Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Many young people ask me why & how I started running for office from a restaurant, w/o any special connections or big money.
@knockdownmovie tells that story.
Due to COVID, Netflix is releasing the film for free along w/ educational toolkit & curriculum: https://t.co/THpgkzzqdc" / Twitter
"If I was a rational person, I would have dropped out of this race a long time ago."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "You can now watch the film for FREE distribution and access educational materials and teaching guides for middle school, high school, and higher ed.
Here is the film: (link)" / Twitter
noting
Knock Down The House | FULL FEATURE | Netflix - YouTube

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "And here are the teaching guides, organizing toolkits, and educational resources to talk this through with your students and kids: (link)" / Twitter
noting
Resources - Knock Down The House

 

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2019-11-01-kdth-youth-toolkit.pdf

“WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, my dad wanted to go on a road trip with his buddies. I wanted to go so badly and I begged and I begged and I begged, and he relented. And so, it was like four grown men and a five-year-old girl went on this road trip from New York. We stopped... we stopped here (in Washington D.C.) And it was a really beautiful day, and he leaned down next to me, and he pointed at the Washington Monument, and he pointed at the Reflecting Pool, and he pointed at everything, and he said, ‘You know, this all belongs to us.’ He said, ‘This is our government. It belongs to us. So all of this stuff is yours.’” -- AOC

“In the beginning, the fundamental question is, ‘Why you? Why do you think, you can do this?’ The reason why was because nobody else would. So literally anybody could, right? Because the alternative is no one.” — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“Being a woman of color, our image is really scrutinized. You have to speak like this. You have to dress like this. I decided that, yeah, I don’t care. Basically you deal with it. You know, people in my district, this is how we look. I’m going to serve and represent the people of my district.”— Cori Bush

“Every step of the way, we seem to be on track. And no one else believes in the path, so they think we’re not on track. I say, you know, you don’t have a shot, if you don’t raise a hundred thousand dollars between now and next week, or you don’t have a shot if you’re not gonna put out targeted mailers, you know, to women between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five before this day.”— Keenan Korth, Campaign Manager for Amy Vilela

“After twenty-sixteen, nothing is predictable. Nothing!” — Joz Sida, Field Operations Director, Amy Vilela

That's because Donald Trump was elected President, a very unlikely sort of candidate. A businessman who became a celebrity. A not very successful one, one with several bankruptcies and one who once got bailed out by Russian oligarchs, but one nevertheless.

“WHO’S WILLING TO LEAD AN EVENT, and have a couple friends over to do any one of the things that we just talked about (make calls, knock on doors, have a house party)? Raise your hand if you’re willing to do it. All right. All right. All right. Now, if you just raised your hand, I want you to stand up. Got ‘em. Applause. Give them a round of applause.” -- AOC

“RIGHT NOW our Congress is 81% men, it’s mostly white men, it’s mostly millionaires, it’s mostly lawyers.” -- Corbin Trent, Justice Democrats

“I THINK REJECTING corporate money is a pretty big signal... and I think it’s stronger than the word ‘progressive.’” -- Saikat Chakrabarti, JDs

I think that SC is right about that -- it shows that one does not have to please big donors.

 

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“WE’RE RUNNING TO ORGANIZE. We’re running to redefine the political landscape in New York City. And here’s the best part about all of this... we’re not running to make a statement. We’re not running to pressure the incumbent to the left. We’re running to win.” -- AOC

“People think of leadership as this glamorous, powerful thing To be a leader is to come first, to set the agenda. But what people don’t realise is that leadership is also enormously difficult. Leadership is a responsibility. Leadership is not fun. Leadership is about doing things before anybody else does them. Leadership is about taking risks. Leadership is about taking decisions when you don’t know 100% what the outcome is going to be.” -- AOC

“YOU SHOULDN’T SHOW YOUR EMOTION BECAUSE WOMEN ARE CONSIDERED FRAGILE, if you do, you need to more of a bitch. . . And when you go to the people in West Virginia and you tell them you’re serving them, you need to tell them that your’re their bitch.” I said, “I’m not a dog. We work harder in these races. . . Just because we’re women. We’re not rich white dudes in suits.” -- Paula Jean Swearengin

