Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "In a shock to no one, @politico is also running with the misattribution as well. Here’s what actually happened: I was asked a question on a late night show and answered with the word “zero.” https://t.co/soBEwGTSbd" responding to Ocasio-Cortez says she gives 'zero' f---s about pushback from Democrats - POLITICO

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "This reinforces lazy tropes about women leaders in media:
- Older + seasoned, but unlikeable
- Passionate, but angry
- Smart, but crazy
- Well-intentioned, but naive
- Attractive, but uninformed or gaffe-prone
It’s unoriginal, lazy, and men don’t get the same either/or coverage."

AOC tweeted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry… " in response to
Alex Leo on Twitter: "Just saw a Fox News segment in which they referenced @AOC saying it's immoral that billionaires coexist in a country with "people [who] are still getting ringworm bc they don’t have access to public health" & @marcthiessen's literal response was "1st of all, ringworm isn't fatal""

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Me: “I don’t think billionaires should concentrate wealth while employing people who are sleeping in cars working a zillion hours to survive.” Next day: “That will be TEN PINOCCHIOS to Ocasio, ‘zillion’ is not a number and I found someone who sleeps in a tent, not a car.”"

 

[lpetrich]

White House patronizes 'freshman' AOC to Fox News -- and tells her to leave climate change up to God
Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently appeared on the Sean Hannity show, and they snickered at people who supposedly believe that the world will end in 12 years if something isn't done about climate change.

“I don’t think that we are going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly anything that we will leave into the hands of a much, much higher authority,” Sanders said, presumably referring to God. “And certainly not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end.”

Sanders said the president is more focused on what is happening “in the world right now” instead of securing the United States for the future.

“We wish that Democrats would engage in that conversation and fixed some of the current problems that we know exist and work with us to get some things done,” Sanders continued. “Particularly on the border and fixing the national and humanitarian crisis. That is what we are focused on. Not things we will leave up into the hands of something and someone much more powerful than any of us.”

When Isaac Asimov once came across someone who stated about overpopulation that "I'd say it's God's problem, wouldn't you?" he responded "God helps those who help themselves."

Raw Story on Twitter: "White House patronizes 'freshman' @AOC to Fox News -- and tells her to leave climate change up to God https://t.co/39xFjp2cOY"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "“Genesis 1: God looked on the world & called it good not once, not twice, but seven times. Genesis 2: God commands all people to “serve and protect” creation. Leviticus: God mandates that not only the people, but the land that sustains them, shall be respected.”… https://t.co/FVa1Ljxw1j"

Strikes me as making the Bible in one's moral image. It's hard to find much of an ecological message in creation story #1, while creation story #2 comes close by making Adam a gardener. But God does not get pissed off at him for being a bad gardener, but for something else.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "You shouldn’t need a Bible to tell you to protect our planet, but it does anyway. (h/t to @RELEVANT mag for source excerpts that I adapted for the previous tweet)"

 

[lpetrich]

AOC has mentioned Jesus Christ's parents as refugees, fleeing to protect their baby boy.


Isaac Asimov in "Lost in Non-Translation" ("The Tragedy of the Moon") describes three parts of the Bible whose moral messages are misunderstood or ignored.

The Book of Ruth describes the titular character as a Moabite, but the authors of other parts of the Bible did not seem to like Moabites very much, to put it mildly. So its message is that Moabites can be good people.

The Book of Jonah describes the misadventures of the titular character as he goes to the Nineveh, an Assyrian city, and attempts to convince them to repent of their misdeeds. God sent him on that mission, and he does not like having to do it. That book is best known for the part where Jonah is swallowed by a sea monster -- I call it that to be noncommittal about its nature. But that is not the point -- the point is that one should not write off an entire people just because some of them have been very nasty.

