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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   2832 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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Let's start with something juicy

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvp8glg97393o

US immigration agents searched the home of Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar on Monday morning as part of a "criminal investigation".

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents "executed a judicially authorized search warrant" for the home in the Washington, DC, area, a US justice department spokesperson told the BBC.

The search "is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation," the spokesperson said, but no further details were given. ... The justice department has a longstanding policy of refraining from most enforcement action that is "likely to raise an issue or the perception" it was being brought for the purpose of affecting any election or disadvantage a candidate.

Couple of starting points - it won't help Trump, chances of uncovering smoking guns that with tank Dems in the eventual records are slim to none. Zero chance she will be stripped of citizenship or her alleged brother deported (cue Alabama joke here). It is not escalation - the escalation was the Trump trial, but as retaliation is quite weak. If democrats obtain trifecta - I wonder what type of further escalation they will figure out.

Personally I find her the most dislikable among the squad, so I won't say I am sad.

Ilhan Omar is my congressional representative and you can inject this news into my veins. Ilhan Omar is essentially immune to electoral challenges despite being one of the most embarrassing politicians in the United States of America. This district will never in a billion years elect a Republican, of course, but she manages to survive even quite strong primary pressure despite her only congressional accomplishments in nearly a decade consisting pretty much entirely of some popular tweets. I've read that she has managed to make herself the nexus of a fairly robust patronage (i.e. grift) network which would fall apart if she left office, this seems as good an explanation as any.

Anyway, the only realistic way she ever leaves office is an actual legal issue that either finally convinces enough Minnesota Democratic Primary voters to drop their loyalty to her, or which makes her ineligible to serve. I'm hoping pretty desperately this investigation finds something. A liberal Washington DC district judge would have needed to sign off on this, so there's obviously some smoke.

Realistically, though I think you're right, it'll probably have approximately the same political impact as the Mar-a-lago raid.

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