Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[angelo]

One can't argue with a deluded cult follower without pulling out what little hair iv'e got left!

 

[lpetrich]

I don't think that AOC is a troll, because she seems dead serious about her beliefs. But if trolling the Right was what she wanted to do, then she has been very successful in doing so by calling herself a socialist and referring to ICE's "concentration camps".

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Happy 1 year anniversary to dunking on haters and advocating for peace https://t.co/2d5J9UaZL1" / Twitter
noting
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.
Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!
Have a great weekend everyone https://t.co/9y6ALOw4F6" / Twitter

AOC has been a peacenik for a long time. College Students React To Bin Laden's Death : NPR "Now that this 'villain' has been slayed, questions like what are we doing may have less of an answer today than we did yesterday."


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I’m just gonna leave this right here https://t.co/KAp1ldzE3i" / Twitter
noting
Jimmy Vielkind on Twitter: "NEWS: New York State officials offered @Amazon almost a billion dollars more of incentives than was previously known to win its #HQ2 contest. The state was even prepared to pay part of some employees’ salaries if the tech company developed a campus here. https://t.co/cgK4nRTsBh" / Twitter
noting
New York Dangled Extra Incentives in Initial Bid to Lure Amazon HQ2 - WSJ

More crony capitalism, and the right wing loves every bit of it.

Rep. Katie Porter on Twitter: "I’m so grateful to everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of the 45th District in Congress. To celebrate, here’s a picture of me baking some cookies https://t.co/S0uQLLbEy0" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Happy birthday @RepKatiePorter! https://t.co/4G2vIocTTI" / Twitter

Katie Porter is now in the Oversight Committee along with AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. Ilhan Omar is in Budget, Education and Labor, and Foreign Affairs.

 

[lpetrich]

Brad Lander on Twitter: "You know @AOC stands against xenophobia, against racism, against Islamophobia. So it’s no surprise she was out on the Brooklyn Bridge against anti-Semitism today. Proud to stand with her against hatred & bigotry of every kind. Our liberation is bound up together. #NoHateNoFear https://t.co/0xjiKoQIsR" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It was truly incredible this morning to join thousands of New Yorkers coming together against antisemitism and in active fellowship, allyship, and support for our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Always an honor to march together, @bradlander! https://t.co/zQlzrXxMH0" / Twitter

Realscreen » Archive » “The Cave”, “Knock Down The House” shortlisted for Academy Awards - out of 15 documentary features
The 10 Best Movies of 2019, From Adam Sandler’s Insane Gambler to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Star Moment
Streaming Platforms Dominate Oscar Doc Shortlists in Major Power Shift – Deadline - taking over from cable-TV channels like HBO
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Breakout Star of ‘Knock Down the House’ | IndieWire

That’s why other House superstars like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, and Ayanna Pressley were not considered — they’d all held office before. And while Ocasio-Cortez was the easiest candidate Lears connected with, the rest of the four women profiled in the film were ideal because of their “very strong personal stories of overcoming hardship and loss and pain, and even trauma, to find strength and turn that into a drive for positive action,” a theme that drew her to each of them. Geography and timing played a role as well.

“We wanted to really make this a national story, so the fact that they were from different regions and from different backgrounds and that together they could represent something that was more than the sum of the parts was also a huge factor,” she said. “And their primaries had to be on different dates because we did not have the budget to have multiple crews going around.”

It also helped AOC that she lives in New York City, as opposed to St. Louis, Las Vegas, or rural West Virginia.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez & director Rachel Lears at Netflix Oscar-shortlisted Knock Down the House - YouTube

Rachel Lears spoke first, describing what the film was about, about participating in the democratic process.

AOC then spoke, saying that the making of KDTH could be worthy of its own movie, RL schlepping her year-old son across the country as she made that film. AOC found her victory a bit difficult to completely unconsciously accept. Like when she saw the plaque with her name on the door, she snuck in as if she didn't quite feel that she belonged there. She then felt like she was exploiting a glitch in the system.

But she'll be up for re-election later this year, and we'll see how well she does. She'll likely win, but by how big a margin?