The Story of the Good Samaritan features someone who was beaten up and robbed, and left on a road. A priest and a Levite don't help him, but a Samaritan does. Why a Samaritan? The Samaritans were a sect of Jews were were disliked by most other Jews as heretics, and the point of this story is that Samaritans can be good people.

Let's see if AOC mentions something like that.

 

[Trausti]

AOC has mentioned Jesus Christ's parents as refugees, fleeing to protect their baby boy.

But they weren't. This chick is dumb, dude.

 

[Horatio Parker]

AOC has mentioned Jesus Christ's parents as refugees, fleeing to protect their baby boy.

But they weren't. This chick is dumb, dude.

And when they were departed, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeareth to
Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and
take the young child and his mother,
and flee into Egypt, and be thou there
until I bring thee word: for Herod will
seek the young child to destroy him.

Kinda sounds refugee-ish to me.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

AOC has mentioned Jesus Christ's parents as refugees, fleeing to protect their baby boy.

But they weren't. This chick is dumb, dude.

Matthew 2
¹² And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
¹³ And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
¹⁴ When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
¹⁵ And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

 

[Derec]

Kinda sounds refugee-ish to me.

Sounds like "Matthew" made it up in order to shoehorn yet another "prophecy". Besides, that was one family that Egypt could well handle. Not millions of people from cultures very incompatible with US or European cultures. Also, most of them are not fleeing crazy kings but are seeking either jobs or benefits. It would be like them going to Egypt because carpenters can make much more there than in Judah ...

 

[Arctish]

Kinda sounds refugee-ish to me.

Sounds like "Matthew" made it up in order to shoehorn yet another "prophecy". Besides, that was one family that Egypt could well handle. Not millions of people from cultures very incompatible with US or European cultures. Also, most of them are not fleeing crazy kings but are seeking either jobs or benefits. It would be like them going to Egypt because carpenters can make much more there than in Judah ...

It's time to play Name That Fallacy. Is it:

a) Moving the Goalposts

b) No True Scotsman

 

[blastula]

AOC has mentioned Jesus Christ's parents as refugees, fleeing to protect their baby boy.

But they weren't. This chick is dumb, dude.

OACDS.

 

[lpetrich]

OACDS???

I agree that that story is pure fiction, like the related story of King Herod's mass murder of those baby boys. But it's the content of that story that is important -- Jesus Christ's parents fleeing a mass murderer to protect their baby boy.

 

[blastula]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDpi5aFf6I[/YOUTUBE]

WAPO economics reporter, Heather Long: Michael Dell, do you support this [70% tax rate on over $10 million]?

[Audience laughs]

Dell CEO, Michael Dell: No... Name a country where that's worked, ever.

MIT professor, Erik Brynjolfsson: The United States

Heather Long: [laughs] Briefly in the 80s.

 

[skepticalbip]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDpi5aFf6I[/YOUTUBE]

You need to explain what point you think that clip made that you like. I saw Michael Dell explain he didn't support a 70% tax rate and why. Then a counter made that taxes have been higher during a flourishing economy - but the counter assumed that those rates were actually paid and not significantly reduced by tax credits and exclusions - so was an invalid counter argument.

Supporters of the 70% tax rate were either never read or didn't understand Aesop's fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg".

 

[J842P]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDpi5aFf6I[/YOUTUBE]

You need to explain what point you think that clip made that you like. I saw Michael Dell explain he didn't support a 70% tax rate and why. Then a counter made that taxes have been higher during a flourishing economy - but the counter assumed that those rates were actually paid and not significantly reduced by tax credits and exclusions - so was an invalid counter argument.

Supporters of the 70% tax rate were either never read or didn't understand Aesop's fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg".

The counter doesn't assume anything of the sort. Are you under the impression that credits and exclusions don't exist today?

 

[skepticalbip]

You need to explain what point you think that clip made that you like. I saw Michael Dell explain he didn't support a 70% tax rate and why. Then a counter made that taxes have been higher during a flourishing economy - but the counter assumed that those rates were actually paid and not significantly reduced by tax credits and exclusions - so was an invalid counter argument.

