Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[Patooka]

Star Trek. A future AOC aims for? Pure unadulterated fantasy land stuff. And this is an elected member of congress?

It could be worse. It could be a Hollywood actor who became Governor from California being affiliated with Star Wars.

Who turned out to be a fairly good scandal free President in fact.

Meh, just another socialist who favoured gun control.

 

[marc]

Star Trek. A future AOC aims for? Pure unadulterated fantasy land stuff. And this is an elected member of congress?

It could be worse. It could be a Hollywood actor who became Governor from California being affiliated with Star Wars.

Who turned out to be a fairly good scandal free President in fact.

That is if you ignore most of his presidency, selling arms to Iran, supporting terrorists, etc.


hmm... second only to Nixon... well he'll be in third place once Trump is done.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/ni9vJPY-1AQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

[PyramidHead]

Who turned out to be a fairly good scandal free President in fact.

That is if you ignore most of his presidency, selling arms to Iran, supporting terrorists, etc.

View attachment 24505
hmm... second only to Nixon... well he'll be in third place once Trump is done.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/ni9vJPY-1AQ[/YOUTUBE]

Libya would like a word with whoever made that table

 

[angelo]

So would Saudi Arabia and Israel.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Who turned out to be a fairly good scandal free President in fact.

That is if you ignore most of his presidency, selling arms to Iran, supporting terrorists, etc.

View attachment 24505
hmm... second only to Nixon... well he'll be in third place once Trump is done.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/ni9vJPY-1AQ[/YOUTUBE]

Libya would like a word with whoever made that table

Obama stated that his lack of planning for the aftermath of the Gaddify downfall was his worst mistake. But it wasn't a crime.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On Fame: ‘Sometimes I Just Want To Be A Human Being’ | HuffPost

“Sometimes I just want to be a human being. And you don’t get to be a human any more,” she told HuffPost in an interview Tuesday. “Everything you do from wearing sweatpants to the bodega to getting a haircut ― every personal decision you make for yourself is never going to be yours any more.”

A "normal" one. AOC expressed a lot of empathy for Meghan Markle when she described what it was like to live in the public spotlight.

“I feel an enormous amount of empathy for her, because it requires an enormous amount of tools to be resilient ― and also to stay human in that.”

“There’s a lot of people that are going to say ‘oh, boo-hoo,’ but I feel for her,” she said. “I really feel for her.”

Ocasio-Cortez said that the experience of rocketing into stardom after her June 2018 primary win was “right up there with my family almost getting foreclosed on ― one of the most stressful experiences ever,” comparing the experience to her family’s trouble holding onto their home after her father died when she was 18.

She expected that the media attention would die down, but it didn't.

“You kind of grieve for that. It has its highs and it has its lows,” she said. “A lot of people look at the highs, but sometimes it feels like you got a tattoo on your face that you didn’t ask for. It’s hard. It’s very hard. Sometimes you just want to get a drink or eat a hamburger.”

...
“I can’t afford to be hidden away. In order for me to do my job, I need to be connected to people,” she said. “My job is to love people. And that’s very difficult sometimes given the amount of barriers.”

She couldn't help but attract attention as a result of her victory over 10-term-incumbent Joe Crowley, and her personality added to that, I think. It also helps that she has a lot to say in interviews and that she has some very interesting personal history.

Thanks to the circumstances of her victory and her gift for communication, Ocasio-Cortez has become a media superstar — adored by many liberals and obsessively, negatively covered by Fox News.

Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost that her family and friends, particularly those who knew her before she was famous, help her stay “grounded.”

In particular, her friends from the restaurant industry “are the people that I enjoy spending time with, because they knew me when no one cared who I was,” she said. “They let me know if they think I’m wrong or if they want to ask me a question.”

She also has some friends from her Boston University years, it seems.

 

[lpetrich]

How AOC turned boring congressional hearings into electrifying moments

It isn’t often that you hear someone rave about a great congressional hearing they’ve seen online. Heck, outside of big national events, I’m going to bet you have never willingly watched C-Span.

But less than one year since she entered Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has represented New York’s 14th congressional district since January, has changed that.

AOC has shown a remarkable ability to extract energizing viral moments from stale bureaucratic meetings. She turns complex political concepts into snappy soundbites and boring old politics into much-talked-about spectacle.

Listing some notable moments as her with Mike Zuckerberg, her with a scientist who had worked with ExxonMobil about climate change, her with an FBI official white-supremacist terrorism, demonstrating how to be super corrupt, and having some very righteous indignation over environmental issues. The article could also have mentioned her questioning of Michael Cohen, with his revealing of the conveniently fluctuating property value of one of Trump's golf courses.

