fact that government policies created — or exacerbated — the chaos in the first place. Coupled with certain distorted attitudes about multiculturalism popular with the Left, the result is government and popular culture that is openly hostile to the Christian majority but treats Muslims as an oppressed minority deserving of special protection.

Thus does Islam grow in strength, while Christianity recedes.

The irony, of course, is that once Muslims have enough voting power, they will vote for government officials, governmental structures, and public policies that impose Islam on everyone else. That is what their faith demands, as they are more than willing to say, and often do on social media and elsewhere.

If the trends we are seeing in European countries (England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden) take root here, those who oppose Christian-dominated culture and foment hysterical and baseless fears of a "Christian theocracy" will find themselves in an Islamic one.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Our willingness to pretend that secularism could preserve our way of life — and to allow Christianity to be forced to the sidelines — has created an opening for a tiny but passionate population that shows no such trepidation about their own culture and beliefs. The vacuum we have created will not be filled by banning Islamic stores and halal restaurants; we must instead redouble our efforts to strengthen Christianity in our personal lives, our families, and our communities, and to insist that Christian values are powerfully and positively represented in our educational institutions, media, businesses, and government. We have the numbers; we just need the commitment.

If Christianity is not the dominant cultural force in this country, something else will be.

Obama's Comments on the Ilhan Omar Situation Are Absolutely Insane

 Former President Barack Obama is lashing out against President Donald Trump for the decision to criminally investigate Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar over her immigration status.

"It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say," Obama said on social media. "But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota."

Seemingly lost on Obama when he released that statement was the litany of activities his administration took to target conservatives and the Trump campaign when he was in power.

While progressives attempt to pretend that the only scandal from the Obama era was his choice to wear a tan suit, in reality, the administration made the decision to turn the power of government against its political enemies. The IRS targeted conservative groups over their tax exempt status so ruthlessly that the agency eventually was forced to release an apology. People inside the Obama administration manufactured the false Russia collusion hoax and Steele Dossier, which led to an FBI official pleading guilty to inserting fake information into emails in order to gain a surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign.

“The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans,” Obama continued.

Meanwhile, Democrats are openly admitting that they intend to use their power to intimidate young conservatives against working for the Trump administration due to the potential legal repercussions.

NATO Has Become a One-Way Street

Our on-and-off relationship with our European allies and friends is in another low spot. There’s a lot of developments that have been going on that I don’t think they quite appreciate have created a loss of confidence in the United States about the reliability of our NATO allies.

And this transcends the earlier existential problem that all of our NATO allies, 32, had over 20 years promised but reified that and ratified it the last 15 years, they would spend 2% of GDP on defense. And as you remember, in 2016, after the election, and Donald Trump, remarked as he was going to enter office in 2017 that all but six of them had not met their requirements.

And after all this bullying, all this acrimony, now almost all of them, I think with one exception, have made the 2%. But now we’re into another series of crises.

The former head of German intelligence was just found out in his retirement, I think he’s 80, that he was a traitor, and that he had been selling or trafficking in secrets that involved German and NATO security to existential enemies like China and maybe Russia.

That creates a lack of confidence in the security that we have with the Germans.

And Britain, remember, we have a dual-use base, an RAF and a U.S. Air Force base in the United Kingdom, and the idea, of course, is forward deployment. So if we would get into a crisis with China, with Russia, over Ukraine, almost anywhere in the world, we would have maybe 11 of our $320 million B-1 bombers that have capability to carry nuclear weapons and huge payloads, but they would be based and safe in this air base that was patrolled by our allies, the British.

Now we learn that some terrorists had a dry run where they got very close to this base and were in the process of filming it and doing reconnaissance work.

And we learned two things from the British government, Prime Minister [Andy] Burnham. Number one, they were trained by or in the service to Iran, the greatest terrorist threat in the world.

And number two, they were let out on bail.

How can you say that—the most dangerous terrorists that we’ve seen in the U.K. that are actually scouting out ways to destroy an American bomber fleet is from Iran, or at least influenced by Iran or hired by Iran, but then let them out on bail?

And then we get to the recent argument from our allies that they want nothing to do with the Iran war.

They understand that the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s oil and the oil of the Gulf are critical to their oil needs, and they understand that the wealth of the Gulf States is essential for them to export commodities. And they understand the principle that Iran is a dangerous country.

And for 50 years, they have said in a course with us that it should not and will not be nuclear, although neither they nor the American presidents, seven of them, have done anything about it.

