Tangle - The Ilhan Omar controversy.

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Ilhan Omar. Rep. Omar (D-MN) was voted off of the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday. Last week, we covered the removal of Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House Intellige...nce Committee, which new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was able to do on his own. Removing Omar, however, required a full vote in Congress.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (1:01), Today’s Story (2:54), Right’s Take (6:43), Left’s Take (11:47), Isaac’s Take (17:06), Your Questions Answered (23:47), Under the Radar (26:12), Numbers (26:57), Have A Nice Day (27:39)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Twas the season of chaos, and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash.
Starting point is 00:00:31 Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.
Starting point is 00:00:56 It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be, we're talking about something pretty spicy. Ilhan Omar getting removed from her committee seat, her committee assignment, and it's a little different than the story like this
Starting point is 00:01:58 that we covered last week. I've got some strong feelings about it. We're going to jump into it in a minute. Before we do, as always, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, President Joe Biden will deliver his second State of the Union address tonight, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern. Number two, authorities in Ohio intentionally released toxic chemicals into the air from five tanker cars that were part of a derailed train, hoping to prevent an explosion. Number three, China claimed ownership of a second balloon floating through Latin America, maintaining that it was also a meteorological tool. Number four, the death toll from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Turkey and Syria has risen past 5,000, authorities say. Number five, Google released its first chat GPT
Starting point is 00:02:54 competitor called BARD, which it says will roll out to a wider audience in the coming weeks. The new House Republican majority has voted to oust Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from her post on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They cited some of Omar's past controversial statements, saying she doesn't have an objective mindset. House Republicans ousted Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday over remarks that were widely condemned as anti-Semitic. The Congresswoman is being held accountable for her words and her actions. Now to the congressional drama in Washington, where this morning, Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar remains defiant after Republicans took the dramatic step of
Starting point is 00:03:50 voting to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee. Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced. Representative Omar, the Democrat from Minnesota, was voted off the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday. Last week, we covered the removal of Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both Democrats from California, from the House Intelligence Committee, which new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was able to do on his own. Removing Omar, however, required a full vote in Congress. Congress voted to remove her by a 218 to 211 vote along party lines, with Republicans citing remarks she made in 2019, which they
Starting point is 00:04:39 described as being anti-Semitic. The move was widely viewed as retaliation for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's push to remove Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican from Georgia, and Paul Gosar, the Republican from Arizona, from their committee seats in 2021. At that time, 11 Republicans voted to remove Greene and two voted to remove Gosar. In this case, zero Democrats present for the vote opted to remove Omar, while one Republican, Ohio Representative David Joyce, voted present. In 2019, Omar faced criticism after she suggested Republican support for Israel was fueled by donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. I want to talk about the political influence in this country
Starting point is 00:05:23 that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country, Omar said. The comments sparked an immediate backlash. Accusing Jews of having allegiance to a foreign government has long been a vile anti-Semitic slur that has been used to harass, marginalize, and persecute the Jewish people for centuries, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, said at the time. That same year, on Twitter, Omar responded to a tweet about House GOP leader McCarthy threatening to punish her for being critical of Israel by saying, it's all about the Benjamins, baby, a line about $100 bills from a famous rap song, supposedly referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Starting point is 00:06:03 Once again, Omar was criticized for anti-Semitism, as many interpreted her comments to play on tropes about Jews, power, and money. Amid backlash, Omar deleted the tweet and apologized, and has recently claimed she was unaware such tropes about Jews and money existed. Omar, who arrived from the United States as a 13 year old refugee from Somalia, is the only African-born member of Congress and one of just a few Muslim women in Congress. She's also a member of the so-called Squad, a nickname originally given to four female progressive members of Congress. Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley.
Starting point is 00:06:41 In response to the move, Omar pledged to remain active in Congress. My leadership and voice will not be diminished if I'm on this committee. Presley. In response to the move, Omar pledged to remain active in Congress. My leadership and voice will not be diminished if I am on this committee. My voice will get louder and stronger, she told reporters. Today, we're going to look at some reactions from the left and the right to this decision, arguing that Omar's comments should be disqualifying and McCarthy had the right to retaliate. Some highlight a long list of anti-Semitic remarks Omar has made in the past. Others concede that this is political retribution, just justified nonetheless. The Jerusalem Post editorial board said the move was overdue.