AOC is vulnerable to a primary challenge, survey finds from Sep 17. About some polls conducted by some AOC opponents - she's still ahead.

• Democrats: favorable 47%, unfavorable 29%, unsure 24%
• Her opposing the Amazon HQ2 deal: yes 37%, no 35%, unsure 28%
• Helping her district vs. spending time on social media: district 40%, social media 22%, unsure 38%
• Supporting a primary challenger: (somewhat) likely: 26%, (somewhat) unlikely 43%, undecided 31%
• Democrats who are open to voting for a Republican challenger: nearly 1/3

One of the AOC opponents stated "After surveying voters in 817 Democratic homes in the district, it’s clear Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is not sitting well with the voters she was elected to serve." even though the numbers clearly say otherwise.

Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent declined comment on the survey but emphasized that the freshman congresswoman is “doing incredible work for people in the district.” He noted she’s held more than 60 community events since January.

 

[lpetrich]

Palmer Luckey Donated to AOC. Her Campaign Returned the Money.

Luckey's irreverent approach to political life became infamous when in 2016 The Daily Beast reported that he bankrolled an organization to produce anti-Hillary Clinton memes, including a billboard near Pittsburgh picturing Clinton and the words “Too big to jail.” The series of events led to his ouster from Facebook, which he joined through the Oculus acquisition in 2014.

At Facebook, Luckey mostly kept his politics under wraps. After leaving the company, his efforts to bolster campaigns on the right have consistently ramped up, with flashy donations and cameos at Trump fundraising events. In July, Luckey spoke at a Trump Victory lunch hosted by Donald Trump Jr. and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle at Orange County’s ritzy Lincoln Club.

an anti-Hillary Clinton meme group and right-wing groups.
Ocasio-Cortez reelection campaign refunds $1,000 in donations from pro-Trump former Facebook exec | TheHill

What a bizarre form of trolling.


I went to the Federal Election Commission's site, and I found out the donation reports for NY-14 2020. I checked on those by state, and AOC had by far the most. The other one with nonzero broken-down ones was Ruth Papazian.

AOC gets contributions from all over the nation, though she gets the most from the northeast and the west coast. She gets a lot from DC and nearby, and also some midwest and mountain states. But she gets very little from Idaho and some of the Deep South states.

The only opponent listed as having nonzero contributions was Ruth Papazian, a Republican, and she got ones from VA, TX, CA, ME, and FL.

 

[lpetrich]

Ariana Grande on Twitter: "baby how u feelin" / Twitter
then
Bernie Sanders on Twitter: "Ready to fight for Medicare for All." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Progressive policies as an Ariana dance party:
thank u, next: Replace for-profit health insurance w/ #MedicareForAll
God is a Woman: Strike the Hyde Amendment
* Break Free: Student loan debt forgiveness
Be Alright: Pass a Green New Deal!
" / Twitter
then
Ariana Grande on Twitter: "@AOC screaming screaming" / Twitter

A Spanish subtitling of AOC in action in Congress:
Noticias Telemundo on Twitter: "La congresista @aoc reprendió a Mark Zuckerberg por la nueva política de Facebook de permitir anuncios políticos que contienen información falsa o engañosa. https://t.co/GysoWhiYBQ" / Twitter
Google Translate: "The congresswoman @aoc rebuked Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook's new policy of allowing political ads that contain false or misleading information."

 

[angelo]

Libya would like a word with whoever made that table

Obama stated that his lack of planning for the aftermath of the Gaddify downfall was his worst mistake. But it wasn't a crime.

Neither was his submissive speech to Islamists in Cairo soon after winning the election a crime. But had that been a Trump, there would have been hell to pay, yet not a single criticism of his constant appeasement to Islam from the mainstream media. In fact he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely FA to deserve it except to further degrade the credibility of this prize.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants A Bigger Squad | HuffPost - “We have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people,” the New York lawmaker said of Congress.

That is why she supports Marie Newman and Jessica Cisneros.

“If we’re not going to pass ‘Medicare for All’ unless the [House Democratic] caucus changes, then I need to be a part of changing the caucus. That’s just how it is,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that her ambitious goals for climate action also require a different kind of Democratic Party in Congress. “I don’t want people to die, and I want to cut our carbon emissions by 50% in 10 years.”

“If we want to pursue an ambitious agenda that delivers for working-class America, the Democratic Party has to change who they answer to. And they have to answer to working-class people.”

Without ever mentioning Pelosi, she added: “And it’s not because of something I said. It’s because of something everybody else said: ‘You don’t have the votes, people here aren’t going to support that.’ Then we have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people.”

