Boner Candidate #1: THE JIHAD SQUAD.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s face is contorted into an attitude-filled pout and she appears to be toting a large gun. Below her are the doctored images of three fellow Democratic congresswomen: Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. According to the movie poster-style picture that was recently shared to an official Facebook page for Republican leaders in Illinois, the four minority lawmakers are the stars of “The Jihad Squad.” “POLITICAL JIHAD IS THEIR GAME,” reads all-caps text on the fake poster. “IF YOU DON’T AGREE WITH THEIR SOCIALIST IDEOLOGY, YOU’RE RACIST.” The meme, which reportedly first appeared Friday on the Facebook page of the Illinois Republican County Chairmen’s Association, has since drawn widespread backlash from top state leaders in both parties. On Sunday evening, the association’s president, Mark Shaw, apologized and announced that the post had been taken down. It is unclear if the poster was created by the organization, but its logo was featured on the image. The poster marks yet another ugly broadside against the congresswomen following President Trump’s racist tweets last Sunday in which he suggested that the four women of color should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley were born in the United States and Omar, a Somali refugee, became a citizen when she was 17. But rather than walk back the widely condemned comment, Trump has continued to publicly rebuke the freshman representatives, who have become collectively known as “the Squad” — and others have joined in. Read More
Boner Candidate #2: WE REGRET THIS ERROR.
The family of a Chicago infant who died last month after being cut from his mother’s womb was billed over $300,000 for his – and his suspected killer’s – care in addition to being misidentified by the hospital using the suspect’s surname, reports say. Marlen Ochoa-Lopez was killed on April 23 after Clarisa Figueroa, 46, and her daughter Desiree, 26, lured the 19-year-old to their apartment with the promise of free baby clothes. Instead, police say the pair strangled the young mother and cut the infant from her womb. The infant, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, was taken to the hospital after the suspects called 911 to report that he had stopped breathing. He died on June 14 after being on life support for three weeks. The pair was charged with first-degree murder for Yovanny’s death Thursday in addition to at least two dozen counts of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, dismemberment of a human body and concealment of a homicide. A new report from the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that the grieving family has now been slapped with over $300,000 in medical bills from the Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where the infant and one of the suspects was treated. Frank Avila, an attorney for the Ochoa-Lopez family, told the paper that the family has received bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars dating back to April 23 that charged the family for the infant’s care. They were also billed for the care of Figuero who initially claimed to hospital staff that she was the birth mother. Read More