A lot of people have been inspired by it to run for office, from the PTA to Congress. She described the film as having "a tiny-ass budget" (lots of laughs). She was surprised by the popularity of her affirmations in the film:

I am experienced enough to do this.
I am knowledgeable enough to do this.
I am prepared enough to do this.
I am mature enough to do this.
I am brave enough to do this.
These AOC Quotes From Her Knock Down The House Documentary Will Make You Proud

She then said that we are working for a new dawn to come, a dawn of democracy and shared prosperity. "When are you running for President?" She laughed loudly. She then said that she wants to make the operations of Congress as transparent as possible. In her BU years, she took a class called "Power and Legitimacy", and she noted that a way to retain power was mystery, making it seem like only they are competent. Then she said that it's important to have decisive victories, and to have big turnouts for doing that.

About climate change, she says that it is an issue of political will. The film she considers a recruiting tool, and she says that we need to get people to run for office who will be on her side - there aren't enough votes for good planet-saving measures. She concedes that it will be controversial for an incumbent to say things like we need a lot of new Congresspeople, but she says that her experience in Congress reinforces that. She notes that a lot of people will say the right things without following up with actions. Too many Congresspeople are in the pay of the fossil-fuel industry, she says.

One does not have to run for office. One can support those who do, like being campaign managers and communications directors and the like.

About killing that Iranian general, she calls it "aggression" and she stated that the US isn't really behind it, that it was done without the approval of Congress. Rep. Ro Khanna had a budget amendment that could have prevented this action, by not authorizing any money for such actions, but it didn't make it into the final bill. She said again that this movie can be good for inspiring more runs for Congress by ordinary people - she wants activism both inside and outside, in legislative bodies and in the streets.

 

[lpetrich]

The Progressive Caucus Used Freedom Caucus Tactics To Win On Prescription Drugs | HuffPost

Against the wishes of progressive members, Democratic leadership was moving forward with a bill that would subject at least 25 drugs to price negotiation, with that number growing to 30 drugs in five years and 35 in 10 years. But in a rare show of force, the Progressive Caucus delicately made it clear to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that they would block the bill from getting to the floor by voting down the rule ― unless Pelosi made changes.

The speaker had no choice but to play ball.

Pelosi agreed to increase the number of drugs up for negotiation to at least 50, and she restored a provision that would eventually restrict the ability of pharmaceutical companies to raise the price of a drug above the rate of inflation.

Sen. McConnell is likely to obstruct it, and even if he doesn't, then the Senate is unlikely to pass it. Even if it does, then Trump is unlikely to sign it. Yet another addition to the big pile of bills that the Senator has obstructed.

Back to the article. After a lack of similar success all year, will this be the beginning of this caucus being more assertive? Or else the beginning of a Freedom Caucus of the left.

But if there was one member who seemed most open to the idea, it was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

“I think we should exercise power,” Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost in September. “And I think we leave it on the table. I think that we don’t always play things out at our maximum power.”

Ocasio-Cortez was careful to note many of the differences between the Freedom Caucus and a potential counterbalancing group on the left. But she was enthusiastic about the idea of having “a critical mass of that 20 to 25” progressives that could “throw that weight around and exercise power on behalf of working people.”

“Like, hell yeah,” Ocasio-Cortez continued, “I think that should be done.”

Even this week, Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost she’s been arguing that the Progressive Caucus should be smaller and have more committed members. “I don’t think that we just allow anyone to just walk through the door and be able to call themselves a progressive when their voting record doesn’t do it, when they don’t go to the mat on the issues,” she said.

“There’s a lot that we’re leaving on the table,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the CPC. “And it’s certainly disappointing.”

 

[lpetrich]

Then on how a lot of liberals don't want some obstructionist, nihilistic Freedom-Caucus equivalent. They want to be the party of "Yes" rather than "No".

When Republicans started the Freedom Caucus, the roughly two dozen conservatives who first joined had all largely been ostracized from leadership. They were thrown onto the worst committees, they were constantly at war with then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and they were nowhere near the real power of the Republican Party. For Democrats, it’s a different story.