Starting point is 00:07:31 Omar has repeatedly shown over the last few years that nothing is beneath her in attempts to vilify the Jewish people and the state of Israel, the board said. In 2019, she suggested that Israel's allies in the U.S. were motivated by money that they received from AIPAC rather than principal, tweeting, it's all about the Benjamins, baby, a reference to $100 bills. A short time later, the Minnesota congresswoman accused Jews of having dual loyalty in the United States. I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. She added, I want to ask, why is it okay for me to talk about the influence of the National Rifle Association or fossil fuel industries or big pharma and not talk about a powerful
Starting point is 00:08:13 lobbying group that is influencing policy? And last summer, she compared Israel to the Taliban. We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity, Omar wrote in a tweet. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. What makes Omar particularly dangerous is that while she spews blatant anti-Semitism, she pretends not to be an anti-Semite, the board said. This is what she did earlier this week when she defended previous comments she made that were criticized for their anti-Semitic overtones by claiming she was not aware that insinuating that Jews
Starting point is 00:08:48 wield influence or power was a form of anti-Semitism. In The Federalist, David Harsanyi joked, local congresswoman accidentally spends a decade being an anti-Semite. It is merely happenstance, Omar would have you believe, that she, along with her bestie Rashida Tlaib, a woman who gets a calming feeling when thinking about the Holocaust aftermath and believes pro-Zionist Jews exploit regular Americans for their profit, etc., keeps tripping into old-school Jew-baiting. What are the odds, he said. Omar's been living in the United States since her early teens. She graduated from high school in a major American city. She earned a BA from North
Starting point is 00:09:24 Dakota State University in political science and international studies. One assumes she's consumed plenty of American culture over the years. You're telling me that in all this time, in all her many interactions as an academic fellow and a government employee, she never once heard a stereotype about Jews hypnotizing nations or being motivated by money? That's quite an accomplishment. Of course, Omar shouldn't lose her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee because she believes rootless cosmopolitans are brainwashing the world for Benjamins. She should lose it because she downplays 9-11 and equates the United States with theocratic terrorist organizations like Hamas and
Starting point is 00:10:00 the Taliban, he said. She is neither ideologically nor morally prepared for the job. She should be denied a seat because Nancy Pelosi created a new precedent by not only denying Kevin McCarthy his choice for the January 6th committee, effectively creating a show trial, but also stripping Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene of their committee appointments over ugly things that they said. Republicans should unseat Omar using her standards. Other than occasional tepid rebukes from some fellow Jewish Democrats, Omar has been exempt from any meaningful criticism. In National Review, Dan McLaughlin said Republicans are right to retaliate. This is political payback, he said. Democrats broke with the traditional norms of the House
Starting point is 00:10:42 when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat Jim Jordan and Jim Banks on the January 6th committee on grounds considerably flimsier than those cited by McCarthy against Schiff and Swalwell, and when Democrats voted on a party-line basis to deny committee assignments to Marjorie Taylor Greene. McCarthy has cited plausible justifications for each of his moves, but nobody has any illusions that he is taking extraordinary steps on principle due to the urgency of Schiff's abuse of his position to spread misinformation, Swalwell's relationship with a Chinese spy, or Omar's notorious record of antisemitism. He is retaliating proportionally for a breach of norms by the other side. Democrats were warned that this would be the particular outcome of breaking this particular norm. It is cheap and easy to oppose whataboutism and insist that Republicans should just always do
Starting point is 00:11:30 the right thing no matter what Democrats do. It is not always that simple. To start with, a supposed norm is not a norm at all if it is frequently ignored. Moreover, some norms of behavior and even some rules outlive their usefulness. If they are breached by one side, they are better left for dead, he said. At the end of the day, norms collapse unless they are enforced. In this particular case, Republicans can best enforce the norm by demonstrating their willingness to retaliate proportionally. They have chosen deserving targets. That is how power politics is supposed to be played in order to promote rather than degrade the functioning of the institution. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Many on the left criticize the move, calling out Republicans' hypocrisy. Some argue
Starting point is 00:12:23 that Omar is a valuable member of the Foreign Affairs Committee with a unique voice. Others suggest Jews should not support this punishment. In the foreword, Abe Solberstein said anti-Semitism is not the reason Omar lost her seat. While this may be an unwelcome reminder about the speed of life, it has been four years since Omar's offending tweet, Solberstein said. Other than partisan point scoring, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy desperately needs after requiring 15 floor votes to be elected by his own party, it is hard to think of why this controversy should now be re-litigated. But one reason that is certainly not a catalyst for Omar's expulsion from the committee is House Republicans' concern for anti-Semitism. As Representative Dean Phillips,