“I’M A REGISTERED NURSE. I’M AN ORDAINED PASTOR, AND I’M A MOTHER OF TWO TEENAGERS. I was not trying to become an activist. Didn’t set out to do that. This is the district where Mike Brown was murdered. I only live six minutes from Ferguson. It was like a battle zone at home. I took to the streets to lend a hand as a nurse. What I was wanting to see was justice happen. It didn’t happen so I just kept going back again and again. This district was able to affect the entire world. Just regular everyday people. People are now waking up to see that the problems that we have in our district, are problems that we ourselves can fix” -- Cori Bush

“WOMEN LIKE ME AREN’T SUPPOSED TO RUN FOR OFFICE. I WASN’T BORN INTO A RICH or powerful family. My dad died when I was a teenager. I’ve waitressed my way through hard times and dealt with disappointment. The dress I’m wearing is from a thrift shop. The ring on my hand is my mother’s - a reminder of every floor she’s mopped so that her daughter could have a chance. I have been told to wait my turn; that I’m not savvy enough, connected enough, experienced enough; that I say too much for a political candidate. I don’ t sugar-coat, spin, or filter. I try to keep things as real as possible, because I believe that’s what people deserve and that honesty is a highest form of respect.” -- AOC

“IT’S NOT ABOUT ANY ONE OF US individually. It’s about the whole movement.” -- Amy Vilela

“EVERYBODY THAT KNOWS ME knows that on day one, I will co-sponsor HR-676 Medicare-for-all. It’s time to join the other Democrats in office right now that are standing up and saying, “Enough is enough! We’re not gonna accept any more money from the hospitals, the insurance companies, and pharma, and we can have the people behind the party again.” -- AV

“IT IS TIME TO JOIN THE OTHER Democrats in office right now that are standing up and saying, “Enough is enough! We’re not gonna accept any more money from the hospitals, the insurance companies and pharma, and we can have the people behind the party again.” -- AV

“EVERYBODY IN THIS ROOM knows five to 10 people. And then those five to 10 people know another five to 10 people. Frankly, big money is very lonely, and we’ve got people on our side.” -- AOC

But those with big money get around that problem by buying a lot of support, or at least what seems like support.

“IT’S TIME FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE to do extraordinary things. Let’s raise some hell, and take our lives back.” -- PJS

 

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“I was not trying to become an activist. Didn’t set out to do that. This is the district where Mike Brown was murdered. I only live six minutes from Ferguson. I’m a registered nurse. I’m an ordained pastor, and I’m the mother of two teenagers. It was like a battle zone at home. I took to the streets to lend a hand as a nurse. What I was wanting to see was justice happen. It didn’t happen so, I just kept going back again and again. This district was able to affect the entire world. Just regular everyday people.” -- Cori Bush

“My dad had passed away. Working in a non-profit just wasn’t enough for our family, because we were about to lose our home. You’re trying to make a three hundred dollar student loan bill here, and your foreclosure installment here... You just do your best to survive. That’s been the reality for millions of people in this country. That feel like they’re just hanging by a thread. And they feel like no one’s fighting for them, and everyone’s just in it for themselves.” -- AOC

“This was my house, where I raised my kids. My neighbor’s daughter ended up with a rare form of bone cancer. There’s a person in that house that has cancer. And our leadership’s not hearing us. They’re in bed with the industries. ... We don’t have to do this. If another country come in here, blew up our mountains and poisoned our water, we’d go to war. But industry can.