AOC suspects that the sort of Congresspeople who would object to that are the sort of Congresspeople who wrote her off ever since her election.

The reception that I got here was very chilly, and that was before I did anything,” she said. “There are folks who just weren’t going to work with me, and nothing I could have done would have changed that ― unless I fundamentally changed who I am.”

...
“If anything, it almost created more breathing room for me, because it ... was really clarifying,” she said.

She uses an inside-outside strategy, working with activists but recognizing the necessity of having allies in Congress. She likes it that many of her moderate colleagues endorse a "public option" for medical insurance, even if not necessarily "Medicare for All". As long as it gets universal coverage, it's good.

Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats:

“AOC navigating her inside-outside strategy will be one of the defining questions of not just her political career, but of the entire progressive movement,” Shahid said. “It’s an incredibly difficult path to navigate, but few have done it as well as she has with less than a year in Congress.”

AOC hasn't endorsed all of the JD's slate of candidates. She's decided to stick to challenging those who are too moderate or conservative for heavily Democratic districts, like Rep. Dan Lipinsky (she backs Marie Newman) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (she backs Jessica Cisneros). AOC backed JC only days after EMILY's List backed her, so she's a bit cautious there.

“I think it’s a pretty modest proposal, a pretty modest ask that we consider a D+20 district to be grassroots-supported, divested of lobbyist money, to support ‘Medicare for All,’” she said. “This district is almost as progressive as mine. So why is there such a huge difference? Why is it so conservative?”

EMILY = Early Money Is Like Yeast

She also wants to support Democrats in swing seats, especially progressive ones like Mike Levin and Katie Porter. She wants not just Democratic majorities in the two houses of Congress, but also "transformational" ones. She calls herself a "team player", she does not want to pay the $150,000 of dues that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wants of House members. She prefers to pay candidates directly.

AOC now has $3.4 million for her re-election, nearly all of it in small donations raised online.

She takes a long view.

“One of the benefits of being a younger member is that I have the luxury of looking at things in terms of decades. How do we turn Tennessee blue again? How do we turn West Virginia blue?” she concluded. “These are questions that seem impossible to some people because perhaps they are impossible in a cycle or two. But I think about the changes that I want to see in my life.”

 

[lpetrich]

The 'AOC effect' is real – and it's helping wean the Democrats off mega-donors | Meaghan Winter | Opinion | The Guardian - "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has inspired a wave of progressive candidates and even when they lose they force change"

For Attorney General of Queens, NYC in the Democratic Primary:
Tiffany Caban - Ballotpedia
Melinda Katz - Ballotpedia
Tiffany Caban lost to Melinda Katz by only 60 votes. TC is a public defender who wanted several criminal-justice reforms and was supported by AOC, and MK is in the Queens Democratic apparat and is supported by Joe Crowley. So it was AOC vs. Joe Crowley again.

But the real evidence that the “AOC effect” will deliver returns for Democrats and progressives in coming years is not in Sanders’ resilience but in the power of local progressives like Cabán, who are changing expectations about what is possible in their cities and states nationwide.

t goes without saying that Ocasio-Cortez is both a catalyst and result of the left’s invigoration since 2016. Nationwide, many other primary challengers have attempted to unseat Democratic incumbents they say are milquetoast or bought off by corporate donors. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, many have lost their primary bids. If we think short-term, those candidates failed.

But if we think long-term, those progressive challengers have paved the way for future wins.

There are now numerous progressive challengers, not only in Congress, but also in state and local races. These challengers, and the activists who support them, are having effects, even if they don't win.

Saslaw eked out a win with 48.6% of the primary votes. But Taeb helped achieve something important: last month, the Virginia Democratic party announced that it would no longer accept donations from energy utilities like Dominion.

... the Florida Democratic party decided to stop accepting funding from private prison companies. Those companies, like Geo Group, which has received multiple federal prison contracts expected to reap profits of at least $664m, have donated large sums to the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which pushes anti-immigrant legislation that makes it easier for Ice to arrest people, and fill their prisons, increasing their profits.

Talk about corruption and crony capitalism.

A former executive director of the Florida Democratic party now works for the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, run by Trump’s top 2016 fundraiser, whose recent clients include Geo Group, an energy company that is a major Republican donor, and the government of Turkey.

Like Joe Crowley joining a lobbying firm after being defeated by AOC.

 

[lpetrich]

How AOC turned boring congressional hearings into electrifying moments | Poppy Noor | US news | The Guardian

AOC has shown a remarkable ability to extract energizing viral moments from stale bureaucratic meetings. She turns complex political concepts into snappy soundbites and boring old politics into much-talked-about spectacle.