While Pelosi may make the final decision on just about everything, progressives at least have a seat at the table. Republican leadership staffers love to mock Democrats for having positions like “chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee,” “assistant speaker,” or “co-chairman for the Democratic Steering Committee,” but those seemingly meaningless positions actually have placated a lot of members.

Something like the "Lifetime Achievement" sorts of awards that Michael Jackson would often get at awards shows. He apparently would only show up if he won something.

“Progressives have an aspiration beyond policy,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told HuffPost in July. “We hope to see the reconciliation of the country along the vision of a pluralistic America.”

...
Pocan also recognizes that proactively trying to pass legislation is different from blocking it. “If you just want to defeat things, those are good tactics,” Pocan said of the Freedom Caucus this week. “If you want to enact things, they’re not the same tactics.”

So they are in a bind -- how to exert power without being nihilists and obstructionists.

 

[lpetrich]

Matt Fuller on Twitter: "This may not come as a shock, but over the course of five months of reporting, the member who seems most amenable to starting a Freedom Caucus of the left is...
— wait for it —
...Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. https://t.co/3Q5o55xTp3" / Twitter

AOC Has Already Changed D.C. It Hasn’t Changed Her Much.

The corridors of Capitol Hill are a marbled monotony, with Oxford heels clacking around corners indistinguishable from one another, white walls, oaken doors, and a steady rhythm of rectangular congressional nameplates.

Except for one. At the very end of a hallway in Cannon Office Building is an explosion of affirmation cribbed onto thousands of Post-it notes, a neon-green-and-pastel-pink flower bursting outward. Go there at the right time, Hill aides say, and you can see groups of people, usually women, often young, weeping at the sight of it.

“I love you from Maine! Keep on with your fierce, informed queen of a self!,” wrote Mikala from Bangor on a pink Post-it. “AOC! Seeing you is seeing me! I live in Michigan, but you are my representative. Adelante!,” says one on white signed (with a heart) from Kristen on August 1. “Dear AOC. Continue to scare old white men,” adds another.

...
Staff took the first batch and framed them in her office, but the notes kept coming. If anyone writes something negative or nasty, one of the myriad devotees who make the pilgrimage takes the errant note down before it can spoil the mood.

“It’s weird,” Ocasio-Cortez said when we spoke inside the Capitol Building one afternoon in mid-December as impeachment hearings consumed Washington. “Because I know I am also one of the most hated people in America.”

Someone ought to put them into a scrapbook.

 

[lpetrich]

The Tea Party politicians on the Republicans' side have ended up playing by the leadership's rules. AOC has not. She's not afraid of being a lone "no" vote, and she has not tried very hard to amass power. She likes Bernie Sanders and Howard Thurman, "a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s who believed in merging the spiritual and political."

“People come here, and they have served in state legislatures or they may have been executives for health-insurance or fossil-fuel companies or lobbyist groups or PACs, and they’re part of this whole club,” she said. She was dressed in all black — blazer, blouse, pants, and boots, looking more like someone about to cruise out of the last shot of a movie on a motorcycle than someone skipping out on a House Financial Services Committee meeting. “What is it like to show up to Congress with a beginner’s mind? You just fundamentally do things differently.”

The Democratic congressional majority, she told me, is too acquiescent to the demands of its members in so-called red-to-blue districts — those moderates who flipped Republican seats and gave Pelosi the gavel. “For so long, when I first got in, people were like, ‘Oh, are you going to basically be a tea party of the left?’ And what people don’t realize is that there is a tea party of the left, but it’s on the right edges, the most conservative parts of the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party has a role to play in this problem, and it’s like we’re not allowed to talk about it. We’re not allowed to talk about anything wrong the Democratic Party does,” she said. “I think I have created more room for dissent, and we’re learning to stretch our wings a little bit on the left.”

A tea party of the left? An Herbal Tea Party?

She thinks that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is too inclusive, that "they let anybody who the cat dragged in call themselves a progressive. There’s no standard." Also that "Democrats can be too big of a tent." But calling for party purges can be dangerous, because she herself might get purged by the right wing of the party.

What might her role by under a Joe Biden presidency?

