OPINION:
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, in a speech delivered from the floor of the House, likened the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel to America’s boycott of Nazi Germany.
And that’s just the latest of her madness.
Truly, Tlaib, in addition to having the distinction of being the first Palestinian American woman to win congressional office, is plugging right along to another notable title: Resident Crazy.
She’s rapidly becoming the lunatic fringe of the political world.
A video just surfaced of Tlaib being forcibly removed by security officials from a Detroit, Michigan, campaign event for Donald Trump in 2016, all the while screaming at the crowd, “You guys are crazy.” Not a good look for a member of Congress — even a Democratic member of Congress.
Then there was the MoveOn event Tlaib spoke at, just hours after her swearing-in ceremony in January of 2019 — in other words, her first batch of public words as a duly elected member of Congress. And did she talk about the honor of the office? Did she deliver a somber message about the responsibility she felt toward the Constitution? Did she speak about her duty to unite, not divide?
Nope.
She said this: “When your son looks at you and said, ’Mama, look, you won — bullies don’t win.’ And I said, ’Baby they don’t, because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf——r.’”
Again — not a good look for a member of Congress.
Then there was the 2015 tweet that just resurfaced this week — thanks due to Donald Trump Jr. — in which Tlaib wrote this, above a Guardian photograph of Trump: “’Deport this a—hole!’”
Nice. Very couth.
Then there was Monday, when Tlaib told an NAACP audience, “Yeah, I’m not going nowhere! Not until I impeach this president.”
And then there was this, her latest: Her likening of the anti-Israel BDS movement to Nazi Germany boycotts.
“The right to boycott is deeply rooted in the fabric of our country,” Tlaib said, during House floor remarks aimed at opposing a resolution that condemns the BDS movement, Fox News reported. “What was the Boston Tea Party but a boycott? Where would we be now without the boycott led by the civil rights activists in the 1950s and ’60s like the Montgomery bus boycott and the United Farm Workers Grape boycott? … Americans boycotted Nazi Germany in response to dehumanization, imprisonment and genocide of Jewish people.”
Except for one small little bit of fact: Nazi Germany was about the extermination of whole groups of people — like Jews.
There is that.
Her opposition to a resolution that rejects the BDS campaign against Israel comes from a point of view that it dings the First Amendment.
“Our [First Amendment] right to free speech allows boycott of inhumane policies,” Tlaib tweeted a couple of weeks ago, while expressing opposition to the resolution. “This bill is unconstitutional.”
Sorry, but comparing the imprisonment and starvation and gassing and attempted extermination of millions of Jews and others is not the same as a supposed free speech ding.
And going there simply showcases a mind that’s at best, unbalanced — at worst, on the fringe of lunacy.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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