Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[lpetrich]

Ocasio-Cortez knows well the power of personal testimony. She’s become the most talented political communicator of her generation by being frank and relatable—using her social media channels, for example, to explain policy in one moment and then share her struggles building Ikea furniture the next.

Then about her revealing that she had been sexually assaulted and that the Jan. 6 insurrection made her fear that the attackers would gang-rape her.

“I could not talk about that day without disclosing it, because it was such a central part of my experience,” ... “I felt like I could not really adequately communicate what that experience was without giving people the context of what I had lived through and what was being echoed, because so much of it was about resonance and fear of a thing that was not theoretical but a fear of a thing that I had experienced.”

Challenging her this November in the NY-14 general election is Tina Forte, a Trumpie and MAGA supporter who was one of the attackers in the Jan. 6 insurrection, someone much like MTG. In the Republican primary, she defeated Desi Cuellar, a more typical sort of conservative.

“One major trauma that a lot of survivors of assault deal with is a struggle with being believed,” she told me, adding, “There are aspects of it that I may never share because of the trauma of having that experience litigated in public.”

Nevertheless, there was value, she felt, in sharing what she had endured. “It was someone that I was dating that I was not sexually active with, who forced themselves upon me,” she told me. When she later confronted him, the conversation did not go well. “The insistence on a denial of what happened that very, very clearly happened is also a through line with other women’s experiences, friends that I’ve had, or just a pretending that what very clearly happened, did not happen,” she said. “That, too, is also an assertion of power, and so this assertion of power and dominance over others is not limited to the actual physical fact, but how things are treated afterwards.”

Eventually she confided in two of her colleagues at the restaurant and learned that her experience had not been unique. “It was like everyone had been sexually assaulted that I had worked with,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez never reported her assault, a choice she knows is familiar for many women and one she said she’d make the same way today. “If the vast majority of sexual assaults happen by a familiar person, the last thing you’re going to want to do is throw someone in jail,” she said. “There is an intersection with the work of abolition and healing and contending with the fact that we as people are capable of doing harm, but we are also capable of healing from harm.”

Part of that healing, though, is the acknowledgment and accountability that she was denied. “Whatever the given circumstances of a situation, if a person is hurt or harmed it’s important to hold space for it, and it’s very, very, very difficult to hold space for a hurt person when you are the one they are saying hurt them,” she replied when I asked how she’d advise a man in her life to respond were he confronted with an allegation of assault. “A lot of these people are not having these conversations with a pitchfork. These are people that very often are trying to heal, and they’re saying, ‘Did what happened, happen?’ It’s not How do we punish? but How do we process, and how do we heal, and how do we change?”

Feminists have long grumbled about how rape victims are often not taken very seriously in criminal-justice systems, and a good part of the problem is that many rapists don't seem like Real Criminals. The one unbeatable trait of the aspiring mass killer noticed that many serial killers had gotten away with lesser criminality because they had not seemed like Real Criminals to justice systems.

AOC didn't seem to address the issue of how to stop rapists from raping. She was more concerned about helping rape victims recover from what they'd suffered from, a concern that can apply more broadly to crime victims. She seemed to be saying that retribution against criminals is not enough, even very harsh retribution.

 

[lpetrich]

“My sexual assault was a pivotal event in the trajectory that led me to run for office,” she told me. “I can say that in retrospect, but obviously I didn’t know that at the time.”

Then her getting into politics.

“I didn’t grow up in an explicitly ideological household,” she said of her upbringing. “I grew up in a household that was very conscientious of the world, and cared about what was going on, and paid attention, and my parents voted, but we weren’t like, ‘We’re left,’ or ‘We’re right,’ or whatever that is. I grew up in a very socially conservative and very deeply religious household with very prescriptive messages about women. And it’s not even sometimes that they’re just handed down from your parents, but just from the culture that you live in. My experience with assault forced me to confront all of these things that I was taught about my self-worth as a woman.”

She was a Bernie Sanders campaigner who was supported by some other Bernie Sanders campaigners, and according to a book written by one of his aides, BS himself reacted “Holy shit! Can you get me her number?”