“Oh God,” she said with a groan. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”

That's because of Duverger's law forcing convergence onto two parties, meaning that the parties become awkward coalitions.

Interviewer David Freedlander notes that long-shot candidates sound similar, often AOC-like: a compelling biography, reasons to elect them, why the incumbent has failed his/her district, but "they often crumple under sustained questioning and have fantastic views of how politics works." AOC was different. Four days before the primary election, he was with her as she was canvassing her district. Then on the weekend before the election, she went off to a detention camp near Tornillo, TX, where families were being separated, and shouted at camp guards about what a terrible thing they were doing. Someone took some now-famous pictures of her there.

Two days later, she woke up to the last anonymous day of her life, at least so far.

“I realized this was going to be a tattoo-on-my-face kind of situation,” she said. “I can’t go outside anymore. I miss being able to go out to dinner. I miss anonymity. I have to send my boyfriend out to get groceries. There has been a shift in chores.”

If she was a hero on the streets of New York and online, in Congress, “it was very, very chilly coming in,” she said.

She had portrayed her opponent Joe Crowley as hopelessly compromised by big money. Would she do the same to her colleagues?

 

[lpetrich]

Then her joining the Sunrise Movement's sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office. Though Rashida Tlaib joined her the night before with those activists, RT didn't join her that day. Neither did Ayanna Pressley or Ilhan Omar.

“I was terrified,” she told me. She doesn’t regret it — though it set the stage for a very complicated year with Pelosi. “I learned a lot about how fear shapes the decisions of elected officials: ‘I know this could be bad, and this could make someone mad, and I don’t know exactly how they would drop the hammer on me or what hammers would be dropped.’ It felt like the right thing to do, and when you say that people think it’s a form of naïveté and that it’s childish, but I don’t think it was.”

Though it was a daring move for her, her Congressional career survived. She wasn't shoved into the least-wanted committees. In fact, she got into some nice committees for her: the Oversight and Financial Services committee.

“What was frustrating was getting singled out over and over again over a series of interviews by the Democratic leadership,” Ocasio-Cortez told me. She said that her colleagues consider her an unseen force in every primary this cycle, when in fact she has made endorsements in just two races. Meanwhile, it is the moderates who have put up more challengers to liberal incumbents than the other way around. “As a consequence of my victory, many people are inspired to run for office, and in a body where 70 percent of the seats are safe red or safe blue, that de facto means a lot more primaries. A lot of members think I’m like a Koch brother.”

A lot of House and NYC-gov't colleagues credit her for doing her job, showing up at meetings, asking detailed questions, taking notes, and doing e-mail followups. She has created 15 bills and resolutions, like the Green new Deal, and she has missed only 2 out of 701 roll-call votes. She's far from Joe-Crowley absenteeism, and her small-dollar fundraising helps her do her work without having to dial for dollars. A House aide said about her "I think people are surprised at how not-strident she comes off."

About her Green New Deal resolution,

“The most ambitious climate plans were a carbon tax here or a biodiesel thing there. There were no climate bills that were a solution on the scale of the problem. I couldn’t take all of this and say, ‘Let’s get a 10 percent subsidy on electric vehicles,’ ” Ocasio-Cortez said. “These very small incremental plans are a form of denialism.”

Hopelessly wimpy, and not on the scale of what needs to be done.

Outspoken lefties have come and gone before, but often they were like Bernie or, before him, Ralph Nader: rumpled, grouchy, hectoring. For leftists, politics used to be something to avoid, a corrupting drag on the purity of activism. Ocasio-Cortez has changed that.

“You hear that trope all the time. ‘I am a workhorse; I am not a show horse.’ But what I think people don’t understand is that educating the public is a part of this job. The most effective public servants are part of our culture. They are just as fluidly part of the conversation as Lizzo or as this movie that you saw,” she said.

This is part of her project, too. If people are paying attention, she figures, they will be on her side. “Politics should be pop because it should be consumable and accessible to everyday people,” she said. “I think that’s what populism is about.”