My name is Paula Jean. I am a coal miner’s daughter, running for the U.S. Senate, and I am mad as hell.” -- Paula Jean Swearengin

“It’s not just our family. It’s thirty thousand families a year. Thirty thousand of us... a year... that are losing loved ones because they don’t have [health] insurance. No one in this great country should be dying because they don’t understand the intricate system of insurance. And why is it difficult? Because of algorithms, because of risk assessment, because the CFOs that work in that field are sitting there figuring out ways to make optimum profit for their shareholders. This is a commodity. My daughter’s life wasn’t.” -- Amy Vilela

We meet a machine with a movement.” -- AOC

“Voting is the foundation stone for political action.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma AL 1965

“For every ten rejections you get one acceptance. And that’s how you win everything.” -- AOC

 

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On NY's Decision To Cancel Presidential Primary, COVID-19 Response & Tests - YouTube - HOT 97

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called into Ebro in the Morning to discuss some of the biggest topics in New York at the moment. She addressed her thoughts on canceling the New York state presidential primary, the possibility of getting more coronavirus tests in New York, her thoughts on the COVID-19 response as well as the way the virus has impacted black and brown people at a higher rate.

She said a lot in it. As far as she could find out, it was the New York State Board of Elections that canceled the state's Presidential primary. The other elections will be continuing. She suspects that it may hurt progressive turnout, and she is concerned that Trump might seize on this cancellation as a pretext for canceling the main election. We need to get the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into action, she says.

Then about city hospitals - they treat everybody, but they're underfunded. Private hospitals are more selective. But I think that being able to select out relatively rich clients helps their finances.

AOC says that we need more testing and contact tracing, and that Congress has had to fight Trump on aid for testing and hospitals. She also notes how successful South Korea has been and how the Trump Admin could have gotten preparations started two months earlier. The Trumpies and the Republicans sometimes seem like they have magical thinking, like not letting a cruise ship dock because doing so would bump up the statistics.

Trump: a symptom -- big money, science denial, profiteering like in insulin and oil and real estate and Wall Street. "Opening the Economy" is sacrificing the lives of many blacks and Hispanics. It's telling that the governor of Georgia won't open up his mansion.

Democrats are also impacted. Americans must confront a lot of awkward realities about race and class. One does not have to be racist to benefit from racial privilege -- and color privilege. Like AOC being light-skinned. She noted that LBJ said that he could get white people to empty their pockets for him by assuring them that they are superior to black people. Did LBJ Advocate: 'Convince the Lowest White Man He's Better Than the Best Colored Man'? - he indeed said that.

She noted that in the early days of the pandemic, a lot of people became social democrats, wanting Universal Basic Income and universal healthcare. But when it became evident that black and Hispanic people were harder-hit by it than white people, one started getting a lot of tut-tutting about personal responsibility. Even though nobody complains about a lack of personal responsibility by old people, for instance.

She ended by urging people to vote on June 23, and she put in a plug for Samelys Lopez, who is running for the NY-15 South-Bronx seat.

The video did not show any video from AOC herself, only a picture of her from Interview magazine showing her wearing a green pantsuit, sitting on some steps, and looking very serious.

VICE TV on Twitter: "“Republicans are the ones who fought for a $4T corporate slush fund bail out. Republicans are the ones that are fighting against mass testing capacity in the United States. [...] But we don’t want to say those things because we want to be bipartisan. That ship has sailed.” - @AOC https://t.co/2j9bHZVmCp" / Twitter
SHELTER IN PLACE: Tonight, 10p

 

[Derec]

“I was not trying to become an activist. Didn’t set out to do that. This is the district where Mike Brown was murdered.

No, Michael Brown WAS NOT murdered. He was not even manslaughtered. He was justifiably homicided.

I only live six minutes from Ferguson. I’m a registered nurse. I’m an ordained pastor, and I’m the mother of two teenagers.

Ordained pastor?

What I was wanting to see was justice happen.

No, she didn't want to see justice happen. She wanted to see an innocent police officer get railroaded.

 

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Think about how harshly #BlackLivesMatter & #AbolishICE activists were debased, called rioters, & treated as a threat to society.
Now watch & examine how this MAGA-armed rushing of a state legislature is treated.
This is for those who still think racial privilege is a fantasy. https://t.co/nEufuBRFKo" / Twitter
noting
Daniel Newmaη on Twitter: "“Multiple armed gunmen storm Michigan’s State House, State police are protecting @GovWhitmer and blocking the gunmen from gaining access to the house floor.
This is America in the age of Trump” -Rob Gill. https://t.co/QLab2Nlg63" / Twitter

That reminds me of the Weimar Republic, much tougher on the Left than on the Right. Brutally crushing the Bavarian Soviet Republic, but waving wet noodles at the Kapp Putsch and the Beer Hall Putsch.