This is exactly what happened on Wednesday during her questioning of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg about his early awareness of the disgraced political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which harvested millions of Facebook users’ personal information to influence the 2016 US election. The confrontation is uncomfortable to watch, with Ocasio-Cortez grilling Zuckerberg on key details about his knowledge back then – he denies having any – and then ending on the zinger:

“You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?”

She is met with a squirming Zuckerberg and therein, a viral moment is made.

Also mentioning:

1. ExxonMobil - "they knew"
2. White terrorism - double standard
3. Corporate Pac money - showing how corrupt one can be
4. Green New Deal - some righteous fury - “You want to tell people that their desire for clean air and water is elitist? … I don’t think so.”
I'd add her questioning of Michael Cohen.

 

[angelo]

The 'AOC effect' is real – and it's helping wean the Democrats off mega-donors | Meaghan Winter | Opinion | The Guardian - "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has inspired a wave of progressive candidates and even when they lose they force change"

For Attorney General of Queens, NYC in the Democratic Primary:
Tiffany Caban - Ballotpedia
Melinda Katz - Ballotpedia
Tiffany Caban lost to Melinda Katz by only 60 votes. TC is a public defender who wanted several criminal-justice reforms and was supported by AOC, and MK is in the Queens Democratic apparat and is supported by Joe Crowley. So it was AOC vs. Joe Crowley again.

There are now numerous progressive challengers, not only in Congress, but also in state and local races. These challengers, and the activists who support them, are having effects, even if they don't win.

Talk about corruption and crony capitalism.

A former executive director of the Florida Democratic party now works for the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, run by Trump’s top 2016 fundraiser, whose recent clients include Geo Group, an energy company that is a major Republican donor, and the government of Turkey.

Like Joe Crowley joining a lobbying firm after being defeated by AOC.

It's not a crime for any ex politician to joining a lobbying group, in fact many of them do just that after they're defeated or retire from politics.

 

[lpetrich]

A former executive director of the Florida Democratic party now works for the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, run by Trump’s top 2016 fundraiser, whose recent clients include Geo Group, an energy company that is a major Republican donor, and the government of Turkey.

Like Joe Crowley joining a lobbying firm after being defeated by AOC.

It's not a crime for any ex politician to joining a lobbying group, in fact many of them do just that after they're defeated or retire from politics.

I don't see how that is anything to be proud of. It's often just plain corruption. angelo, I will explain to you how it works, and I will use as an example a kind of business that I'm sure that you think ought not to exist, so you might find this example easier to understand.

Imagine a maker of photovoltaic-cell solar panels. I will call it SunVoltage. I run for public office, with SunVoltage financing my campaigning through a PAC to get around direct-contribution limits. Once in office, I insert big tax breaks for SunVoltage into tax and appropriations bills. Out of office, SunVoltage quickly congratulates me for my service to the company and hires me as a lobbyist. I then use my public-office connections in my efforts to lobby for more special treatment for SunVoltage.

angelo, wouldn't you hate it if fossil fuels lost as a result of crony-capitalist corruption?

 

[PyramidHead]

What I'm interested in seeing is how the big media outlets are going to reconcile their urge to cover everything AOC says or does with their urge to cover almost nothing Bernie says or does. I think her endorsement was partly intended to force their hand in that regard.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What I'm interested in seeing is how the big media outlets are going to reconcile their urge to cover everything AOC says or does with their urge to cover almost nothing Bernie says or does. I think her endorsement was partly intended to force their hand in that regard.

That is an interesting observation. AOC gets a boatload of coverage, Sanders, not so much.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC likes to move her hands as she speaks, and here is a memorable capture of one of her gestures:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grilling Mark Zuckerberg spawns Italian meme - Business Insider
A Photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Become the Subject of Some Creative Memes

Both arms half-outward, palms upward, fingers 1,2,3 together, fingers 4,5 inward. (thumb = 1, little finger = 5)

A lot of people have tried to interpret that gesture.


Knock Down the House: Netflix documentary editor thought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 'was going to lose' | The Independent - showing AOC at work as a bartender and doing behind-the-scenes stuff at her taqueria, Paula Swearengin stating that if another country did was coal-mining companies do, it would be called war, Amy Vilela not wanting her daughter's death to be in vain, and Cori Bush vowing not to feel defeated (?).
Knock Down the House 2019: How the AOC Netflix Doc Got Made

‘I Certainly Didn’t Have a Crystal Ball’ How did Knock Down the House filmmakers Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick predict the rise of AOC? They didn’t.

