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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on Instagram: “Thanks to the tireless work of advocates who brought the movement to the halls of Congress, today, we joined @RepCori and @SenWarren in introducing the Keeping Renters Safe Act. This bill would give the Department of Health and Human Services the power to enact a new federal eviction moratorium.

The pandemic hasn’t ended. COVID-19 continues to spread. The last thing we should be doing is evicting renters from their homes.

Housing is a human right.”
With some fellow Congresspeople and activists.

NICE on Instagram: “Our Rep @aoc met with NICE members and essential immigrant workers, from day laborers, domestic workers, and food workers to express her commitment to a path to citizenship. THANK YOU @repaoc for always having our backs! Your courage fuels us to continue to fight ✊🏾✨
#immigrationreformnow #immigrationreform #welcomebackcongress #wearehome #freedomtogether #NY14 #Queens #ImmigrantPower #ImmigrantWorkers”
More activists.

Francis Chung on Instagram: “Photo 1: Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with Miami activist and evictee Vivian Smith during a press conference this afternoon at which Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to enact a nationwide eviction moratorium in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Supreme Court last month struck down the Biden administration's previous extension of the federal eviction ban. Photo 2: Rep. Bush speaks, flanked by other lawmakers supporting the bill. Photo 3: Vivian Smith with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. Photo 4: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Photo 5: Rep. Bush greets Rep. Ocasio-Cortez while Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) looks on. Photo 6: Rep. Pressley. Photo 7: Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Photo 8: Rep. Omar. Photo 9: Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.). Photo 10: Sen. Warren with Reps. Bush, Ocasio-Cortez, and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).”
 
Walter Shaub on Twitter: "Members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to buy and sell stocks." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It is absolutely wild that members of Congress are still allowed to buy and sell individual stock. It shouldn’t be legal.

We’ve introduced legislation to end the practice, but as one can imagine it’s a very uphill battle to pass.

This shouldn’t even be controversial though!" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Anyways shout out to @JoeNeguse and @CongressmanRaja as we continue plugging away at the Ban Conflicted Trading Act 📈💰" / Twitter
Joe Neguse of CO and Raja Krishnamoorthi of IL

AOC not only talks the talk about opposition to corporate funding, she walks the walk, with small-dollar donations.

David Freedlander on Twitter: "What is fascinating about this is that in 2020 @aoc reoriented the workings of her district office for a massive, massive census push, relying on the network of activists and organizers who campaigned for her to knock on doors.

Looks like it worked" / Twitter

1. Queens, NY +8%, 2. Brooklyn, NY +8%, 3. Honolulu, HI +5%, 4. Bronx, NY +5%, 5. Manhattan, NY +5%, 6. Westchester, NY +4%, 7. Suffolk, NY +4%, 8. Nassau, NY +3%, 9. Cook, IL +3%, 10. Allegheny, PA +3%

Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan are 4 of NYC's 5 boroughs, the remaining one being Staten Island, Westchester is neighboring upstate New York, and Suffolk and Nassau are Long Island.

Though New York lost a seat, it looks like the loss was a result of population losses, or at least relative losses, in upstate NY.
 
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "THANK YOU ..." / Twitter
THANK YOU to all the organizers and advocates across the city who worked tirelessly on our Census efforts last year.

On top of official efforts, @TeamAOC dedicated an addtl $3M+ to Census organizing in our community.

It worked! The Bronx & Queens were top performers nationally.

Here’s an example of some of that work - pretty much everyone in this video is a local community organizer who put in a TON of work in getting their communities accurately counted. Major shout out to @JulieMenin & the NYC census team who did a stellar job!
Click to expand...
Yet more evidence that AOC is an activist at heart.
 
lpetrich said:
David Freedlander on Twitter: "What is fascinating about this is that in 2020 @aoc reoriented the workings of her district office for a massive, massive census push, relying on the network of activists and organizers who campaigned for her to knock on doors.
Looks like it worked" / Twitter
Click to expand...

Interesting. New York was almost certain to lose at least one seat in the 2020 census, but some predictions called for it to lose TWO. Were AOC's efforts decisive?