AOC Will Vote for Biden, But Doesn’t Know If She’ll Endorse Him: ‘I Don’t Necessarily Know If He’s Going to Move Us Forward’ - VICE
I'll be trying to catch the full interview. In the meantime,

“If the question is, can Biden win? I think Biden has the potential to win a general election,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who served as a top surrogate for Berne Sanders. “Whether he can offer deeper structural changes that get us to a healthier place, I don't necessarily know if he's going to move us forward, but I think people can see him as stopping the bleeding.”

Also what she said in that radio interview,

“It felt like once the racial data came out that showed that this was disproportionately impacting working class people and black and brown people, it was almost like within days a lot of those ambitions just fell,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the initial push for a worker-centered response to the crisis. “But when we didn't know who it was going to impact, when all of us felt vulnerable, we were ready to change.”

She'll be voting for JB though she's not sure if she'll ever endorse him.

She also notes a curious lack of urgency by the Congressional leadership. Is it from not being directly affected?

"One of the things that I've kind of learned in working with Republicans is that they kind of see it as a sport. There's kind of a cultural difference. And it's not even necessarily a critique, but it's just a style that I've noticed." She then mentioned how a Republican asked why Democrats are voting for something that's totally fleecing them. When she asked him, he said that he has to stick with his party. So he's a loyal apparatchik, following the twists and turns of the party line.

What I would wish in terms of November is for us to actually call a spade a spade and be uncompromising in saying that Republicans are the ones who fought for a 4 trillion dollar corporate slush fund to bail out. Republicans are the ones that are fighting against mass testing capacity in the United States. Republicans are the ones who don't want to fund hospitals, but we don't want to say those things because we just want to be bipartisan. That ship has sailed. America has fundamentally changed. And we are not getting that back.

Then she talked about organizing and building activist movements. She credits the Occupy movement with helping to start the recent progressive wave. Her idea of a social revolution: "It doesn't mean like setting stuff on fire. It means unionizing your workplace. It means not being afraid to go on strike." Nonviolent activism, like what her hero MLK advocated.

AOC then noted that this is a missed opportunity for making the US a fairer country - income inequality is getting worse. It seemed good at first, with Mitt Romney talking about a universal basic income. Then it turned up who was suffering the most, and we don't hear as much about that anymore.

 

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AOC defends opposition to relief bill - YouTube
and
AOC Tears Into 'Unacceptable' Coronavirus Stimulus Bill - YouTube

"I'm looking at this bill and then I have to look at it and think about voting for it and then coming back to my community and tell teachers, you still need to scramble to help the nurses. And tell undocumented kids, I did nothing to help you," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I had to stand up and say it's unacceptable to leave our families out."

Ocasio-Cortez was responding to an editorial in a New York City paper criticizing her for voting against the latest coronavirus relief package.

The Congresswomen demanded the government "get it together because it's working families that are suffering."

"It's not Mitch McConnell. It's not Donald Trump. It's not even me that's suffering," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We need to act with the urgency of an emergency."

This is a very daring move on her part. It puts her in Jeannette Rankin territory.

She is basically a do-gooder at heart rather than someone who wants positions simply for the sake of wanting positions. She has said that that makes her more able to take risks with her career.

 

[Derec]

Why should US taxpayers pay for illegals anyway?

 

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Daveen Trentman on Twitter: "AOC is out here IN THE RAIN delivering food, IN A WAGON, with money SHE raised, to people in her district because we don’t have federal policy that supports working class people.It doesn’t have to be like this.
Salute, @AOC, the people’s champ. https://t.co/pDmf0bwHhc" / Twitter
With some pictures of AOC in action delivering food for her district.