Nancy Pelosi, however, “sounded distraught” at the downfall of her long-time colleague Joe Crowley, according to Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer’s book "The Hill to Die On".

After a digression on whether she feels powerful, the article continued with how some fellow Democrats reacted. “It was open hostility, open hostility to my presence, my existence,” she recalled. She had unseated Joe Crowley, a big player in the party, and many fellow Democrats felt sore at losing an old friend.

Each newly elected Democrat was presented to their colleagues with music and a stadium-style introduction. “From the first district of this state and that state,” the congresswoman said, mimicking a booming announcer’s voice. “It would just be like these huge claps and whatnot. And then it came to me. And it was very clear that the reception was not the same, just a smattering of applause.”

At one point when Crowley was onstage, Ocasio-Cortez recalled that an older male member of Congress sat down next to her, gestured up at Crowley, and, apparently not aware of who he was talking to, said, It’s a real shame that that girl won. “I turned and I said, ‘You know that’s me, right?’ ” she recalled. “And obviously, his face turns pale.”

 

[lpetrich]

Then about writing the Green New Deal with MA Senator Ed Markey.

Markey was instantly impressed. “It was clear to me that her knowledge was matched only by her clarity of purpose,” Markey told me. “We needed a movement. She was the generational leader to spark a revolution that would change the political dynamic of how climate change was viewed in Washington.”

... They would deploy an inside-outside strategy—using protests and activists to force the Democratic leadership to push climate to the top of the priorities list.

Days after her election, the congresswoman had joined a climate protest outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Now, on the day Ocasio-Cortez and Markey introduced their Green New Deal, Pelosi seemingly decided to remind the young congresswoman of her place. “The green dream, or whatever they call it,” she quipped, dismissing the plan. “Nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

As to AOC vs. NP squabbles, AOC thinks that it's a case of trying to pit successful women against each other. Though it may simply be a taste for political soap opera.

 

[lpetrich]

As we discussed generational splits across movements—specifically the now geriatric women and Black officials who, decades after being elected as historic firsts, can’t seem to stop throwing themselves in front of television cameras to undermine the aims of the younger activists attempting to ascend behind them—Ocasio-Cortez recalled the story of women’s suffrage, as depicted in Suffs, a play she’d seen recently. The movement was rife with tension between more seasoned suffragists who advocated a state-by-state strategy and younger activists uninterested in moving so slowly. “The 19th Amendment was passed by that younger guard,” Ocasio-Cortez noted. “It wasn’t out of defiance of the older guard, but it was in incorporation of those gains in an attempt to accelerate them.”

“This generational tension has existed among virtually every single social movement in American history, in labor, in suffrage, in civil rights, in marriage equality,” the congresswoman said. “And it is a tension between history and the present moment. It’s a tension between inside and outside. It’s a tension between what we can learn and what we don’t know. Any sort of criticism of the Democratic Party is immediately cast as helping the right or ‘You’re disrespectful’ or ‘Don’t you know everything that these people have done?’ And we do, but we are also allowed to learn from the outcomes of those victories and the unique dynamics of the present moment, to also say that we have to change tack and we can’t just do the same thing for 30 years.”

Then about being an activist in Congress, like she and Rashida Tlaib pushing for more COVID-relief stimulus than the Democratic leadership wanted - a leadership that was shamed into going along with Trump also proposing more.

“I feel like everybody treated me like a one-term member of Congress, and they worked to make me a one-term member of Congress.” Ocasio-Cortez said. “There was a very concerted effort from the Democratic side to unseat me. And I felt a shift after my primary election, and it felt like after that election was the first time that more broadly the party started treating me like a member of Congress and not an accident.

That would have to be Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (MCC), because of all the funding that she got. But AOC beat MCC by a big margin. This year, she had no Democratic challengers.

Once she’d been reelected, the congresswoman began enjoying the fruits of her labor in Washington. Biden named her co-chair of his climate task force, along with John Kerry. Both Kerry, whom Biden would ultimately name his climate czar, and another White House official described her as a solutions-oriented team player. In just two years, she’d gone from a sit-in at the House Speaker’s office to charting the climate blueprint for a Democratic Party that now controlled both the White House and Congress.