Starting point is 00:13:05 the Democrat from Minnesota, stated before the vote today, 90% of Jewish members of the House were set to vote to keep Congresswoman Omar on the committee. These Jewish members of Congress supported Representative Omar today because they understood this old news was not being dredged up for the benefit of American Jews, but rather for a historically weak Speaker of the House, who has chosen to humiliate an opponent loathed by the Republican base. That Congresswoman Omar is a member of a religious and ethnic minority demonized by white nationalists ascendant on the American right is also undoubtedly motivating this solidarity, Silverstein said. Hypocrisy is primarily an offense of shamelessness, and it was palpable in the Republican vote against Representative Omar. If the world were a fair place, we would be spared
Starting point is 00:13:50 any and all lectures on anti-Semitism from a congressional majority that relies on the support of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been named to the House Homeland Security Committee and previously alleged the existence of Jewish space lasers, and Representative Paul Gosar, an open and proud associate of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. In the New York Times, Peter Beinart said that when Ilhan Omar asked questions, her colleagues should listen. House Republicans are poised to make a grave mistake by removing from the Committee on Foreign Affairs the only person who consistently describes American foreign policy as it is experienced by much of the rest of the world, Beinart wrote. In 2021, the Alliance of Democracies Foundation
Starting point is 00:14:31 asked 50,000 people in 53 countries which global power they thought most threatened democracy in their nation. The United States came in first. Judging by their public statements, most members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee think these non-Americans are certifiably insane. The committee's Republicans and Democrats both largely take it for granted that the United States, despite occasional blunders, defends liberty. When discussing threats to human rights, they generally attribute them to America's foes. Ms. Omar is the exception. This pattern has repeated itself again and again in the four years since Ms. Omar entered Congress. itself again and again in the four years since Ms. Omar entered Congress. The 50 other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee piously condemned
Starting point is 00:15:10 the misdeeds of America's foes. Xi asked uncomfortable questions about America's own. In a hearing in May 2021 about Chinese atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, only Ms. Omar noted that the United States had itself imprisoned 22 Uyghurs at other minorities in Xinjiang. Only Ms. Omar noted that the United States had itself imprisoned 22 Uyghurs at Guantanamo Bay and that China's president had reportedly cited America's war on terror as justification for his own crackdown. Ms. Omar's detractors might say all this reflects her anti-Americanism. They're wrong. Ms. Omar speaks idealistically about the moral authority the United States carries on the world stage when we stand up for human rights. She just recognizes, as do many across the globe, that the United States doesn't exercise that moral authority nearly as often as our leaders claim.
Starting point is 00:15:56 Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older,
Starting point is 00:16:34 and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. for 2024, incidentally, that saw blatant Nazi symbolism worn into the halls of the Capitol, Kaufman said. The very representative whom Republicans hoped to avenge with this move, Marjorie Taylor Greene, blamed Jewish space lasers for wildfires and likened wearing a mask to donning a yellow Jewish star. If I'm not mistaken, Representative George Santos, who falsely claimed to be Jewish and the descendant of Holocaust survivors at that, has failed to be disavowed by McCarthy himself. Whether you think what she said was offensive or not, the important part is that she apologized. She acknowledged a willingness to listen and learn,
Starting point is 00:17:35 Kaufman wrote. In that vein, I ask who among us has not been unintentionally clumsy with a culture that is not our own, perhaps unaware of its pain points. Omar has been a vocal advocate for progress and acceptance, values that serve the Jewish people. She herself has been the target of highly offensive, ethnically motivated attacks from Republican leaders. This is not a woman unacquainted with prejudice. She speaks strongly against the Israeli government. So do many of us. So when Republicans rise to the pulpit and pontificate on the power of rhetoric, using it as a cudgel to force Omar out of important government business, we can object.
Starting point is 00:18:20 Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. This is a deeply unfortunate turn in this entire fiasco. As a quick reminder, before I say what I'm about to say, I was fine with Kevin McCarthy making the decision to boot Swalwell and Schiff. As I wrote, there is a perfectly good case for both of them to get the boot, and McCarthy had all the justification he needed once Democrats decided these kinds of committee power plays were inbounds. It was an inevitable cycle, one we now appear to be stuck in, though I hope this is the last we have to deal with it. But, as I said then, the Omar case is different. The outline of the argument to remove her from
Starting point is 00:19:01 the Foreign Affairs Committee has far too many holes in it to be credible. The biggest thing her critics cite is her anti-Semitism. As a Jew, I'll happily concede that Omar has made some comments that make me deeply uncomfortable. Tropes about dual loyalty and Jews simply buying political support rather than winning on legitimate arguments make me squirm. Her recent defense that she was unaware of these tropes does not pass the basic sniff test. It is suspiciously unconvincing and makes me more uncomfortable with the biases she may hold. At the same time, I also have to practice what I preach about not seeing ghosts everywhere I look. And in that vein, I think far too many people are conflating criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews.