Ralph Nader - all I can say is "Ugh!" He did some good work in the 1960's on auto safety, but his 2000 campaign was awful. Bernie Sanders has tried to be more approachable recently, by describing his immigrant family heritage as a descendant of Eastern European Jews.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC might seem like some liberal version of Ron Paul. But she doesn't like to be alone, like what Bernie Sanders has been, and two of her top campaigners have founded something called Movement School, with a 10-week session for training activists. It has so far trained 70 activists from all over the country.

So she has not made the big mistake that President Obama made with the activists who campaigned for him. He put them under the command of the Democratic Party apparat, something not much different from disbanding them. This was a crucial mistake in his presidency, because keeping them active could have meant keeping the pressure on Congress. I recall Bernie Sanders talking about that, and AOC has also noted that the failure of Obama's presidency to deliver on progressive promises was also a failure of activists to support him in that agenda.

She plans a big re-election campaign, because she does not want to be complacent about primary challenges. She doesn't want to repeat Joe Crowley's big mistake, I'm sure. Among her challengers is a conservative Democratic NYC councilmember and Pentecostal pastor with ties to the Bronx apparat, Fernando Cabrera.

ocasiocortez.com currently redirects to her previous campaign site, ocasio2018.com

AOC's campaign has raised about $5.3 million so far

“Everyone in the House is just constantly thinking about self-preservation, and we don’t get nice things because people are constantly thinking in electoral terms. The way we change that is through political education. I had this conversation with Bernie,” she said. “Here’s this guy in a then-Republican state, a quite conservative state, and he wins by a handful of votes to become mayor of Burlington. And by the time he becomes senator, Vermont is crazy-blue. And a lot of that has to do with his time there. And I said, ‘So how’d you do this?’ And he said that he and different grassroots movements in Vermont spent decades doing political education. And they took on the long-term project of turning a red state blue.”

That isn't the whole story, of course. Vermont has had some demographic and sociological changes that are bigger than any one politician's effort. One of them is likely what BS himself is an example of: New Yorkers moving into that state.

Something similar has happened in the west coast and southwest, where large numbers of Californians have moved to nearby states, with some local Republicans grumbling that these ex-Californians have been taking their politics with them.

“Republicans have focused on that long-term project for a very long period of time. Democrats don’t. We think if something is red, it stays red. But you know what? I think if a state like Tennessee or West Virginia can go from blue to red in our lifetime, I think it can go back,” she told me. Justice Democrats are taking aim at another dozen or so incumbents this cycle; if a few more get in, she could build a bloc. “That’s a kind of project that a lot of people think is a waste of time, but I don’t think it is,” she said.

“This whole primary,” she went on, referring to the one Biden and Bernie are in, “is going to be about the soul of the Democratic Party. I think it’s a referendum on whether we think everything was fine before Trump. People who live in a lot of privilege, who think of public programs as charity, they often think there was nothing wrong before Trump. They think Hillary was the problem. But it’s much deeper than that.”

I recall her writing when Trump was elected that he is more a symptom than the disease. She's right about that, I think, and that's from the sort of supporters that he has.

As to a long-term focus, Mitch McConnell has stated as much, and he has even titled his memoirs "The Long Game".

 

[lpetrich]

The comments are interesting. Many of the negative ones called her dumb and jumped up and down on her about the failed Amazon HQ2 deal. But there were several positive ones, like

jacksonheightsnystrong:

As a constituent, I can attest to the fact that she's very present in the community, and that her offices ALWAYS answer the phone with a live person. I have called many Republicans in Congress who influence national policy; the vast majority of them have not answered the phone, and some don't even have a working voice mail. And I absolutely love watching her decimate Trump's allies in hearings. Refreshing to have a representative who actually does the real work!

wendylukasletters:

Love you girl. Keep going. signed a 58 year old cisgender white woman with three kids, two grand kids, a loving husband and deceased parents who would have voted for you if given the chance.

thisworks3:

This is the same BS that racists told blacks back in the civil rights era. Just wait a bit, slow down, just take it slow, you're going too fast. The Dems ran a centrist with Hilary Clinton and even though she won the popular vote, many people weren't motivated by her at all. People voted for Barack Obama because they believed he would bring change in a large way. That didn't happen of course because at the end of the day he was a centrist as well, but the point is people believed change would happen. People aren't motivated by the status quo. In fact that's exactly why Trump got elected in the first place. People on he right felt he would bring a great deal of change quickly. I mean he did in a terrible way, but still, he was able to motivate people because both the left and the right are over this take it slow nonsense.