AOC spoke of a “bittersweet moment” when Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer visited her district last year and made speeches that seemed very Green-New-Deal-y.

 

[lpetrich]

Then about the 2024 Presidential race and who might become the progressive movement's standardbearer after Bernie Sanders. One progressive-official adviser said that AOC seems “destined to inherit the leadership of the movement.” About other such advisers and staffers, "Yet they all agree, when granted the ability to speak freely, that there is something special about the congresswoman."

John Kerry wouldn't speculate on AOC's future, but he suspected that someone like her may eventually be elected President.

“In America, anybody can grow up to be president,” Kerry told me. “I do believe that.”

Ocasio-Cortez used to believe that too. Then she became a congresswoman.

“Sometimes little girls will say, ‘Oh, I want you to be president,’ or things like that,” she told me when I asked about whether she believed that she or someone like her could ever lead our country. “It’s very difficult for me to talk about because it provokes a lot of inner conflict in that I never want to tell a little girl what she can’t do. And I don’t want to tell young people what is not possible. I’ve never been in the business of doing that. But at the same time…”

AOC, usually fast and confident, slowed down, looked downward, then got tears in her eyes.

“I hold two contradictory things [in mind] at the same time. One is just the relentless belief that anything is possible,” she said. “But at the same time, my experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color. People ask me questions about the future. And realistically, I can’t even tell you if I’m going to be alive in September. And that weighs very heavily on me. And it’s not just the right wing. Misogyny transcends political ideology: left, right, center. This grip of patriarchy affects all of us, not just women; men, as I mentioned before, but also, ideologically, there’s an extraordinary lack of self-awareness in so many places. And so those are two very conflicting things. I admit to sometimes believing that I live in a country that would never let that happen.”

Not really a contradiction when one recognizes that some things are possible but difficult.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Then about the 2024 Presidential race and who might become the progressive movement's standardbearer after Bernie Sanders. One progressive-official adviser said that AOC seems “destined to inherit the leadership of the movement.” About other such advisers and staffers, "Yet they all agree, when granted the ability to speak freely, that there is something special about the congresswoman."

John Kerry wouldn't speculate on AOC's future, but he suspected that someone like her may eventually be elected President.

“In America, anybody can grow up to be president,” Kerry told me. “I do believe that.”

Ocasio-Cortez used to believe that too. Then she became a congresswoman.

“Sometimes little girls will say, ‘Oh, I want you to be president,’ or things like that,” she told me when I asked about whether she believed that she or someone like her could ever lead our country. “It’s very difficult for me to talk about because it provokes a lot of inner conflict in that I never want to tell a little girl what she can’t do. And I don’t want to tell young people what is not possible. I’ve never been in the business of doing that. But at the same time…”

AOC, usually fast and confident, slowed down, looked downward, then got tears in her eyes.

“I hold two contradictory things [in mind] at the same time. One is just the relentless belief that anything is possible,” she said. “But at the same time, my experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color. People ask me questions about the future. And realistically, I can’t even tell you if I’m going to be alive in September. And that weighs very heavily on me. And it’s not just the right wing. Misogyny transcends political ideology: left, right, center. This grip of patriarchy affects all of us, not just women; men, as I mentioned before, but also, ideologically, there’s an extraordinary lack of self-awareness in so many places. And so those are two very conflicting things. I admit to sometimes believing that I live in a country that would never let that happen.”

Not really a contradiction when one recognizes that some things are possible but difficult.

There is no doubt that she is wicked smart and charismatic. However, unless she moderates a little, I don't think that she's a strong enough coalition builder to be elected to a country wide position. I think that she'd have a hard time winning in some more moderate democratic districts.

 

[lpetrich]

There would be other impediments—obstacles about which Ocasio-Cortez is practical, if not exactly optimistic. “Could Obama have gotten elected without the kind of financial support that he had?” she asked, noting that her opposition to Wall Street would be a major hurdle to any further rise. “I don’t know.” Even were she theoretically to become president, then what? She’d face a system—from the Senate to the Supreme Court—both empowered and inclined to thwart her most sweeping ambitions. “There are still plenty of limitations,” she said, playing out the hypothetical. “It’s tough, it’s really tough.”