I looked at her squadmates and I don't notice any similar activity on their part. I also don't see much evidence of certified right-wingers doing anything similar.

Tim Perry on Twitter: "Today Rep. @AOC is introducing the Pandemic Disaster Assistance Act in the House, legislation 1st put forward by Sen. @KamalaHarris in the senate. The act would allow FEMA to provide financial assistance to individuals during a pandemic and not just during natural disasters https://t.co/29HiZ1qv0T" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "In an emergency, relief isn’t just about getting resources, it’s also about of getting them out in time without unnecessary hurdles. Proud to work with @SenKamalaHarris on clearing the red tape to let FEMA grant assistance to impacted families during pandemics. https://t.co/2heIUoy5bN" / Twitter

It'll be a challenge to get it past Mitch McConnell, but let him and other right-wingers whine about being made to seem against mom and apple pie.

 

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Kamala Harris on Twitter: "Funeral costs are simply unattainable when millions of people have lost their incomes. Some are having to make arrangements for multiple family members at once.
I'm proud to partner with @AOC today on our bill to open federal assistance for funeral costs & more during pandemics. https://t.co/8gyFZmZF99" / Twitter
She seems like a good choice for Vice President, though I'd be happy if she stays in the Senate. She doesn't have the best record, but she's good.

MTV NEWS on Twitter: "#CancelRent, the largest rent strike in almost a century, kicks off tomorrow, but it’s not just about canceling rent. They’re also fighting to cancel landlord’s mortgages. @AOC, @northwestbronx’s Juan Nuñez and @PHLTenantsUnion explain why https://t.co/kKC92HnKns" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: " MAYDAY: Tenants in NYC & across the country are crying out for rent and mortgage relief. Many of the 30+ million laid off workers can’t pay record-high rents.
@IlhanMN’s bill provides relief to renters & small property owners to prevent economic collapse of working families. https://t.co/1NqhSMvKPg" / Twitter

Rent strikes - seems rather drastic.

Black Womxn Running My Fresh Ass Mouth on Twitter: "Lots of chatter the past month about "voter fraud." This is only going to ramp up more and more and so called fraud tasks force like those in GA and WV that focus on criminalizing vote by mail are a part of the problem not the solution. My latest https://t.co/hVgmqO3qJU" / Twitter
noting
Voter fraud claims and criminal task forces will undermine the democratic process in 2020 election | Prism

Ro Khanna on Twitter: "If you’ve received packages, ordered food, or used the internet, it’s time to recognize the workers making our lives possible.
They deserve our decency & respect: let's stand with them. Let's listen to them.
Tonight at 5p ET, hear their stories w/ @AOC: [url]https://t.co/pbiNl34u8w https://t.co/tqH098NVZc" / Twitter[/url]
Reminds me of something from AOC's main-election campaign. She once visited Los Angeles, but instead of visiting entertainment executives, she met some activists there.

Ro Khanna is a Rep from Silicon Valley with a good progressive record.

 

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VICE News on Twitter: ""Coronavirus has just blown open systemic inequality that has been long simmering in the United States." —@AOC tells [MENTION=478]ShaneS[/MENTION]mith30 https://t.co/3PLlXlTBdG" / Twitter - her recent Shelter in Place interview for VICE TV.

Bloomberg QuickTake on Twitter: ""I had to stand up and say it's unacceptable to leave our families out."
@AOC said Friday she opposed the recent stimulus bill because it was "unacceptable" https://t.co/hZjxqyjgeM" / Twitter
AOC seems like she risks going the way of Jeannette Rankin. The first woman ever elected to Congress, she voted against the US entering both World Wars I and II - and paid with her seat both times.

