McCarthy (R-Calif.) confirmed that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as well as Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) would be blocked from serving on House committees.
by Brett Wilkins, courtesy of CommonDreams.org –
The speaker first threatened to strip the trio of their assignments last year, a move that supporters and critics alike viewed as retaliation for Democrats removing GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Arizona’s Paul Gosar from their committee seats after Greene’s numerous white supremacist remarks and conspiracy theories. Gosar was removed after he shared social media posts depicting the animated assassinations of President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Interviewed by HuffPost for an article published this month, Omar—who was a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Labor and Education committees in the 117th Congress—accused McCarthy of being motivated by bigotry.
“I do not actually think that he has a reason outside of me being Muslim and thinking I should not be,” she said. “If you look at the comments from Republicans, it’s precisely for only that reason.”
Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have repeatedly made racist and Islamophobic attacks against Omar, the first Somali-American woman elected to Congress, including calling her a terrorist who might try to blow up Congress.
Omar has consistently condemned Israeli crimes in the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem and in the besieged Gaza Strip. These include the occupation, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and desert Bedouins, the internationally recognized crime of apartheid, the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza invasions, the unlawful colonization of the West Bank by Jewish settlers, and extrajudicial killings such as that of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Omar has also been a vocal critic of the $3 billion in mostly…
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