Fast Takes: Ilhan Omars dads dubious past, Trumps sensible appeal and more

What we know about “Nur Omar Mohamed’s military career” in the Somali army makes it “very doubtful” that Rep.Ilhan Omar’s father “met the US legal definition of a ‘refugee’,” argues National Review’s Jim Geraghty.

One obituary noted that his “prestigious career in the military ended in 1991 after the Barre regime was ousted.” Notes Geraghty: “The Somali government was using its military to commit genocide for the better part of three decades, intensifying in the late 1980s.” Credible sources discredit the notion that her father could “rise to the rank of colonel with no role in that military’s massive-scale genocide.” How was a Somali colonel “qualified as a refugee” when he may have “ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution” of civilians?President Trump “has been widely mocked for asking voters to ‘pretend I’m on the ballot,’ ” notes the Washington Examiner’s Byron York.Yet appealing to “low-propensity voters” — such one ones who won’t normally vote unless Trump’s on the ballot — “makes sense.” A 2025 Pew Research study found eligible voters nationwide who didn’t vote in 2020 and ’22 but did in ’24 backed Trump 55%-41%.

“This was not just a tiny group of people”: “2024-only voters made up 12% of the entire electorate in the presidential race that year.It made a big difference for Trump.” So, “if Republicans are trying to turn out low-propensity voters” now, “it makes sense to ask them to pretend that Trump is on the ballot.”“Democrats should think hard about” the “broad spectrum of sketchy fundraising behavior, from outright scams to bad ideas,” argues Slow Boring’s Matt Yglesias after getting a “rather absurd request” from Gov.

Maura Healy (D-Mass.), who’s in zero danger of losing.People “acutely frightened about the state of our country” must “be smart with our resources, not throwing them at dumb stuff” like unw...