Here's a list of all the states whose number of seats changed after the 2020 census, OR for which a change was predicted: (states with no parenthetical or omitted altogether followed predictions)
Alabama 0 (-1 predicted)
Arizona 0 (+1 predicted)
California -1
Colorado +1
Florida +1 (+2 predicted)
Illinois -1
Michigan -1
Minnesota 0 (-1 predicted)
Montana +1
New York -1 (-2 predicted by some)
North Carolina +1 (0 predicted)
Ohio -1
Oregon +1
Pennsylvania -1
Texas +2 (+3 predicted)
West Virginia -1

Texas, Florida and Arizona each gained one fewer seat than expected. Each of these has a high Hispanic population, and the QOP was pushing to use ICE threats to intimidate Hispanics from filling out census forms. Was there a causal relationship here?

PS: I wanted to indent the list. Is there an option for that?
 
Swammerdami said:
lpetrich said:
David Freedlander on Twitter: "What is fascinating about this is that in 2020 @aoc reoriented the workings of her district office for a massive, massive census push, relying on the network of activists and organizers who campaigned for her to knock on doors.
Looks like it worked" / Twitter
Click to expand...

Interesting. New York was almost certain to lose at least one seat in the 2020 census, but some predictions called for it to lose TWO. Were AOC's efforts decisive?

New York -1 (-2 predicted by some)
...
Click to expand...
Since I already had software to implement the Hamilton-Hill apportionment algorithm, I decided to check this. I find that the pre-Census population estimates for New York were way off. Instead of almost losing 2 seats, New York almost lost ZERO!

If New York had counted just 3056 more people (with the other 49 state populations unchanged) New York would NOT have lost a seat at all! (The extra seat would have been taken at the expense of Minnesota.)
 
Congress wakes up to its staff retention problems after Covid, bomb threats and riots - POLITICO - "While lawmakers raise the cap on employee salaries and try to increase office budgets, some staffers say this year's strain on their mental health may still push them to leave."
Lawmakers have attempted to reverse the brain drain caused by top aides leaving, raising an existing salary cap on staff, proposing increases to office budgets and examining benefits. But it's not clear whether the promise of future pay bumps can counteract the strain of working long hours in an environment where they’ve experienced an insurrection, a five-hour standoff over a bomb threat and a vehicle attack in less than a year.

“I have friends doing really valuable work, doing good for the world, and they have pretty regular hours. And they don’t think about dying at work, or what they would do if something happened,” said one House aide, who spoke candidly about workplace morale on condition of anonymity.

...
Part of the credit, beyond leadership, lies with Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.), chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Kilmer, whose panel made the recommendation to increase the salary cap, has worked to reach bipartisan consensus on workplace improvements in an otherwise bitterly divided Capitol.

“There's a recognition that the massive turnover within Congress erodes the ability of Congress to solve difficult problems,” he said in an interview.
Click to expand...
Then,
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) made waves on the Hill in 2019 by setting her staff pay floor at $52,000 annually, an amount that was unheard of for entry-level aides in other members’ offices. Despite making headlines for her policy and having a lower-than-average staff turnover rate, Ocasio-Cortez said colleagues haven’t reached out to her about how to implement something similar in their offices.

“I don't really think any have asked me about how we've been able to accomplish this, which is a little disappointing,” she said in an interview. “Our pay, it's not just about attracting talent, but at the junior level. When someone doesn't have to work a second job they can bring all of their potential and energy and focus into this one.”

Marveling that some of her fellow lawmakers "were honestly pushing back against" a recent move to increase their own office budgets, she added: “What do they think $35,000 gets you in terms of life in Washington?”
Click to expand...
AOC gets not only less turnover, but also higher-quality work. What more can one want?
 
Swammerdami said:
PS: I wanted to indent the list. Is there an option for that?
Click to expand...
There are some BBCodes for that: (list) starts one, (*) starts a list entry, and (/list) ends one. One can nest a list in a list, and one can create numbered lists with (list=1). In WYSIWYG mode, click on at the three vertical dots to the right of (W) (PRE). There are some other vertical-dot triplets that you can click on for additional formatting options.
 
lpetrich said:
Congress wakes up to its staff retention problems after Covid, bomb threats and riots - POLITICO - "While lawmakers raise the cap on employee salaries and try to increase office budgets, some staffers say this year's strain on their mental health may still push them to leave."
Lawmakers have attempted to reverse the brain drain caused by top aides leaving, raising an existing salary cap on staff, proposing increases to office budgets and examining benefits. But it's not clear whether the promise of future pay bumps can counteract the strain of working long hours in an environment where they’ve experienced an insurrection, a five-hour standoff over a bomb threat and a vehicle attack in less than a year.