In the spring of 2016, as Bernie Sanders's campaign was winding down, some of his campaigners considered what next. They noticed how successful a Republican Congress was at obstructing President Obama, and they decided that it was not enough to elect a good President. One also has to elect a good Congress. So they started a PAC for supporting progressive Congresspeople: Brand New Congress.

It was that PAC which recruited AOC to run for office.

More broadly, research by Steven Fish and others has revealed a positive correlation between strength of legislature and strength of democracy. Furthermore, top scorers in democracy ratings are almost all parliamentary systems, where the legislature runs the executive branch.

So it's all the more reason to improve Congress.

But so, too, is the current gig—serving in an institution loaded with structural and dispositional limitations. “Congress does not move first, it does not move early, it moves last. That is why we have never codified the right to bodily autonomy. It’s why we have never legislatively codified same-sex marriage or marriage equality, and a whole bunch of other things, contraception, none of that. Because it’s easier to just let the courts do it,” she said. “We’re going to need robust mass movements that have already started. We’ve seen it in the labor movement, we’ve seen it in racial justice, and we’re going to need to continue to build that while also ensuring that we are staving off the very real threat of fascism in losing the House or Senate.”

I pointed out to her that she had just made an excellent argument for why she shouldn’t be in Congress at all and could possibly accomplish more elsewhere—in a different elected office, or as an outside movement leader. “I try to think about how I can be most effective and, honestly, to this point, I have not come up with an alternative that I have found more effective than what I’m doing at the present moment,” she told me. “But this is something that I routinely revisit.”

I'm sure that she's pragmatic enough to recognize that changing career gears in politics can be rather difficult. So the safest thing for her is to hold on to her House seat.

Her friends say that she is more introverted than what she often appears to be, and when she returns home each evening, she stays home. She also leans on the friends that she made before she got into politics.

“I work very hard at trying to cultivate a nonattachment to all of this,” she said. “I try to nurture nonattachment, so that—I think a lot of it is accepting that if all of this goes away tomorrow, I will not have an identity crisis [over the idea] that who I am to me is separate from the material trappings of this work.”

She met her partner, Riley Roberts, when they were both 19 and undergrads at Boston University. When they started dating later in their 20s, neither of them suspected what they’d eventually be swept up in. “For him to experience us dating when I was still working as a waitress and a bartender through now and seeing how the world responds [to me], I think has been a very eye-opening experience for him as well,” she said.

Then about her French bulldog Deco,

“I have very few dreams—like straight-up dreams—in my life,” she told me. “Since I was a child, I dreamed about having my very own dog.” When she spoke of Deco, she displayed more earnest excitement than at any other point in our conversations. “Dogs have a way of evening out the lows. It’s kind of like a hard floor, and I definitely felt like my lows would be lower before him.”

Then on her relationship with Riley Roberts.

A lot of men, she told me, only believe that they want to be with an independent, successful woman. “The moment you start being yourself, they kind of freak out,” she said. “I think it causes a conflict within them that they didn’t even anticipate. It’s not even a deception. It’s just, they uncover insecurities that they didn’t know were there.”

When she first ran for office, Ocasio-Cortez wondered if that was destined to become the story of herself and Riley. “In fact, the opposite happened,” she said. “He has been so supportive and willing and deeply engaging. He’s not a witness to this. He dives into the fray for himself in that he uses what we go through as opportunities for personal growth. And it’s incredible.”

She and RR got engaged in Puerto Rico in April. “I feel like I won the men lottery in my life,” she said about that. Other men also.

... the father who set the gold standard; the cousins she grew up with in the South Bronx, who overcame a lifetime’s worth of adversity and are now raising children of their own; and even her chief of staff, Gerardo Bonilla Chavez, who leads her team with grace. “It is the presence of good men that has shown me what kind of men are possible in this world,” she told me at the end of one of our conversations.

The author summed up one of AOC's beliefs as "The reality we wish for may be closer than we think." What AOC wants is a tall order, but isn it much more tall than abolition of slavery or universal voting rights?