So we go and try to stop that threat. France then immediately says that this was not an approved U.N. war, and they cannot use French airspace to use American assets, not NATO assets, American assets, in, over their airspace. The U.K. says you cannot use the Diego Garcia base, which is critical in the Indian Ocean, for operations in the Middle East, long-distance operation.

Italy says you cannot use your dual-use base with us in Sicily to land aircraft to go after Iran. Spain says you’re not gonna use our base. You’re not even getting near our airspace.

Switzerland and Austria are neutral, but they’re pro-U.S., and if their push came to shove, they wouldn’t be able to avoid a European continental war, and they would seek protection from whom? Probably us. They said nobody gets near our airspace.

None of these European countries said we will help the U.S. Navy patrol the Strait of Hormuz to ensure that it’s open and global commerce is uninterrupted. Okay.

And of course, we have our Canadian friends who said last year we may or may not have met our 2%, but for the last 15 years, we won’t spend 2%.

But of course, we expect to be, under the nuclear umbrella of, as we have been, of the United States, and we expect if there was ever an existential threat to the North American continent, you would not distinguish Canadian from American interest, even though we’re not armed and not capable with 79 45-year-old jets, given your 4,000 or 5,000.

So I could go on, but you get the impression that it’s again a reminder that it’s a one-way street. Remember the argument that our European friends are using to us. They are saying, “You’re a NATO power, and you’re pledged to protect the North American, space.” Of course, we’ve never… Only once after 9/11, and that was sort of symbolic.

Some NATO planes helped us after 9/11 to make sure there were not terrorists in our skies. But generally, the threats that face Europe are not going to threaten the United States, and the threats that face the United States, we don’t count on NATO partners, volunteering to go to Taiwan or to protect us from a Chinese missile.

So it’s a one-way street. And so we have made the argument that in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, which are the backyards of Europe, it’s essential that Iran not get a nuclear weapon for their protection and ours, and we are willing to handle that problem. We’re not asking NATO, we’re not asking individual countries to bomb, Iran or to send weapons.

None of that. All we ask is, “Can we use our NATO assets, the use of our bases, and your airspace to cut the travel time, the distance, from our bases, to Iran, and we don’t have to come all the way from the United States?”

And they said, “No. You cannot do that.” And so we are saying, “Well, Ukraine is threatened by Russia, but Russia’s army does not threaten us.”

There’s no way in the world that the Russian army is ever going to run the United States. It is going to overrun Ukraine maybe, maybe the Baltic states, maybe some of the Scandinavian states, maybe the European states. But it’s not gonna ever endanger us.

We have a strategic problem with Russia, and we handle that on our own with our nuclear deterrent: submarines, land base, and bombers.

So let’s get this straight, Europe. You are saying to us that when we have a shared threat and it’s in your neighborhood, and it’s of interest to us that you will not help, but you’re not gonna go beyond that, but you will not even lend your airspace to help us.

And at the same time, you’re saying, as the NATO big guy in the alliance, that you expect us to guarantee your safety and to arm the Ukrainians to the teeth and to deter the Russians from invading further and closer into Europe, even though we know, according to your logic, they’re not threatening us at all.

Now, the truth of the matter is, if Ukraine is overrun and Russia goes into the Baltic states or Europe, we will probably come, as is our obligations under NATO. But the Europeans are making that harder and harder to sell to the American people because it’s a one-way street. When we need you to protect Europe, you better be there.

When you need us not to protect us from a nuclear weapon from Iran, not to join us in battle, just to let us use your airspace, you can’t even do that. And we had to be uncouth and crude and scream and yell to make you protect yourself with a meager 2% investment of GDP in defense. I know what you’re gonna say to us.

We have open borders. We’re overrun with immigrants. We made bad decisions about our green energy. We warred on fossil fuels. We have certain culture that has a 1.3 continental-wide fertility rate that’s unsustainable.

We have immigrant populations that do not want to assimilate. And we have a socialist paradigm that is not sustainable, so we can’t help you. You can’t help.

At least you could say, “This is not working. This is not working, and we want to make reforms in our economy, our energy, our immigration, so we can free up capital to fulfill our partnership, and we want it 50/50. When you need us, we’re there, and when we need you, you’re there.” And if it doesn’t happen that way, then the NATO paradigm is not sustainable.

It will not work for the Europeans to deny us just the use of the airspace to deal with a common threat and then expect us to risk our key cities in any potential nuclear standoff with Russia, because that’s what would happen. To protect the integrity of Europe, if we couldn’t do it with traditional forces, it would ultimately be a standoff to use American deterrence to protect Europe, and that would entail our danger to protect your continent.

And so, yes, we can be crude. Yes, we can yell and scream, but ultimately, this remains an asymmetrical and thus unsustainable relationship.