“I have friends doing really valuable work, doing good for the world, and they have pretty regular hours. And they don’t think about dying at work, or what they would do if something happened,” said one House aide, who spoke candidly about workplace morale on condition of anonymity.

...
Part of the credit, beyond leadership, lies with Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.), chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Kilmer, whose panel made the recommendation to increase the salary cap, has worked to reach bipartisan consensus on workplace improvements in an otherwise bitterly divided Capitol.

“There's a recognition that the massive turnover within Congress erodes the ability of Congress to solve difficult problems,” he said in an interview.
Click to expand...
Then,
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) made waves on the Hill in 2019 by setting her staff pay floor at $52,000 annually, an amount that was unheard of for entry-level aides in other members’ offices. Despite making headlines for her policy and having a lower-than-average staff turnover rate, Ocasio-Cortez said colleagues haven’t reached out to her about how to implement something similar in their offices.

“I don't really think any have asked me about how we've been able to accomplish this, which is a little disappointing,” she said in an interview. “Our pay, it's not just about attracting talent, but at the junior level. When someone doesn't have to work a second job they can bring all of their potential and energy and focus into this one.”

Marveling that some of her fellow lawmakers "were honestly pushing back against" a recent move to increase their own office budgets, she added: “What do they think $35,000 gets you in terms of life in Washington?”
Click to expand...
AOC gets not only less turnover, but also higher-quality work. What more can one want?
Click to expand...

Political pragmatism? She is doing her best to help the GOP regain the majority.
 
(about AOC's Congressional office staff...)
Jimmy Higgins said:
lpetrich said:
... AOC gets not only less turnover, but also higher-quality work. What more can one want?
Click to expand...
Political pragmatism? She is doing her best to help the GOP regain the majority.
Click to expand...
In what way?

What would you prefer?

I've found Voteview | Search and I compare its ideology results to those in Members of the United States Congress - GovTrack.us
MemberGovTrackVV Dim 1VV Dim 2
AOC NY-140.09-0.231-0.971
A Pressley MA-070.05-0.308-0.951
R Tlaib MI-130.08-0.250-0.968
I Omar MN-050.10-0.284-0.959
P Jayapal WA-070.07-0.694-0.319
K Porter CA-450.24-0.185-0.069
R Khanna CA-170.14-0.568-0.288
B Lee CA-130.00-0.682-0.585
B Sanders VT0.00-0.531-0.397
E Warren MA0.21-0.757-0.300

VoteView assesses AOC as one of the most conservative Democrats (!) while her govtrack score seems more realistic.

I'll have to download all the GT and VV data to see how they compare.
 
AOC has yet to endorse any candidate for Congress for 2024, but she did endorse a lot of candidates for NYC's City Council. Let's see how they did in the general election.
How well did AOC's candidates do?
Courage to Change Pledge Candidates: NYC Council - Courage to Change

Ordering is from order of dropping out, with 1 being the winner and 2 being the last dropout.
  • Manhattan: #3: 2, 7 - #5: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - #6: 3, 4 - #7: 2, 6 - #9: 1, 8 W - #10: 1, 2, 3 W
  • Bronx: #11: 2 - #13: 1 W - #14: 1, 3 W - #18: 1, 3 W
  • Queens: #20: 3 - #21: 2 - #22: 1, 2 W - #23: 2 - #24: 2 - #25: 1, 3 W - #26: 1, 2, 3, 4, (7), 8, 9, 12 W - #29: 2 - #30: 2 - #32: 1 L
  • Brooklyn: #33: 1, 2, 3, 5 W - #34: 1 W - #35: 1 2 W - #36: 1 W - #37: 1 W - #38: 1, 3, 3 W - #39: 3, 5 - #40: 1 W - #42: 3 - #45: 2
  • Staten Island: #49: 5
Badrun Khan, who ran against AOC in 2020, placed 7th in #26. Her vote fraction was initially 5.8% and finally 8.0%. There were 15 candidates in that race.

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, AOC's biggest opponent back then, ran for City Comptroller, and placed 3rd, with her vote fraction going from 13.5% to 22.2%.

AOC's candidates ran in 31 districts, won primaries in 16 of them, and won general elections in 15 of them. When none of her candidates won, the highest one placed second 10 times and third 4 times. Her Staten Island candidate was the only one who placed worse, at fifth.
 