The fight always seems less impossible, the congresswoman reminded me, once you realize that we’re not starting from scratch.

“The world that we’re fighting for is already here,” Ocasio-Cortez told me. “It may not be all here, it may not be the majority of what’s here, but it is undeniably here.”

She's stated elsewhere that she's a big believer in trying to create the sort of world that one believes in, even if on a small scale.

 

[Swammerdami]

Interesting headline from Independent, a prominent, largely respected U.K. news site:

[Headline]
How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez inadvertently sparked the New York attorney general’s Trump lawsuit

‘This investigation only started after Michael Cohen ... testified before Congress shed light on this misconduct,’ Letitia James says.

Letitia James is the Attorney General of New York who has recently filed charges against the T**** crime family.

Is it exaggeration to credit the investigation to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez? Perhaps. But I watched that hearing and it was notable how AOC used her minutes to ask specific useful questions while other Congressmen ran out their clock with inane soundbites, not even letting Cohen speak.

Derec and lpetrich are the other AOC admirers here. What do you guys think?

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Michael Cohen (C-SPAN) - YouTube - that famous video. Well worth watching. Especially the part where she asks him about Trump-property jumping valuations.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC Rival Tina Forte’s Family Was Caught in 2019 Drug and Gun Bust - "QAnon-boosting Republican Tina Forte is running against a crime wave her husband, son, and beverage distribution company are part of."

Noting Tina Forte on Facebook - 2022 Feb 10

AOC has failed New York and America.
Least Effective Member of Congress
Killed Thousands of Jobs
Crime Surge Creator
Lockdown and Mask Mandate Hypocrite
Border Crisis Enabler
Communist Sympathizer
Let’s Make AOC Bartend Again! #FireAOC #StopSocialism

Back to the article.

A Snopes investigation earlier this year revealed that Tina Forte has a long history of flirting with the political right’s violent fringes: posting photos on social media of herself with the leader of the Proud Boys gang, sharing QAnon-flavored slogans, and even participating in events around Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally that culminated in the bloody rampage through the U.S. Capitol. But as a candidate for Congress, Forte has cast herself as a more conventional Republican, playing up her small business-owning background and appealing to fears of increasing crime rates, which she has blamed on bail laws that New York State liberalized after the progressive wave four years ago.

Noting
Tina Forte – Stop Socialism
saying things like "AOC and her socialist allies have pushed for defunding our police and the
disastrous “bail reform” policies which have caused crime to skyrocket in New York." and "Tina and her husband started with a soda delivery route and went on to build their own beverage distribution company. Now, they’re not only creating jobs but empowering others to create their own businesses."

Also
AOC challenger calls out NYC's crime crisis, puts blame on defund the police and 'woke' prosecutors | Fox News - "Tina Forte argued rising crime is due to 'immunity' being lifted off of police officers, 'bail reform,' and 'woke' district attorneys"

I grew up here, I own a business here, I raised my family here. I see the difference. I see stores closing earlier than when they normally do. You have a grandma and grandpa who don’t come out for a cappuccino at night anymore. They don't want to come out or if they are out, they head home because it's getting dark. People are afraid to be out at night. Those are the things I am getting back from people as I meet with them.

 

[lpetrich]

Also, from
"AOC, bring it on": Tina Forte challenges her opponent to a debate | American Agenda - YouTube - Newsmax

“I’ve spoken to plenty of people in the district. I was born there, raised there, my family’s there, I have my businesses here: I know this district. And I know that the crime is out of control,” Forte said, slamming what she described as a pattern of absence and neglect on the part of the incumbent.

But will Tina Forte want toughness on her family's crimes?

But what Forte has failed to mention is that her family’s beverage distribution warehouse was at the center of a federal drug and gun bust in 2019—which culminated in guilty pleas by her husband and son, both of whom are serial offenders.

She says about their criminality,

“One of my three children, Joseph, made some very poor decisions. In 2019 at 25, he committed a nonviolent marijuana offense and possessed a firearm. Joseph paid the price, in fines, attorney fees, and time behind bars,” Forte wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast. “As for my husband, he was unaware of our son’s crimes. He was only roped into the charges because of my son utilizing our business location for a single delivery of marijuana.”