NY Nail Salon Workers Association on Twitter: "Araceli, @NailTechsUnited member tells @AOC & @RoKhanna: I love my job, but we cannot return to the same conditions that we were fighting against before the pandemic. Our health is important and our lives are important. We need #Recovery4All! https://t.co/9P99PLNTKV" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Seems like the Federal government should do something about rent and mortgages https://t.co/GhHvFJM2vx" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "And I hear @IlhanMN has a bill to do just that!
It’s an opportunity for Congress to help working people in an ambitious and meaningful way. Revelatory, I know: https://t.co/8tiTY4lqzZ" / Twitter
noting
Rep. Ilhan Omar Introduces Bill to Cancel All Rent and Mortgage Payments During the COVID-19 Pandemic | Representative Ilhan Omar

 

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Shelter in Place with Shane Smith & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Extended Episode) - YouTube

AOC talked about learning of the losses, like people's families and religious leaders. Hearing ambulance sirens for people being taken to hospitals. Black people being hard hit. Pre-existing conditions like the Bronx's high asthma rate. LaGuardia Airport with its airplanes nearby.

Then why Congress is slow-walking assistance. They should legislate as if they have to scramble to make rent. AOC claims that a lot of Congresspeople told her that they had reservations or that they didn't want to vote for it. Why did all the Democrats vote for the most recent aid bills? Big donors. "Creeping oligarchy" "Party fealty" Only 4 Congresspeople working on a bill in secret and then saying "Take it or leave it".

Who? Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Steven Mnuchin, Nancy Pelosi (sort of). With one of the bills, it took 48 hours and a vote at 1 AM when Trump's support meant House Repub's go-ahead.

Dependence on big money is a problem. Because party leadership can control votes by controlling who gets the money. That's what AOC's predecessor Joe Crowley did a lot of. He was a big-money guy who was very involved in DC power politics. He hadn't had a challenger in a long time - some 14 years. Progressives were reluctant to go up against his big money, and whey they discovered someone with the brass gonads to do so, they lined up behind her.

 

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AOC, happy to say, is invulnerable to that kind of pressure.

She continued with how the GA Gov wants to open up the state while keeping his mansion closed for tourists. It's lower-middle-class and lower-class people who suffer the most. Having to work long hours while getting little money out of it -- barbaric, inhumane, ...

Governors like Kemp (GA) and DeSantis (FL) get pressured from Trump. Then Trump changes his mind. I'm wondering how good Trump's memory is. What we are seeing: Mnuchin is done helping small biz, McConnell starting to indicate that he is done, ... once his big donors got what they wanted, McConnell is now worried about the national debt. It's when money goes to healthcare and ordinary people and the like that he becomes a deficit hawk. But COVID-19 and climate change have a force-of-nature quality to hem.

This calamity has made the very rich even more rich. The elites are making off with more and more money - like trying to put out a fire with gasoline instead of with water. Wall Street got lots of money while small businesses got much less - if anything. AOC says that this is a recipe for further oligopoly -- lots of big businesses buying up distressed small businesses and consolidating the economy under a few very big businesses.

She says it's a con job that the health of the stock market is equated with the health of the job market. She thinks that the COVID-19 crisis is a massive squandered opportunity. Republicans talking about universal basic income, for instance. But then the racial-disparity data started coming out and that support evaporated. Seems like a lot of people like social democracy for themselves but not for those that they consider undesirables.

A lot of the Democratic leadership seems obsessed with bipartisanship, trying to please the Republicans -- even though the Republicans don't reciprocate that concern. Republicans wanted that huge corporate bailout, they don't want mass testing capacity, they don't want to fund hospitals, but a lot of people don't want to say anything bad about the Republicans.

 

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As to what to do, AOC concedes that electoral politics is not enough, that one needs big activist movements - labor organizing, feminist organizing, the works. Who will save us? "You"

I think that AOC is correct. At least three progressive waves in US history have featured big mass movements pushing for desired changes: the Progressive Era, the New Deal Era, and the Sixties Era.

She recalls the Occupy movement, something that I think was a failure. Its organizers never bothered to find alternatives to city-park campsites, and its participants dispersed. But AOC thinks that it was a success in showing what was going on about the economic elite. The next big election was 2016 with Bernie Sanders. But her chronology is a bit screwy, since there was a Presidential election in 2012, a year after the Occupy movement's activity in 2011. But Obama ran for re-election and no major Democrat challenged him, so it was only in 2016 that the Presidency became competitive for Democrats. Bernie Sanders ran then, and AOC campaigned for him. Some fellow campaigners for BS founded Brand New Congress and it was BNC that gave AOC her start in running for office.