Supporters of the 70% tax rate were either never read or didn't understand Aesop's fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg".

The counter doesn't assume anything of the sort. Are you under the impression that credits and exclusions don't exist today?

If taxes are raised to 70% and exemptions added so the actual revenue raised is the same, what has been accomplished?

 

[J842P]

The counter doesn't assume anything of the sort. Are you under the impression that credits and exclusions don't exist today?

If taxes are raised to 70% and exemptions added so the actual revenue raised is the same, what has been accomplished?

The effective tax rate would rise in both situations, and in both situations, is significantly lower for the high-income earners (since they are more incentivized and more able to take advantage).

 

[blastula]

You need to explain what point you think that clip made that you like. I saw Michael Dell explain he didn't support a 70% tax rate and why. Then a counter made that taxes have been higher during a flourishing economy - but the counter assumed that those rates were actually paid and not significantly reduced by tax credits and exclusions - so was an invalid counter argument.

Supporters of the 70% tax rate were either never read or didn't understand Aesop's fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg".

Do you not have a sense of humor or irony? People try to mock AOC for not knowing anything, and here are these people smugly laughing at the idea of a higher rate, while showing their own ignorance.

Yes, the effective tax rate wasn't 70%, but it was still higher than now.

 

[PyramidHead]

You need to explain what point you think that clip made that you like. I saw Michael Dell explain he didn't support a 70% tax rate and why. Then a counter made that taxes have been higher during a flourishing economy - but the counter assumed that those rates were actually paid and not significantly reduced by tax credits and exclusions - so was an invalid counter argument.

Supporters of the 70% tax rate were either never read or didn't understand Aesop's fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg".

Tax credits and exclusions are just ways the government incentivizes investment. Nobody expects every cent of income is actually being taxed and going towards revenue. It's a sliding scale of making it more attractive to re-invest a portion of earnings that otherwise would have gone towards profit. The higher the %, the less benefit is gained by taking profit above the margin, so options that return the money into the economy more directly have a lower opportunity cost.

It's all academic of course, as most people whose net worth is above the threshold don't get most of their money from income anyway.

 

[southernhybrid]

While I don't have a problem with wealthier people paying a higher tax rate, I am really sick of people misrepresenting what the actual percentage that very wealthy people paid in the 1950s was.

https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/

There is a common misconception that high-income Americans are not paying much in taxes compared to what they used to. Proponents of this view often point to the 1950s, when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent for most of the decade.[1] However, despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s.

The graph below shows the average tax rate that the top 1 percent of Americans have faced over the last century. The data comes from a recent paper by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman that attempts to account for all federal, state, and local taxes paid by different groups of Americans over the last 100 years.[2]

So, the reality is that the top .1% only paid a little higher percentage than they do today. Can we at least be honest if we want to discuss tax rates? Look at the graph in my link to see the actual average rates that the top percentage pays. So, going by that, a rate of about 42% on the top 1 % would be reasonable if you want to go back to the 1950s rate.

 

[blastula]

It's all academic of course, as most people whose net worth is above the threshold don't get most of their money from income anyway.

Elizabeth Warren to propose new ‘wealth tax’ on very rich Americans, economist says - The Washington Post

 

[PyramidHead]

It's all academic of course, as most people whose net worth is above the threshold don't get most of their money from income anyway.

Elizabeth Warren to propose new ‘wealth tax’ on very rich Americans, economist says - The Washington Post

A step in the right direction. But listen to what AOC has said on other occasions: that there is something wrong with a society that even lets wealth accumulate to the point where tens of millions (or billions) of dollars are available to be taxed. The 70% thing is just an opening move. She is actually probably in favor of something like an income cap. All of which is typical of a social democratic approach to constraining capitalism from outside it, which has its merits and is certainly better than aiding and abetting its worst excesses.