Starting point is 00:19:45 But even in the least charitable read of her comments, Omar did something very few politicians who offend have actually done. She apologized. She removed her comments where she could. She committed to trying to better understand why so many people had gotten offended. In short, she owned it. That was nearly four years ago, and nothing of that sort has come up since. And all of that is before we get into the gross hypocrisy. Guess which member of Congress tweeted this in 2018? We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to buy this election. Get out and vote Republican November 6th. Hashtag MAGA. I'll answer. It was Kevin McCarthy. The same guy who was apparently so upset about Omar's
Starting point is 00:20:25 criticism of pro-Israel lobbying money that he had to kick her off her committee also happens to have tweeted a warning to his followers that three Jews were buying the election for Democrats in 2018. And no, he didn't apologize. He deleted the tweet, doubled down, and said it was about their politics, not their faith, which, you might note, was precisely a defense Omar made about her comments. This is to say nothing of Representative Paul Gosar, who was recently reseated by McCarthy on the House Committee on Natural Resources, despite his repeated appearances alongside an actual neo-Nazi interloper named Nick Fuentes, who openly hates Jews, denies the Holocaust, and praises Hitler.
Starting point is 00:21:06 I know the media overly uses these descriptors for far-right pundits, but in this case they are all actually accurate. Marjorie Taylor Greene's past comments on Jews are far less worrisome to me, but she nonetheless once seemed consumed by conspiracies about Jews running the world. Again, I'm not making the case that Gosar, Green, or McCarthy should be similarly punished for their actions. I'm just making the point that if McCarthy and Republicans really cared about anti-Semitism, if that is what this is really all about, the record would look dramatically different than it does. Other excuses for booting her out are similarly silly. Accusations that she downplayed 9-11 were taken out of context.
Starting point is 00:21:45 It's not as if she suggested it was an inside government executed job. Again, that would be Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. She did not equate the U.S. to the Taliban or Hamas. She suggested we hold ourselves accountable the same way we do them. Pretending she hates America is also an absurd accusation. Omar is a critic and a lover of this country, and she has every right to be both. That's how I would describe myself, too. At least when it comes to our foreign policy, we need more people like her in Congress. Skeptics of our military's talking points, holding us to higher ethical standards, and demanding we consider how the world views us.
Starting point is 00:22:22 Peter Beinart did an excellent job documenting what a unique voice Omar is in Congress. Many of her questions are the same ones I would ask if I were on those committees. And they all make her stand out from her colleagues, whose zombie-like demeanor while conducting quote-unquote oversight makes it seem as if it is impossible for them to believe our military ever errs. All of this, of course, is to say nothing of the discrimination Omar herself has faced from colleagues. Green and Representative Lauren Boebert, the Republican from Colorado, have both referred to her as a member of the quote-unquote jihad squad, accused her of being bloodthirsty and a terrorist sympathizer. Boebert once claimed to an audience that she met Omar in
Starting point is 00:23:02 an elevator as she was being chased by Capitol police, then quipped that she doesn't have a backpack so we should be fine. To say Bobart faced any repercussions for her comments would be a vast overstatement and borderline fantasy. I also want to be clear that to value Omar's presence on this committee is not to support her views wholesale. You don't have to take it from me. Representative Matt Gaetz, the Republican from Florida and outspoken Trump supporter, well-known critic of all things Democrat, and staunch representative of the new right, made the case just as well as I ever could. Before Republican leadership whipped him into voting against Omar, he was undecided. This is what he said on Newsmax. I view the Schiff and Swalwell matter somewhat differently than I view the Ilhan
Starting point is 00:23:45 Omar matter. Ilhan Omar didn't lie about our intelligence agencies. She didn't say Trump was a Russian agent based on information from a different committee that was just totally bogus. The reason I think a lot of Republicans want to kick Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee is because they don't like what she has to say. It's one thing to do dangerous things to the country with intelligence. It's quite another to say, I don't like your viewpoint and thus I want to remove you. It makes me uncomfortable that the case against Ilhan Omar isn't being subjected to any due process. And go watch Ilhan Omar question Elliott Abrams about some of the neoconservative foreign policies that were very detrimental in South America. Sometimes there is
Starting point is 00:24:25 a view on foreign policy that is an invade everywhere or try to turn every foreign land into a Jeffersonian democracy, and there are times Ilhan Omar makes those arguments. And those are arguments that, at times, align with the America First policies, end quote. Credit to Dan McLaughlin, who at least made the honest and straightforward argument that this was about political retribution and it was justified. Some of his points were quite compelling, including that McCarthy had been forced to respond in kind to Democrats. It's just a shame that Omar got caught in the middle. All right, that is it for my take today, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from an anonymous reader in St. Louis, Missouri. They said,