Civil-rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a book that he titled "Why We Can't Wait". He didn't like all those people who objected that he was pushing for too much too fast.

dslimon:

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez speaks for me. I support socialism, because it works in Finland and Norway, and those countries are just like America. She's a very wise Latina. Why compromise with people that disagree with you? When the election is over and you win, you just order them to shut up and impliment your agenda. It's for their own good.

jacksonheightsnystrong:

I actually live in AOC's district. I am a big fan of hers but not of Bernie (because of his negligence/passivity in disavowing the Russian assistance to his campaign, even after he had lost the nomination, among other things). A few points here:

1. Most people in this district pull the D lever because we recognize that there is no upside to voting Republican in any circumstance, or growing the Republican caucus in the House.
2. I thought Crowley was fine, but I attended several of his town halls and asked him point-blank about Trump's trampling of political norms, the rule of law, and basic decency. His response was pretty milquetoast and not sufficiently followed up in the public sphere. So I voted against him in 2018.
3. A Congressional Representative is not the same as a presidential candidate. The whole point of a Representative is that they represent the general perspective and interests of your district in the Congressional body. AOC does this. Nobody seems to have a problem when extremely conservative districts elect extremely conservative representatives.
4. If you want to talk about whether she's an ideal candidate for President in a national election, that's a totally different discussion, not relevant until at least the year 2023, and not something she herself brought up. It makes no sense to conflate the two.

Crowley wasn't some Republican. But he wasn't that great a Democrat, it seems, and AOC was right to slam him on that. He also didn't seem to be doing much in "leading the fight against Trump", something that he claimed in his campaign literature. AOC didn't just talk about hope and change. She listed several specific proposals in her campaign literature.

 

[lpetrich]

wait500:

I live in her district. She won for one reason. That group that she applied to where they had auditions for people to run for office were very smart and very targeted. They knew that they could get out the gentrification vote in her district for the win and they did! They took advantage of a lazy blue electorate that didn't inform itself on who was running and they went after the newer residents who came from educated/indoctrinated backgrounds (ivy league schools filled with communist and socialist yearnings) and this group of gentrifiers went all out for her and got her elected. Being latina was enough for many of the lazies to vote for her. She didn't live in the district, she knows no one here, she has zero roots, she had zero long term relationships with any local pols - it was simply a smart group that used her and targeted this area. That's not to take away from her ability to hold the camera's gaze (while spouting the stupidest inanities). She will only improve in her ability to actually make coherent messages because "you go girl" will only last so long (as she ages). But the NYC establishment resentment against her is coming so one can only hope that they get some good shots in at this absolutely idiotic and dangerous lunatic.

"Auditions" - AOC as an actress?

Then complaining about how those who voted for her were all Commies and pinkos.

2019 in Review: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Freshman Yearbook

The right tries to smear AOC as … a dorky dancer.
(1) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.
Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!
Have a great weekend everyone https://t.co/9y6ALOw4F6" / Twitter

AOC has to teach her colleagues how to be good at Twitter.
Also other social media. She recommended being oneself.

D.C. gets a new power uniform.
Dressing in white for Trump's SOTU speech in honor of the suffragette movement - women pushing for their right to vote.
Rep. Deb Haaland on Twitter: ".@HouseDemWomen wearing suffragette white and continuing the fight for equality at the #SOTU. #StateOfTheWomen #HerStory https://t.co/D6XM0BoPAQ" / Twitter
Democratic Women's Caucus (@HouseDemWomen) / Twitter
I checked their hair colors, and they were mostly brunettes. Not many blondes or redheads. I did the same for the Sunrise Movement protesters in Nancy Pelosi's office and nearby, and they were also mostly brunettes. I did that because of Fox News and women being mostly blondes there, though some of them may be bottle blondes. Only 16% of the US population has blond hair. So AOC could have a great career on Fox News as a token brunette.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Instagram: “Walking into #SOTU like . . w/ @cpdaction”

 

[lpetrich]

AOC makes her viral C-SPAN debut.
Her questioning of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. It was all business, but it was good business.