However, this characterization is at odds with the FBI agent’s account of the father and son’s activities, as they recounted the content of wiretapped calls and security footage from inside the beverage hub. In the criminal complaint, the agent described the son arranging the drop-off of $150,000 worth of marijuana over the phone at the same time cameras caught his father pacing directly behind him in the warehouse’s office.

The agent further cited tapes that captured Galdieri Sr. meeting with the co-conspirator who brought a truckload of weed to the distribution center, and handing him a black plastic bag full of cash.

She would likely agree with AOC on her departure from a strict law-and-order stance on marijuana.

Notably, one point on which Ms. Forte’s webpage relaxes its law-and-order stance is in calling for “expunging the records of non-violent charges for marijuana possession,” given that New York State legalized recreational cannabis use in 2021. However, the state still does not allow unlicensed sale of the drug, and Ms. Forte’s website does not speak to federal gun charges nor to violent offenses like her husband’s 2013 assault rap. Filings by her son’s lawyer state his prior felony conviction in New York involved controlled substances other than marijuana.

“This experience has given me insights to the reforms we desperately need, including decriminalization of marijuana, expungement of marijuana violations, and restoring rights for nonviolent offenders,” Forte wrote in her statement to The Daily Beast.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC has been known to use profanity, but she'd find it hard to compete with Tina Forte with her potty-mouthed rants in her car.

AOC's Trashy Opponent Posts The Most Bronx-Esque Car Rants - YouTube

Also showing a nearly-empty rally, and showing her getting an endorsement from Donald Trump.

The commentators snickered over her natural hair color of "mousy brown", but I searched, and it's a sort of medium brown, a common hair color.

 

[blastula]

Also showing a nearly-empty rally, and showing her getting an endorsement from Donald Trump.

That was an obvious Trump impersonator. The real Trump would never endorse someone from a crime family like that

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.
Break them up." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Ticketmaster monopoly got you down?
Take action with @MorePerfectUS " / Twitter
noting
More Perfect Union on Twitter: "@AOC @doctorow Tell the DOJ to break Ticketmaster up here: (link)" / Twitter
noting
Tell the Department of Justice to Investigate Ticketmaster

Live Nation-Ticketmaster owns more than 70 percent of the primary ticketing and live event venues market. They’ve routinely abused this market power to screw over concert-goers, sports fans, artists, venues, and other ticket companies. It’s time for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate their conduct and move to break them up.

When the DOJ allowed the merger in 2010, they claimed that it would promote “robust competition” to “benefit consumers”. Instead, consumers and industry professionals are facing:

• Increased ticket prices
• Rip-off junk fees that can equate to 75% of a ticket’s value
• Anticompetitive behavior that bullies independent venues and artists
• Ticket prices that can change once they’ve been added to a customer’s cart
• Limitations on buying only one ticket

Without competition in the industry, music lovers, sports fans, and event goers are completely at the mercy of this mega-corporation.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC Bashes Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger – Rolling Stone

In an interview with Rolling Stone, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains why she thinks Ticketmaster and Live Nation's merger should be unwound and pushes for caps on ticket fees and resale prices

LIVE NATION AND Ticketmaster are once again facing severe backlash from music fans, this time following the disastrous on-sale period for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras tour that left thousands of Swifties angry as Ticketmaster’s website glitched and crashed due to the overwhelming demand for tickets.

Customers lamented the same issues they’ve had for years with Ticketmaster, drawing in attention from politicians who are looking for answers. Last week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Live Nation entertainment CEO Michael Rapino voicing her antitrust concerns. Last Friday, news broke that the Department of Justice was investigating Live Nation, with the probe starting before Swift’s on-sale even started. Multiple live music sources tell Rolling Stone that federal investigators had contacted them in the past several weeks with general questions about antitrust concerns with Live Nation.

TM and LN's response?

