Trump-loving, conspiracy theorist, Danielle Stella is challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in Minnesota’s 5th District. Part of her platform is a robust anti-crime stance. Stella described Minneapolis this week as “the crime capital of our country”. She has in the past complained that local police were “overworked and overburdened” and said that, if elected, she would work to reduce crime.
Two things weigh against her assertions. One, they are not true. Stella claimed that crime in Minneapolis had risen by 80% over the past year. Police statistics show that the increase in serious crime was 10.7% year-on-year, following a 16.5% decline in 2018.
National statistics also pour cold water on her criminal analysis. Minneapolis does not crack the top 10 cities. It is 16th in the violent crime rate — 42nd in murder — and 21st in property crime. Stella adopts the universal Republican tactic of lying to make a false argument.
Two, she is no stranger to crime. She has been arrested twice this year in Minneapolis suburbs for shoplifting items worth more than $2,300 from a Target and goods valued at $40 from a grocery store. She is challenging the charges — although she hasn’t denied taking the stuff.
She excused her theft of 279 items valued at $2,327.97 from an Edina Target store on a mental disability. She says she “remembers arriving at Target to purchase items but nothing else” due to post-traumatic stress disorder. Adding that she “normally she goes to Target with someone because of anxiety around people”. She has offered no defense against pocketing “cat merchandise” and cat food valued at $40.46 in a Cub Foods grocery store.
After The Guardian(UK) newspaper published the story Stella called reporter Jon Swaine a “fraud” and tweeted that what he wrote was “garbage, unethical, outright lies.” All of the “death threats” and “hate messages” she was getting as a result, she tweeted, were his fault. Again following the Republican playbook of ‘deny, point the finger at the media and muddy the waters’.
Anything to distract from the facts in the public record.
Moving on, court information also shows that, in 2009, Stella pleaded guilty to driving while impaired from alcohol and fleeing a police officer - the later a felony, although it was pled down to a gross misdemeanor.
Blind to hypocrisy, Stella has accused Omar of being a criminal for advising immigrants on how to avoid agents from ICE — tweeting that any representatives who fail to “uphold the rule of law” should be ejected from office.
Leaving aside the fact that criminal behavior used to be a disqualifier for public office, let's consider her assertion that she suffers from 'anxiety around people'. That would seem to put the kibosh on being an effective politician.
But, nevertheless, she is popular in the right-wing sewer. Todd Starnes, a run of the mill troll promoted Stella’s candidacy in an interview with Fox News’s streaming service Fox Nation. He wrapped up the encounter with “we wish her the very best”.
Far-right conspiracy website, InfoWars, broadcast an interview with Stella this week. In which she laughed and nodded as the host, J Owen Shroyer called Omar “a witch” and said: “Everything about her is a fraud” — possibly confusing the Representative with his guest.
Stella is also a fan of QAnon. This conspiracy theory collective believes Trump has a secret plan to root out the “deep state”. And take out a worldwide network of satanic pedophiles — comprising, among others, Hollywood elites and top Democrat politicians. In response to an inquiry by Right Wing Watch, ‘Heather’ from Stella’s campaign website said she “stands 100% behind the principles of patriotism, unity/inclusiveness (WWG1WGA!)* and love for country that Qanon promotes.”
The Republicans have no chance of winning the district — Omar won with 78% of the vote — but they have to be praying that they dodge another candidate from the lunatic fringe making them look like the insane party. Although it’s hard to see where the line between sanity and insanity is in the conservative world.
* "Where we go one we go all!” A typical feel-good, group reassurance for the nervous types in right-wing conspiracy land.