She then says that we will need social revolution to produce a just economy. Stuff like strikes and not being afraid to organize in one's workplace.

Barack Obama, in his last year as president, said in an interview that he thought that the US's political institutions are under siege. AOC agreed with BO. Voter laws are "horrendous", the Senate is undemocratic in nature, weighting some people much more than others. Big money in politics, corporate personhood, media consolidation into a small number of companies. Corporate consolidation in general, moving away from democracy toward authoritarianism. Joe Biden? About him, she says that he may not move the country forward, but that he can stop the bleeding. AOC will vote for JB, though she does not endorse him, at least not yet.

The Senate has been around since the beginning, and I think that it was likely an effort to get the smaller states on board with the Constitution. But it has been hard to reform the Senate to (1) make it more representative, (2) weaken it, or (3) abolish it outright. I think that if the Democrats win both houses, that they should admit DC as a state. If the Republicans filibuster, then abolish or weaken the filibuster. Make them know what it's like for the thumb to be on the scale against them.

WATCH: The SQUAD makes impassioned speeches during debate over $484 billion COVID-19 relief package - YouTube - AOC, AP, RT, and IO

 

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Cancel Rent: A Conversation with Housing Justice For All | AOC LIVE - YouTube

Invisibilized Workers Rise Up with Special Guest Ro Khanna | AOC LIVE - YouTube - "Join Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Congressman Ro Khanna, and nail salon workers, street vendors, domestic workers, cab drivers, and other workers for an hour of storytelling on May Day."

Ayanna Pressley on Twitter: "It’s absolutely time to #CancelRent https://t.co/A6NHQJ7DIV" / Twitter

AOC likes art, and she shows it yet again by linking to AmapolayManufacturasAutonomas (@amapolay) • Instagram photos and videos - some graphic artist in Lima, Peru.

No somos heroes.
Somos trabajadorxs.
No necesitamos aplausos. Exijimos derechos!
We are not heroes.
We are workers.
We don't need applause. We demand rights!

Cuando no queden rios
Será imposible lavarse las manos
When there are no rivers
It will be impossible to wash one's hands

La desigualdad es la pandemia
Inequality is the pandemic

 

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Ocasio 2020: Vote June 23rd -- COVID-19 Resources

Mutual Aid 101: Toolkit

Tandem NYC (@tandem.nyc) • Instagram photos and videos - Communication Design - has some of the artwork that it designed for AOC and others - also Tandem - HOME — Tandem NYC


Her main opponents:

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera | Democratic Candidate for US Congress NY14 - still only running against AOC without stating her platform

KHAN FOR CONGRESS – Democratic Candidate New York District 14 - Badrun Khan states her platform in her campaign page - she's a sort of AOC Lite

 

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AOC proposes expanding disaster aid for coronavirus pandemic - allowing FEMA to give aid to pandemic victims as well as to other disaster victims.

“Nearly 20,000 people in my district have tested positive for a deadly virus. Thousands of my constituents are without work. We built temporary field hospitals in public parks. This is what a disaster looks like. FEMA needs to begin immediately dispersing aid to individuals hurt by COVID-19,” she said.

Has a picture of AOC pulling a wagonful of aid deliveries and another picture of her standing next to another wagonful.

For A.O.C., ‘Existential Crises’ as Her District Becomes the Coronavirus Epicenter - The New York Times - has a picture of AOC wearing the dress that she wore when she attacked the most recent aid bill as woefully inadequate.

“I’ll be on calls with service workers, front-line workers, and they’re the ones who have to pull bodies out of apartments,” she said, sitting in her empty and freezing campaign headquarters in the Bronx on a recent afternoon, surrounded by bags of donated food she was preparing to deliver to families in her district. The usually crowded streets were quiet, except for a steady assault of rain and sirens.

“There’s just so much first-, second- and third-degree trauma here,” she said.

