Via the Free Beacon, this is why Pelosi agreed to let the BDS resolution come to the floor in the first place, right? Normally Speakers don’t greenlight legislation, especially meaningless legislation like “sense of the House” resolutions, when they’re apt to cause tensions within their own caucus about sensitive political subjects.

But I think Ringo here and the other three members of the Squad left her no choice. Trump has already attacked them repeatedly for being anti-Israel, a deliberate attempt to make them the face of the Democratic Party on that and other issues. Pelosi is desperate for ways to counter that message. Solution: Give centrist Dems an opportunity to show their support for Israel by voting for a resolution condemning BDS. And hope that not too many progressives go the other way, creating unhappy headlines.

So it was thoughtful of Rashida Tlaib to hand this soundbite to Trump’s presidential campaign knowing that today’s big vote is destined to not go his way. Also, say what you want about her but she’s very much in sync with her district. The latest news out of Dearborn:

A franchisee has delayed the scheduled opening of his Burgerim restaurant in Dearborn amid backlash from the Arab-American community over the popular burger company’s Israeli roots. Sam Zahr, a Lebanese-American who lives in Dearborn, said he was too worried to open the restaurant on Greenfield Road after his kids were bullied and he received threatening messages from those opposed to the burger chain founded in Israel… “I told you, you are not like us,” someone wrote in a Facebook message to Zahr. “You have Palestinian and Lebanese blood on your hand if you open up that joint.” In another incident, he set up a tent with free burgers outside the soon-to-open Royal Oak store for Ramadan, a Muslim holiday in April, but he said the tent was destroyed the next morning.

Zahr has opened Burgerim franchises in other cities in Michigan. Only in Dearborn has he encountered a problem. And before you ask, no, of course Tlaib won’t be pressed on whether her repulsive Nazi analogies are contributing to a “climate of hate” that’s made it unsafe for Jews and Israel-linked business to operate in her backyard. “Climate of hate” hand-wringing runs one way only.

I encourage you to read the text of the House resolution, just to see for yourself how toothless it is relative to Tlaib’s absurd alarmism in the clip. “Our right to free speech is being threatened with this resolution,” she warns. “It sets a dangerous precedent because it attempts to delegitimize a certain people’s political speech and to send a message that our government can and will take action against speech it doesn’t like.” It does no such thing, as Philip Klein recently noted. The strongest “action” it takes is to declare that the House “opposes the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement) targeting Israel, including efforts to target United States companies that are engaged in commercial activities that are legal under United States law, and all efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel.” There’s no penalty for supporting BDS. Again, the whole reason they’re voting on this in the first place is that the anti-Israel cranks in Pelosi’s caucus can’t and won’t be silenced, leaving pro-Israel Dems with no choice but to try to drown them out. But the Squad’s brand of populist progressivism (maybe any populism, really?) requires an endless cycle of victimization and defiance to propel itself, so Tlaib has to trump up a phony grievance that her right to free speech is being threatened because the House happens to think that her politics on this issue are demagogic Jew-baiting garbage.