In an extensive statement over the weekend, Live Nation said the concert promotion and secondary markets are extremely competitive, and that its dominance in the primary market is “because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system.” Live Nation also said it operates under a consent decree, adding there’s no evidence of “systeming violations” of that order. Further, it added that Ticketmaster doesn’t decide ticket prices for events.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC:

I was watching what was going on with the pre-release of Taylor Swift’s tickets. It came up on a more personal level; I actually have quite a few staff who were trying to get tickets that day. Between seeing their experience and seeing all the people online talking about it, I think it really showed how widespread the problem is and reflects the degree of market consolidation in this industry.

It builds upon the work I’ve been focusing on with the Select Committee for Economic Inequality. I’ve been focusing on monopoly power across markets. One of the things we’ve been increasingly seeing is that these price increases because of inflation and abuse of market power are due to market consolidation. It’s gotten so bad that we’re really seeing it affect our everyday lives, from how much we’re paying at grocery stores, to not being able to see our favorite artists without paying an arm and a leg.

Then she thought back to when the merger was approved in 2010, and how it marked out a division between the neoliberal order (Reaganism, Gilded Age II), and such social movements as Occupy Wall Street.

Between the prices and the fees, every single person who bought tickets for the last 10 years has seen how much worse this has been getting.

I’m supporting unwinding that merger. I don’t believe it should’ve been approved in the first place.

After hoping for a successful Department of Justice investigation,

The big thing is how do they justify service charges that make up anywhere between 20 to 100 percent of the ticket’s price? That is really difficult to defend.

We saw even prior to the merger, you have the history of objections toward Ticketmaster’s monopoly power, dating all the way back with Pearl Jam back in the mid-Nineties.

...
It’s getting to a point where if you want to see one of these large acts, there’s so little protection for everyday people that if you go into a secondary market, we are no longer in this realm of someone even charging double of what a ticket was. Tickets are going as high [tens of thousands of dollars] after what was supposed to be a presale operation designed for people who are actually going to be using the tickets that they purchase.

Seems like scalping taken to an extreme.

 

[lpetrich]

When Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged, they had a consent decree that they were supposed to be operating under. They almost immediately violated the consent decree so badly to the point that it was re-negotiated in 2019. The idea that we’re in accordance with the consent decree now,’ this is not the same consent decree as the original. I think there’s selective discussion there. This does not by any means feel like a competitive market.

...
Artists can certainly play a role here not just making decisions on their own or how they conduct their shows, but also impressing on major players in the industry to make it more equitable for artists and fans.

After mention scalpers coming in for high-demand tickets,

... To Taylor Swift’s credit, there was an attempt at having Verified Fan presales to combat some of those problems, but clearly it didn’t work in all circumstances.

And so, whether it is the government that comes into play here, whether it is artists that come into play here, there are absolutely rules and mechanisms that can be proposed that people can consider. For example, having a cap on resale value to try and set a limit for how much a ticket can be inflated on the secondary market.

"This is not our first monopoly that we’re trying to oppose this year. For instance, we’ve taken on the meat processing industry, soy etc."

But instead of a top four sharing most of the market, it's a top one: Ticketmaster.

Other industries have oligopolies; Live Nation is a true monopoly. And it’s affecting our culture if regular people can’t even see a live show for a major act in person anymore, and this just becomes a domain for the wealthy. I think that that’s also something to consider, because If you can’t even see your favorite artists without paying [the equivalent of] a down payment on a house or a car, it’s so antithetical to what music really is.

 

[lpetrich]

Ticketmaster’s Parent Company Said to Face Justice Department Investigation - The New York Times - "The inquiry predates the botched presale of Taylor Swift tickets this week and is said to focus on whether Live Nation has abused its power in the live music industry."

The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into the owner of Ticketmaster, whose sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets descended into chaos this week, said two people with knowledge of the matter. The investigation is focused on whether Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry.

That power has been in the spotlight after Ticketmaster’s systems crashed while Ms. Swift fans were trying to buy tickets in a presale for her tour, but the investigation predates the botched sale, the people said.

...
When the Justice Department approved the merger — over significant opposition from the music industry — it required the company to sell some parts of its business. It also reached a legal settlement with the company that forbade Live Nation to threaten concert venues with losing access to its tours if those venues decided to use ticketing providers other than Ticketmaster. Those terms were set to last for 10 years, until 2020.