Then on the vote for the fourth aid bill.

Several colleagues had told her they also disliked the legislation, but it was not until right before the vote that she realized she would be by herself. Passage was never in doubt, but to be the lone member of a caucus to vote a certain way carries its own stigma.

“Our brains are just designed to experience a lot of excruciating pain at the idea of being alone,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “When you cast those lonely votes, you feel like your colleagues respect you less, and that you are choosing to marginalize yourself.” It can be difficult to appreciate the “powerful psychology of the House floor,” she said, along with the overall social pressures of Congress.

“I walked home in the rain,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, describing her mood after the bill passed. “I was very in my feelings, big time, and I felt very discouraged.” She said she would have appreciated, at least, a heads-up from the colleagues who had said they were probably no votes but then flipped at the last minute.

“I was just, like, heartbroken,” she said.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s colleagues are, for the most part, farther removed from the virus’s daily toll, which has only heightened the alienation she felt when she arrived on Capitol Hill last year. “I have, like, existential crises over it,” she said.

Poor her

Even well before this virus disaster,

“I felt like my colleagues were making opinions about me based on Fox News,” she said. “It almost felt like instead of them actually talking to the person who was next to them, and physically present in front of them, they were consuming me through television. And I think that added a lot to the particular loneliness that I experienced.”

...
She believed misconceptions had taken hold about her: that she was angry and strident. That she was naïve. “That I just don’t know how this town works,” she said. “That I’m stupid. Or I’m lucky. That was a big thing the Democrats were saying. That I was a fluke. Which is basically just 10 different ways of saying she’s not supposed to be here.”

Thomas Friedman proposed her being the US's ambassador to the UN, with its headquarters in New York City. “That was the one perk of this. I would get to stay home.”

 

[lpetrich]

AOC Challenger Left CNBC to Join Life Settlement Company

Before Michelle Caruso-Cabrera launched a conservative primary challenge against Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, she was on the board of directors of GWG Holdings, a life settlement company that makes money off life insurance policies purchased primarily from seniors, the terminally ill, and those unable to afford it for less than face value, turning a profit when the beneficiary dies.

In September 2018, Caruso-Cabrera left her full-time position as an anchor at CNBC to join the board of directors at Beneficient Group, a Dallas-based company that lends money to ultrawealthy Americans who need it fast by turning nonliquid assets into cash. Beneficient is funded by GWG Holdings, a Minneapolis-based life insurance investor that poured nearly $1 billion into the company in a 2018 transaction.

Her on that board of directors:
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1522690/000121390019006447/sc14f10419_gwgholdings.htm - April 16, 2019

Her resigning to run for office:
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1522690/000121390020004936/f8k022120_gwgholdingsinc.htm - February 21, 2020

She has positioned herself as a moderate, pro-business Democrat in the race, accusing Ocasio-Cortez of being “out of touch” with her constituents and not actually being working class. Caruso-Cabrera, who lived in a high-priced apartment in Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan for years, told Business Insider that Ocasio-Cortez “doesn’t know what it takes to put food on the table and to put a roof over the head of a family.”

Except that AOC had exactly that experience.

The business that MCC was involved in:

If a life-settlement company likes its odds of turning a profit, it will buy the policy, paying out more than the policy’s cash value — the amount received if the policy were canceled — but less than the face value, or death benefit. The firm acquires the policy and continues paying the premiums. Then the company (or a big investor who buys bundles of policies) collects when the seller dies. It’s something like a reverse mortgage, but on your life instead of your house.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC joins Masks For America's COVID19 PPE relief to help frontline essential workers in NYC - YouTube - by getting masks and other protective equipment. AOC spoke in it while wearing a mask.

Hungry Monk NYC on Twitter: "Thanks again to @AOC for all the fundraising help for us and many other vital relief organizations. Please donate here: (link)" / Twitter

This was in her campaign center, the
¡AOC!
Organizing
Base

There were numerous dark green tote bags with food donations in them, each one with AOC's campaign logo on it:
Alexandria
¡Ocasio!
Cortez