Starting point is 00:25:10 have you seen the recent Project Veritas video about Pfizer and Jordan Tristan Walker? I'd like to hear your thoughts as a nonpartisan journalist. I know Veritas has a reputation for being deceptive, but this story seems to have largely been ignored and Walker's online presence scrubbed, even while Pfizer's decision not to deny Walker as their employee basically means that he is. Yes, I did see the video and I am also unsure what to make of it. I follow Project Veritas and I regularly keep an eye on their work, but usually with some skepticism. I've had some public spats with James O'Keefe, their founder, and I actually tried to engage him in public conversations about the misleading nature of some of his work, but he has declined. Edited, uncovered videos are always
Starting point is 00:25:56 difficult to parse. Project Veritas is funded by conservative donors and has been caught trying to plant fake sexual assault accusers into stories. That kind of stuff is not journalism. That being said, I do value some of what they put out. The latest video appears to show a Pfizer employee, Jordan Trishon Walker, conceding that Pfizer is attempting to mutate COVID-19 to get ahead of it with their own vaccines. He also suggests we may find out down the line that the vaccine is doing a lot of damage to people. Both of these are frightening confessions, though I don't think either are particularly revelatory. It's unclear what exactly his qualifications are. Project Veritas set Walker up on a fake date, and when they outed their undercover crew, he said he was simply trying
Starting point is 00:26:41 to impress a date and that most of what he said was exaggerated or a lie. I'm not sure that's the most convincing defense, but it isn't totally absurd either. Unfortunately, very few news organizations have tackled this story, so we don't have much journalism out there about it. I thought this blog post from Forbes, whose tone I did not like, did a good job of at least presenting the counter-arguments to Project Veritas' framing. The video contains some genuinely shocking moments, but there are a lot of unanswered questions and missing context, as is typical with Project Veritas's work. I'll be curious to see the full raw video, which they typically release at some point after the edited version. Maybe it's
Starting point is 00:27:20 worthy of a tangled deep dive. it's worthy of a tangled deep dive. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. The influential billionaire-backed Koch Network plans to oppose former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. In a memo released by the network's primary advocacy group, the ultra-wealthy donors said they're going to push for a new candidate. Americans for Prosperity, the primary advocacy group, helped bring the Tea Party movement to a national prominence in 2004. Now it says the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. In 2022, Americans for Prosperity spent $69.4 million on the midterms.
Starting point is 00:28:05 Fox News has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of the vote in Minnesota's 5th district that Representative Ilhan Omar won in the 2022 midterms was 75.1%. The percentage of Minnesotans statewide who said they had an unfavorable opinion of Omar was 57%, according to an October poll. The percentage of Minnesotans statewide who said they had a favorable opinion of Omar was 27%. Four is the number of Muslim Americans who have been elected to Congress. The number of naturalized citizens who were born in Africa that have ever served in Congress is one, Ilhan Omar. The percentage of the 117th Congress that were immigrants or children of immigrants was 14%.
Starting point is 00:28:56 Alright, and last but not least, our have a nice day story. This one comes from my home county. A young man in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is being heralded as a nice day story. This one comes from my home county. A young man in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is being heralded as a prodigy. David Balogun, a nine-year-old, just graduated from high school. Balogun recently received his diploma from Reach Cyber Charter School after taking classes from home remotely in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania. The achievement makes him one of the youngest known children to ever graduate from high school. His parents say they are now looking into Ivy League schools for their child.
Starting point is 00:29:30 I want to be an astrophysicist and I want to study black holes and supernovas, David told a local TV station. His parents, who both have advanced degrees, say it has been challenging raising such an intelligent kid, but they are finding outside-the-box ways to keep up with David's many interests. WGAL has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. That is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and consider becoming a member. Otherwise, you can just
Starting point is 00:30:03 spread the word. We'll be right back here, same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns,
Starting point is 00:30:20 Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Matt Gwendoly-Bakova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. Thank you. Thanks for watching! a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.
Starting point is 00:31:20 Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur
Starting point is 00:31:45 and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at fluselvax.ca.

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