... “I certainly didn’t have a crystal ball,” Lears told Vulture in the weeks before her film debuted on Netflix. “I didn’t have this premonition that, you know, this person is the one that wins and becomes a superstar a year and a half from now.”

Lears’s husband and the film’s editor, Robin Blotnick, says he was skeptical at the onset. “I would say it was definitely clear that she was going to be a star,” says Blotnick of Ocasio-Cortez, “but I really thought she was the kind of candidate who was going to lose her first race and then go on to great things down the road. When she won, it surprised me, just like it did the whole nation.”

... The film’s emotional impact wasn’t just a matter of luck, though. Lears was seeking a particular kind of candidate for her documentary from the start: women with deeply personal reasons for running for office, who were clearly hell-bent on challenging the status quo.

... “We were looking for people who would be the most interesting to watch no matter what happened with the outcome of the election,” says Lears, “because all of these races were considered long shots.”

AOC's charisma was very evident even then, it seems. And likely for her ever since high school, where just about everybody who knew her gushes over her with the exception of a fellow waitress who claimed that she was once stingy with collected tips.

AOC was easier for RL and RB to film, because she lived where they lived, in NYC, instead of in Missouri, West Virginia, or Nevada, like the other three women. So they got a lot of video of AOC in action at her old job.

At an early campaign event in Queens, a man asks her whether it’s worth it for the community to lose a powerful representative who’s vying for Speaker of the House in order to vote for an upstart who’s more in their corner. Ocasio-Cortez responds quickly and forcefully: “I think we have to look at what that power does now. When it matters, he doesn’t stand up for us. When it matters, he doesn’t advocate for our interests. We have to have the courage to say we can do better. We can do better. It’s not going to be a loss.”

It's less than a year of her being in office, and I think that she has succeeded in doing better. Joe Crowley never responded to the filmmakers' numerous interview requests.

 

[lpetrich]

Joe Crowley on AOC:

We see him valiantly correcting a constituent he runs into at a Pride parade who calls AOC “that stupid woman.” (“She’s not stupid, but thank you,” says Crowley.) We see the debate in the Bronx that he doesn’t bother to attend, and we see his tactic of politely belittling his opponent in the debates that he does. (“Miss Ocasio-Cortez, I think you’ve brought a lot of energy, and for someone who’s not as experienced in public life or public service, I think you’re doing a great job of that.”)

Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick were ready with how they would tell the story if all four women lost - it would be gritty and dark, and about how powerful the political establishment is. Even so, it wasn't all triumph, and those two didn't make the film only about AOC.

There’s a beautiful scene in the film, after Amy Vilela’s loss in Nevada, when AOC tells her as much on the phone. “It’s just the reality,” she says, “that in order for one of us to make it through, 100 of us have to try.”

If you think AOC is being praised too much for challenging Mark Zuckerberg, you're right | The Independent

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s interrogation of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a standout moment for many pundits. Directly after the congressional hearing with Zuckerberg, she has been heavily commended, and rightly so, for her direct and well-thought-out line of questioning.

Ocasio-Cortez, appearing articulate, patient and composed, ... Zuckerberg seemed jittery and nervous in contrast. ... Her insistence on clarity and truth seemed to contrast with his inability to be straightforward.

We are now at a point where a congresswoman is praised for undertaking the exact role she is elected and paid to do. Now, nobody’s denying that Ocasio-Cortez is excellent at her job. ... But the disproportionate amount of praise heaped upon her is comparable to applauding every time a doctor accurately diagnoses a health condition.

There are some other Congresspeople who have done some good questioning, like Katie Porter, but it's hard to compete with AOC there.

 

[angelo]

It's not a crime for any ex politician to joining a lobbying group, in fact many of them do just that after they're defeated or retire from politics.

I don't see how that is anything to be proud of. It's often just plain corruption. angelo, I will explain to you how it works, and I will use as an example a kind of business that I'm sure that you think ought not to exist, so you might find this example easier to understand.

Imagine a maker of photovoltaic-cell solar panels. I will call it SunVoltage. I run for public office, with SunVoltage financing my campaigning through a PAC to get around direct-contribution limits. Once in office, I insert big tax breaks for SunVoltage into tax and appropriations bills. Out of office, SunVoltage quickly congratulates me for my service to the company and hires me as a lobbyist. I then use my public-office connections in my efforts to lobby for more special treatment for SunVoltage.

angelo, wouldn't you hate it if fossil fuels lost as a result of crony-capitalist corruption?

Call it what you wish, but lobby groups in all democracies are here to stay, and not just in the fossil fuel industry. There are most probably just as many lobby groups working for the renewable industries as well.