Ted Lieu on Twitter: "This is sick behavior from Rep. Paul Gosar. He tweeted out the video showing him killing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez from both his official account and personal account. In any workplace in America, if a coworker made an anime video killing another coworker, that person would be fired. (pic link)" / Twitter
That video is now gone.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "So while I was en route to Glasgow, ..." / Twitter
So while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me

And he’ll face no consequences bc @GOPLeader cheers him on with excuses.

Fun Monday! Well, back to work bc institutions don’t protect woc

Remember when Yoho accosted me on the the Capitol and called me a f—ing b—

Remember when Greene ran after me a few months ago screaming and reaching

Remember when she stalked my office the 1st time w/ insurrectionists & ppl locked inside

All at my job 🙃 &nothing ever happens

Anyways, back to business 👩🏽‍💼

This dude is a just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway.

White supremacy is for extremely fragile people &sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself
Click to expand...
 
Cori Bush on Twitter: "Every day these white supremacists push the limits further and further to see how far they can go without consequences.

This puts lives in danger. Enough with the violent bigotry.

Expel this white supremacist clown 🤡" / Twitter
noting
The Washington Post on Twitter: "Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted a photoshopped, animated video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and swinging two swords at President Biden, prompting condemnation and calls for his Twitter account to be suspended. (link)" / Twitter
noting
Rep. Paul Gosar tweets altered anime video showing him killing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden - The Washington Post

“Any anime fans out there?” he asked.
The 90-second clip appears to be an altered version of the opening credits of the Japanese animated series “Attack on Titan.” The show revolves around a hero who sets out to destroy the Titans, giant creatures that have devoured nearly all of human civilization. In recent years, Internet users have turned the show’s opening credits into a popular meme.

...
In the video Gosar posted, the congressman is depicted fighting the Titans alongside Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.). In one scene, Ocasio-Cortez’s face is edited over one of the Titans’ faces. Gosar flies into the air and slashes the Titan in the back of the neck, killing it.

n another scene, Gosar swings two swords at a foe whose face has been replaced by that of Biden.

The animated scenes of the video are interspersed with real-life footage of Border Patrol officers, some standing shoulder-to-shoulder and others on horseback rounding up migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In one scene, footage of migrants crossing the Rio Grande is overlaid with what appears to be splattered blood. In another, the words “drugs,” “crime,” “poverty,” “money,” “murder,” “gangs,” “violence” and “trafficking” flash across the screen. The video also features shots of Gosar, the Capitol and migrant caravans.
Click to expand...
That video:
Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS on Twitter: "Any anime fans out there? (vid link)" / Twitter

Rep. Eric Swalwell on Twitter: "Happy Monday in America, where @GOPLeader McCarthy’s colleague just posted a video of himself swinging two swords at President Biden. These blood thirsty losers are more comfortable with violence than voting. Keep exposing them. (link)" / Twitter
 
Rep. Paul Gosar's digital director, Jessica Lycos:
“We made an anime video,” she said. “Everyone needs to relax. The left doesn’t get meme culture. They have no joy. They are not the future. It’s a cartoon. Gosar can’t fly and he does not own any light sabers. Nor was violence glorified. This is about fighting for truth.”
Click to expand...
 
lpetrich said:
Rep. Paul Gosar's digital director, Jessica Lycos:
“We made an anime video,” she said. “Everyone needs to relax. The left doesn’t get meme culture. They have no joy. They are not the future. It’s a cartoon. Gosar can’t fly and he does not own any light sabers. Nor was violence glorified. This is about fighting for truth.”
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
No Jessica. It’s about constantly reinforcing the negative character traits of your constituents in the interest of party cohesion.
 
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Die wire, Die wire ....
 
ZiprHead said:
Almost all of his family have denounced him as a white supremacist nut bag.
Click to expand...

This seems like good evidence of the huge transformation that social media (and cable TV) has inflicted on our politics.

In the olden days, political support built slowly: first from one's family, then neighbors, the citizens of a town, and so on. Abe Lincoln was highly respected by friends and family; that's what propelled him eventually to the Legislature.

Compare that with post-rational America, where the people who know you best might despise you, but it doesn't matter if you tweet the right memes, and spout the right lies when interviewed by Tucker Carlson.
 
Swammerdami said:
Compare that with post-rational America, where the people who know you best might despise you, but it doesn't matter if you tweet the right memes, and spout the right lies when interviewed by Tucker Carlson.
Click to expand...
Ah. So it is your contention that right-leaning politicians are generally despised by those people that know them?
 
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