In late 2019, after an investigation, the Justice Department found that Live Nation had repeatedly violated this provision of its decree. It extended the terms of the settlement by five years, to 2025, and adjusted some of the agreement’s language to clarify what the company was allowed to do when negotiating ticketing deals with venues.

 

[lpetrich]

Ocasio-Cortez Slams Ticketmaster Monopoly Amid Taylor Swift Ticket Frenzy | HuffPost Latest News

Anti-monopoly activists and critics of Ticketmaster say the company has unfairly come to control the lion’s share of the ticket-selling market, allowing it to operate a subpar website, charge high fees on top of base ticket prices and subject customers to “dynamic pricing” ― an algorithm that adjusts prices with consumer demand to such extremes that the cost of basic concert tickets can escalate to four or five figures.

A coalition of such activist groups, called Break Up Ticketmaster, also seized on the company’s struggles Tuesday to draw in new supporters, directing frustrated Swift fans to a petition asking the Department of Justice to launch an investigation. More than 12,800 people had signed it as of Tuesday afternoon.

Congress to Hold Hearing After Ticketmaster-Taylor Swift Fiasco - Variety

In the wake of the major problems surrounding Ticketmaster’s management of Taylor Swift tour ticket sales last week, a U.S. Senate antitrust panel will hold a hearing on the lack of competition in the industry, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) announced Tuesday. The hearing comes after reports of major service failures and delays on Ticketmaster’s website that left fans unable to purchase concert tickets.

The hearing date and witnesses will be announced at a later date; Klobuchar announced in a statement last week that a hearing was in the works.

From AK herself:
Following Ticketmaster Service Failure, Klobuchar Calls Out Lack of Competition in Ticketing Industry - News Releases - U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar
and
Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Lee Announce Hearing on Lack of Competition in Ticketing Markets - News Releases - U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar

 

[lpetrich]

AOC is standing firm on the side of workers yet again.
President Biden on Twitter: "I'm calling on Congress ...." / Twitter

I'm calling on Congress to pass legislation immediately to adopt the Tentative Agreement between railroad workers and operators. Let me be clear: a rail shutdown would devastate our economy. Without freight rail, many U.S. industries would shut down. As a proud pro-labor President, I'm reluctant to override the ratification procedures and views of those who voted against the agreement.

But in this case – where the economic impact of a shutdown would hurt millions – I believe Congress must use its powers to adopt this deal. No one should have to choose between their job and their health – or the health of their children. I have pressed legislation and proposals to advance the cause of paid leave in my two years in office, and will continue to do so. At this critical moment for our economy, in the holiday season, we cannot hurl the U.S. into a devastating rail freight shutdown.

Congress should get this bill to my desk as soon as possible so we can avoid disruption.

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Railroad workers grind themselves to the bone for this country as their labor produces billions for Wall St.
They demand the basic dignity of paid sick days. I stand with them.
If Congress intervenes, it should be to have workers’ backs and secure their demands in legislation." / Twitter
Then
BMWED on Twitter: "Thank you, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. We appreciate your support and your vote on this matter." / Twitter
Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Stay strong we’ve got your back" / Twitter

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The last time we stood with @Teamsters Local 202, we stared down a national food crisis over resistance to a $1 raise.
Back then, railroad workers stood with us. They turned trains around to not cross a picket line.
We won then, and we can win now. Let’s get these sick days (vid link)" / Twitter


Jake Sherman on Twitter: "NEW PELOSI DEAR COLLEAGUE — House will vote tomorrow on ratifying the rail deal AND a separate vote on seven days of paid leave.
The paid leave element lines up w what ⁦@SenSanders⁩ wants the senate to consider. (pic link)" / Twitter

• First, we will consider the strike-averting legislation to adopt the Tentative Agreement, as negotiated by the railroad companies and labor leaders.
• Next, we will have a separate, up-or- down vote to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the Tentative Agreement.
• Then, we will send this package to the Senate, which will then go directly to President Biden for signature.

The Tentative Agreement then the sick-leave days???