On Monday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) retweeted a message effectively endorsing the violent 2017 assault against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), which left him with five cracked ribs. She retweeted deranged actor Tom Arnold, who has incited President Donald Trump to a fight, leading Secret Service to intervene.
“Imagine being Rand Paul’s next-door neighbor and having to deal with [Rand Paul] lying cowardly circular whiney bullcrap about lawn clippings. No wonder he ripped his toupee off,” Arnold tweeted.
Omar retweeted this message to her 376,000 followers.
Twitter screenshot of Tom Arnold attacking Rand Paul, retweeted by Ilhan Omar.
Omar deleted the retweet after conservatives noted it.
Fifty-eight-year-old Rene Boucher attacked Paul from behind on his own property in Bowling Green, Ky. Paul was wearing headphones. He succeeded at throwing Boucher off, but not before sustaining injuries. The senator suffered five rib fractures, including three displaced fractures, and later required medical attention for pneumonia.
While Boucher supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 and has posted vitriol against President Donald Trump, he insisted the attack was not politically-motivated. Boucher’s lawyer said the two neighbors had an ongoing dispute over leaf and grass clippings — Paul had been mowing his lawn at the time of the attack.
Paul missed many congressional sessions after the attack and sued Boucher for medical and attorney fees. A jury awarded Paul $580,000 in January. Boucher was sentenced in criminal court to 30 days in prison and one year of supervised release.
It appears Arnold heard Boucher’s story and seized on the grass clippings dispute, taking the assailant’s side and suggesting that he was right in violently attacking Paul. As for the toupee slight, there is no evidence Paul’s hair is not genuine — Elle ran a story about his hair care in 2015, with no mention of a toupee.
Arnold reduced the violence from breaking five ribs and prompting a bout of pneumonia — worth $580,000 in medical and attorney fees — to ripping off a toupee.
Omar’s retweet came after Paul weighed in on Trump’s tweets telling “The Squad” — which includes Omar — to “go back” and clean up the countries where they came from. Unlike the rest of “The Squad,” Omar actually does come from a foreign country, Somalia.
Paul told Breitbart that Omar is “ungrateful” and he suggested she should take a trip to Somalia to learn some gratitude.
“I hear Rep. Omar say, ‘Oh, America is a terrible place. I thought there’d be justice but there’s no justice here,'” Paul said last week. “It’s like, she came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got school, she got healthcare, and lo and behold she has the honor of actually winning a seat in Congress and she says we’re a terrible country. I think that’s about as ungrateful as you can get.”
“So while I’m not saying we forcibly send her anywhere, I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia and I think she could look and maybe learn a little about bit about the disaster that is Somalia, that has no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in a Constitution and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years. And then maybe after she’s visited Somalia for a while she might come back and appreciate America more,” he said.
Omar was not the first Democrat to mock Paul for this act of violence against him. Former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor mocked him, saying, “Start doing a better job not getting beat up by your neighbor.”
Some have suggested that Omar never said “America is a terrible place,” but Paul was clearly paraphrasing.
This is not the first time Tom Arnold has tweeted disgusting remarks against a Republican. When Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a decorated former Navy SEAL who lost his eye in combat, complained about The New York Times seeming to take the Soviet Union’s side in the space race for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Arnold attacked him as a “sad sack.”
“I have a theory it’s sad sacks like you who get off pissing on everybody else’s good times by constantly pointing out stupid shit no one would’ve noticed or cared about and blaming leftists whatever the hell that is. What’s with all the whining all the time Top Gun? Sack up!” Arnold tweeted.
I have a theory it's sad sacks like you who get off pissing on everybody else's good times by constantly pointing out stupid shit no one would've noticed or cared about and blaming leftists whatever the hell that is. What's with all the whining all the time Top Gun? Sack up! #USA
— Tom Arnold (@TomArnold) July 18, 2019
Last year, Arnold challenged Trump to a fistfight, prompting Secret Service to get involved.
“I say put up or shut up [Donald Trump]. Me vs You. For America. First body slam wins. Any Rally. Any Time. Between now & the midterms,” the actor tweeted.
I say put up or shut up @realDonaldTrump Me vs You. For America. First body slam wins. Any Rally. Any Time. Between now & the midterms. #FridayFeeling https://t.co/ITthF7dFWc
— Tom Arnold (@TomArnold) October 19, 2018
Secret Service confronted him about this, warning that his platform could incite people to violence against the president.
Now Arnold used that platform to endorse an attack on Rand Paul, and Omar added her platform to his.
This reminds me of the growing justification for antifa. It goes something like this, “Words are violence but violence is not violence.” Or rather, conservative words are “violence” because conservatives are fascists. But liberals who “punch a fascist” are not engaging in violence because conservatives deserve it.
It seems Arnold and Omar, in their worst moments, agree with this sentiment. After all, Omar has refused to condemn the antifa terrorist who threw incendiary devices at an ICE facility, echoing the “concentration camps” rhetoric from Omar and her “Squad” partners like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Omar did not respond to PJ Media’s request for comment.
@Ilhan Would you explain why you retweeted this? I'm glad you deleted the retweet, but this message clearly endorses the violent assault that left @RandPaul with five cracked ribs. Do you apologize for sending this message? pic.twitter.com/o4gGaSPBna
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) July 30, 2019
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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