“Concentration camps” draws ire and sparks a huge wave of outrage over border conditions.
If AOC was trying to troll the Right, she was very successful. But she was dead serious about that.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Just left the 1st CBP facility.
I see why CBP officers were being so physically &sexually threatening towards me.
Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets.
This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress." / Twitter

The Squad takes on Trump.
After he demands that they go home and clean up their homelands.
“You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.

AOC goes home to Queens with Bernie Sanders.
She liked both BS and Elizabeth Warren, but decided on BS.

ABC News on Twitter: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her time in Congress informing her appreciation of Sen. Bernie Sanders: "The halls of Congress are no joke... I have grown to appreciate the enormous, consistent, and nonstop advocacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders." [url]https://t.co/yPKMzHbm9E https://t.co/P0OVvwcrwJ" / Twitter[/url]
She talked about having been a sexually harassed waitress, and then about the pressure to conform to corporate lobbyists' demands.

 

[lpetrich]

Edward-Isaac Dovere on Twitter: ".@aoc to @freedlander: “In any other country, [MENTION=2]Jo[/MENTION]eBiden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.” https://t.co/6oRcBjHrKd" / Twitter
then
Dave Weigel on Twitter: "This is just a politically sophisticated analysis. In Canada, Biden would be a Liberal and @AOC would be NDP. In the rest of the developed world the “universal hc costs too much” candidate would be in a conservative party. https://t.co/ykdL81RtGK" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Yeah, I don’t know why people are up in arms about this.
Many other countries have multiparty democracies, where several parties come together in a coalition to govern.
In another country, I’d be in a Labor Party like Jacinda Ardern. Our primary field would cover 2-3 parties. https://t.co/rwx0QFOghK" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "In our current primary field, some people treat healthcare as a right, and others don’t. Doesn’t make you enemies, it makes you different.
Abroad, being in diff parties doesn’t mean you dislike each other. It means you acknowledge your differences and come together in coalition." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Are people actually upset over discussing multiparty systems?
The conversation is helpful for understanding difference among Dems.
People are acting like a Dem didn’t just join the GOP a few wks ago. Other safe Dems actually fundraise for Republicans. That’s not “moderate.”" / Twitter

The Tennessee Holler on Twitter: "“If a state like Tennessee or West Virginia can go from blue to red in our lifetime, I think it can go back.” - @AOC https://t.co/Y74BEr02p0" / Twitter

Yes, under a party-list system, it would be interesting to see how the US would split. What if America had 6 political parties? - Damon Linker speculates:

• The Social Democratic Party - AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
• The Internationalist Progressive Party - Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg
• The Centrist Working-Class Party - Joe Biden
• The Populist-Nationalist Party
• The Internationalist Conservative Party
• The Religious Right Party

 

[lpetrich]

H. Eric Loewe on Twitter: "@TheTNHoller @AOC MT @_waleedshahid @AOC asked at #SXSW why Democrats don’t defend Scandinavian-style socialism and social democracy:
There’s a lot of people that don’t want us to have a social democracy and they are in government and .... I'm not allowed to say that." https://t.co/cb2HK3iPhp" / Twitter

H. Eric Loewe on Twitter: "@AOC MT @justicedems
@AOC "people say 'my district won't go for that' & I'm like 'You're D+10, what...?' It happens not just on climate but on everything." -@AOC w/ @_waleedshahid & @chrislhayes on why some Ds won't fight... "It is more about corporate donors" https://t.co/np2OV1GMjH" / Twitter


David Begnaud on Twitter: "Puerto Rico has had the following earthquakes within the last 2 hours:
6.0 5.6 5.0 4.2 4.5 4.3
All of these quakes were centered off of the southern coast of PR." / Twitter
A bit east of the southwest corner of the island. Subduction-zone earthquakes.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Please keep your thoughts today w/ Puerto Rico.
Earthquakes began to hit last night, tearing down schools & buildings. Island-wide blackouts reported.
My abuela relies on oxygen, and the power outage means she’s not breathing as she should - just one of many such stories. https://t.co/9Gf8WhOr7W" / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

