Daily Digest: Graffiti threat, town hall remarks and GOP poster put spotlight on Omar

Good morning and welcome to the start of a new week. A lot of news swirled around Rep. Ilhan Omar since the last Digest. Time to catch up.

1. FBI investigating threatening graffiti. Federal authorities are looking into reports that a hateful message targeting U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar was scrawled onto a bathroom stall at a Twin Cities gas station. The message, written in black marker in the men's room, read: "Assassinate Ilhan Omar." It came to the attention of customer Brian Raines, who had stopped by his local Holiday gas station in Rogers on Feb. 22. Raines, a father of two children and a U.S. Navy veteran, said he asked the manager why he hadn't covered up the message. Raines said the manager seemed annoyed by the question, rolled his eyes, and responded that he was waiting for the corporate office to send out a painter. I said, 'You didn't think about covering it up yourself?' " Raines recalled. "You don't need a painter to come out on a Saturday to do the right thing." Raines said he walked back to his truck, still bothered by what he experienced. So he pulled up a picture he took of the message and posted it to his Instagram page, predicting — correctly — he would be trolled by people accusing him of making it up. The post didn't gain much traction until Omar tweeted it Friday afternoon. Raines said more people need to come forward and shed light about hateful, racist or anti-Islamic rhetoric they hear in their communities. (MPR News)

2. Omar again draws criticism for remarks deemed anti-Semitic. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is facing more accusations of making anti-Semitic remarks, with a senior member of her party rebuking the House freshman for words that he said conjured a “vile anti-Semitic slur.” Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has demanded an apology over comments Omar made Wednesday, less than a month after she was condemned by bipartisan leadership for suggesting that pro-Israel lobbying groups and Jewish politicians influence American politics. Her latest comments came during a town hall in Washington while speaking about liberal issues. “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,” Omar said. Omar’s spokesman, Jeremy Slevin, told the Associated Press on Friday that the congresswoman expressed remorse about her comments in February but that “we must distinguish between criticism of a particular faith and fair critiques of lobbying groups.” (Washington Post)

3. Anti-Muslim poster featuring Omar prompts outrage, apologies in West Virginia. An anti-Muslim poster outside the West Virginia House of Delegates chamber falsely connecting a freshman congresswoman to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has drawn strong rebukes from local and national lawmakers, while causing the resignation of a Capitol staffer and the reported injury of another. The sign, which loomed over a table loaded with other Islamophobic flyers on a “WV GOP Day” at the legislature Friday, bore an image of the burning World Trade Center juxtaposed with a picture of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim congresswomen ever elected. ″‘Never forget’ — You said,” was written over the Twin Towers. On Omar’s picture, a caption read, “I am the proof you have forgotten.” “No wonder why I am on the “Hitlist” of a domestic terrorist and “Assassinate Ilhan Omar” is written on my local gas stations,” Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, wrote on Twitter as the images went viral. “Look no further, the GOP’s anti-Muslim display likening me to a terrorist rocks in state capitols and no one is condemning them!” On Saturday, the West Virginia’s Republican party condemned the appearance of the anti-Muslim flyers and posters. “Our party supports freedom of speech, but we do not endorse speech that advances intolerant and hateful views,” West Virginia Republican Party Chairwoman Melody Potter wrote in a statement, which added that they did not approve of the sign and had asked the exhibitor to remove it. No one acknowledged permitting the display. (Associated Press)

4. Self-deprecation, Klobuchar-style. Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed the quirkiest story to emerge about her since she announced her presidential candidacy right out of the gate."How did everyone like the salad?" the Minnesota Democrat asked the audience, kicking off her remarks Saturday night at the historic annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, DC. "I thought it was OK, but it needed just a bit of scalp oil and a pinch of dandruff, would be a little better." In a recent New York Times article, Klobuchar was described as once eating a salad with a comb after being stuck on a plane without a fork. "I have an interesting base strategy," she said. "George Will wrote a nice column, and the Wall Street Journal, and Politico actually did a big story with Republicans saying nice things about me. (Sens.) Roy Blunt, Pat Roberts, and John Cornyn say I'm reasonable, likable, and nice. And then the New York Times gave the rebuttal." (CNN)

5. Wellstone still a presence as 2020 approaches. More than 16 years after his death, the legacy of Sen. Paul Wellstone is palpable in the 2020 presidential campaign. Several candidates who are in the White House race or are weighing a bid call the Minnesota Democrat an inspiration, and some issues he championed remain party priorities. Wellstone and his wife, Sheila, encouraged Sen. Amy Klobuchar to run for Hennepin County attorney and to seek higher office after that. “Whenever the going was tough” in her campaigns, she said in an interview, “I always thought in my mind, ‘Well, Paul thought I could do this.’ ” When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was asked on Feb. 10 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to name her mentor, she spoke of her late-night phone conversations with Wellstone. They collaborated on bankruptcy legislation while she was a Harvard professor. “There are certainly echoes of Wellstone” in this campaign, said Bill Lofy, a Vermont-based political consultant who worked for him starting in 1994. Democrats are emphasizing “a core set of values” that reflect Wellstone’s call for “politics that’s more straightforward and unapologetic,” he said. (Star Tribune)

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