After AOC stated that she'd be in a Labor Party like Jacinda Ardern,

J.J. McCullough on Twitter: "The strength of the US party system is that you have large parties with a diversity of opinions within them. There are no all-powerful party bosses forcing legislators like you to vote a certain way. In any other country, you’d have been booted out of your caucus ages ago. https://t.co/I6L9h6lAeQ" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "@JJ_McCullough I hate to break it to you, but in the US there *are* party leaders with immense, concentrated power (via fundraising and other means), and they DO create enormous pressure to have their caucus members vote in set directions. I know this because it’s my job." / Twitter

J.J. McCullough on Twitter: "@AOC Call me when there is a single boss of the Democratic Party with the power to single-handedly expel you from caucus and prevent you from running for re-election as a Democrat — all with the stroke of a pen. Because that’s how political parties work here in Canada." / Twitter

I'd have to find out how centralized Canadian parties are vs. US ones.

 

[Derec]

H. Eric Loewe on Twitter: "@TheTNHoller @AOC MT @_waleedshahid @AOC asked at #SXSW why Democrats don’t defend Scandinavian-style socialism and social democracy:

Sigh.
Scandinavian countries do not have socialism.

There’s a lot of people that don’t want us to have a social democracy and they are in government and .... I'm not allowed to say that.

Has the 1st Amendment been repealed and I slept through it?

David Begnaud on Twitter: "Puerto Rico has had the following earthquakes within the last 2 hours:
6.0 5.6 5.0 4.2 4.5 4.3

Quick! Find some way to blame climate change/fossil fuels.

My abuela relies on oxygen,

As obligate aerobes, so do all of us.

 

[Derec]

A lot of House and NYC-gov't colleagues credit her for doing her job, showing up at meetings, asking detailed questions, taking notes, and doing e-mail followups. She has created 15 bills and resolutions, like the Green new Deal,

GND is a pie in the sky. Completely unworkable, even if an actual GND bill could pass Congress. Note that the actual resolution is vague as hell - what meat there is to GND at this point is found in AOC's GND FAQ. Yes, that's the one where she bemoans that she can't get rid of all airplanes and "farting cows" within 10 years.

“You hear that trope all the time. ‘I am a workhorse; I am not a show horse.’

Oh, she is definitely a show filly.

But what I think people don’t understand is that educating the public is a part of this job. The most effective public servants are part of our culture. They are just as fluidly part of the conversation as Lizzo or as this movie that you saw,” she said.

"Lizzo"? Is that something at Denny's? What the hell is she talking about?

This is part of her project, too. If people are paying attention, she figures, they will be on her side. “Politics should be pop because it should be consumable and accessible to everyday people,” she said. “I think that’s what populism is about.”

Real world issues are far more complex than her "politics as pop". That way you get nonsense like GND.

 

[lpetrich]

H. Eric Loewe on Twitter: "@TheTNHoller @AOC MT @_waleedshahid @AOC asked at #SXSW why Democrats don’t defend Scandinavian-style socialism and social democracy:

Sigh.
Scandinavian countries do not have socialism.

So it's not socialism when those countries do it, but it is socialism when the US does it, right?

There’s a lot of people that don’t want us to have a social democracy and they are in government and .... I'm not allowed to say that.

Has the 1st Amendment been repealed and I slept through it?

Not allowed in a social sense, as opposed to a legal sense.

My abuela relies on oxygen,

As obligate aerobes, so do all of us.

She likely has to breathe pure oxygen from a tank, because of having breathing difficulties making it difficult to get enough O2 from the air (20%).

 

[Derec]

So it's not socialism when those countries do it, but it is socialism when the US does it, right?

It's socialism when there is public control of the means of production.

Not allowed in a social sense, as opposed to a legal sense.

Who is stopping her?

She likely has to breathe pure oxygen from a tank, because of having breathing difficulties making it difficult to get enough O2 from the air (20%).

No shit Sherlock.