Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[lpetrich]

Another one from back in 2022:

The Hill on Twitter: ".@AOC: “We have to be able to assure the American people that [...] they don’t have to worry about if they’re competing with their member of Congress’s stock portfolio in order to be heard. It’s a pretty simple concept.” (links)" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Today in Opinions That Are Only Controversial On Capitol Hill: it’s time to ban insider trading in Congress" / Twitter
and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "(Yes that includes spouses and senior staff shaping legislation and informing their members’ votes)" / Twitter

That's a great take on stock trading. Form last year: AOC, Gaetz align to ban lawmakers from trading stocks - Matt Gaetz, R-FL


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Happy Thursday evening! ..." / Twitter

Happy Thursday evening!

I found an original 1972 copy of Life Magazine featuring original NY Congresswoman Bella Abzug at a thrift store.

There are some gems in here I couldn’t help but share:

First up: article on Nixon & the Kremlin. Yes that is First Lady Pat Nixon hitting a TV broadcasting Nixon’s address until it worked, with Henry Kissinger watching along

The TV & Movie Review page features a young @GeraldoRivera and Harry Belafonte.

“Right now Geraldo Rivera (28) is a local NY boy, but that won’t last long. New York has a way of nationalizing those who charm it - whether the nation is ready for them or not.”

this is wild

And now to the main event: Rep. Bella Abzug!

“[Abzug] arrived in Congress a year and a half ago and began shouting. She was disrespectful, abrasive, a rule-breaker who worked 16 hours a day and saw no reason why others could not. She won’t hedge her radical opinions.”

OG


“An unprecedented 35% of the official [1972 DNC] convention delegates will be women this year. Their presence will be the the first fruits of the National Women’s Political Caucus’ conveners - Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, and @GloriaSteinem.”



Lastly: 1972 Debate on crime

Featuring all the hits: “It’s high time the [Black] community begin to act against black criminals” … “it’s time to cease trotting the excuses of slum housing, inferior schools, and poverty”… w/ a Jimmy Hoffa cameo on prisoner re-entry

Incredible

Anyways, definitely the best $11 I’ve spent in a long time.

Hope you enjoyed it too.

From over fifty years ago, well before AOC was born. Some of this content seems rather familiar.

Bella Abzug's personality reminds me of Presidents on the Couch - their personalities | Internet Infidels Discussion Board - like many Presidents, she seems high on donscientiousness and low on agreeableness. AOC seems high on c'ness and high on a'ness, and the latter she seems to concede is a weakness in politics.

BA was fond of hats - extraversion? openness? - though AOC says that she is a homebody, an introverted sort of trait, she seems to have a lot of openness.

The rest of the "Squad" seems similar to AOC.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "How is it that the party who believes corporations are people are suddenly trying to police who is a woman and who isn’t?
These are the same people who think Arby’s is a legal human being. I don’t see them assigning genders to their shady little LLCs. Give me a break" / Twitter

Cute.

HuffPost on Twitter: "JUST IN: In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Puerto Rico residents seeking equal access to government benefits as American citizens." / Twitter
noting
Supreme Court Denies Equal Rights To Puerto Ricans — Again | HuffPost Latest News
Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "2022 Imperialist Neo-colony Vibes: ..." / Twitter

2022 Imperialist Neo-colony Vibes: when my cousins can be drafted into war by a government they don’t even have a right to vote for and denies them benefits, yet that same gov can exploit their land into a tax haven for crypto billionaires & tax evaders

#PuertoRicoNoSeVende

And before people start trying to explain this away as a status/statehood issue, ask yourself why *any* US citizen is denied the right to vote bc of where they live. Even US citizens living ABROAD have the right to vote but US citizens in Puerto Rico cannot. It’s colonialism.

And in the case of DC, racism.

"Puerto Rico is not for sale" (lit. "does not sell itself")

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Puerto Ricans ARE American citizens you compilation of birdcage lining (pic link)" / Twitter

(The Daily Mail, a British tabloid)

AOC calls the Supreme Court 'imperialist' for voting to reject Puerto Ricans from getting equal access to benefits as American citizens

That's a good insult.

I like an elected official's willingness to say things like these. AOC once stated that for people with a lot of power, many of her fellow politicians seem very fearful.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Billionaires be like ..." / Twitter

Billionaires be like “the extreme far left is taking over” when the “extreme far left” in the US is “medicine shouldn’t bankrupt you,” “wages should cover rent,” & “maybe it’s bad that Wall St companies profit off mass surveillance, manufactured housing crises, and caging people”

The number of billionaires in the US couldn’t even fill an apartment building, but the number of people they negatively impact is only growing.

All the US billionaire votes combined couldn’t even come in 2nd for an NY city council election. That’s why they stay pressed

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "“The extreme left is taking over” WHERE. In Texas, Republicans passed a law allowing rapists to sue their victims for getting an abortion.
Can anyone name a “far left” policy that extreme implemented anywhere? We can’t even get our party to import cheaper RXs from Canada. foh" / Twitter

"Extreme left", it seems, is mild social democracy.


Chris Richards #ClassWarNotColdWar on Twitter: "@AOC @farronbalanced The Shawnee, KS city council just voted 8-0 to make roommates illegal." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special" / Twitter

Referring to Elon Musk buying Twitter.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Innocent refugees? You realize the 10/7 massacre had majority support?

In a similar manner to the strong support that Israel receives in the United States, Hamas also garners significant backing. However, a key distinction lies in the consequences of criticism: while accusations of antisemitism might arise from criticizing Israel, Hamas is known to respond with lethal force against any perceived slight. Therefore, any sources (ya know, the ones you don't have) claiming to confirm widespread support for Hamas should be scrutinized, as the fear of retribution could influence the reliability of these claims.

You miss my point. I'm not talking about popular support for Hamas, but specifically for the massacre. The majority think 10/7 was a good thing.

 

[lpetrich]

[*]Irvington’s Marty Dolan Launches Challenge to Jamaal Bowman in NY-16 - The Hudson Indy Westchester's Rivertowns News - - October 1, 2023

International finance executive and Irvington native Martin (“Marty”) Dolan is declaring that he plans to enter the Democratic Party primary next year for the District 16 seat currently held by Rep. Jamaal Bowman.

...
Marty Dolan was educated in Irvington schools, at Union College and Harvard Business School. Thereafter, he embarked on a career in finance, working for big banks including Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan-Chase, as well as smaller banks and insurance companies in New York, London, Paris and Bermuda. He now runs his own firm, described on its web site as “founded on the principle of connecting corporate strategy and corporate finance in one independent advisory firm.”

Marty Dolan Switches Districts, Now Running In CD-14 Challenging AOC - Black Westchester - March 12, 2024

Jamaal Bowman And George Latimer Face Off One-On-One.

Congressional candidate Martin (“Marty”) Dolan, who was challenging Jamaal Bowman for his seat in the 16th Congressional District, announced he is switching districts and will now be challenging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 14th Congressional District.

“The most important fight is for NYC’s/NYS’ competitiveness. Tackling a 14% marginal tax rate and 500,000 outmigrations is the overwhelming priority. The best forum for this debate is CD-14 whose representative has squandered her political capital and done far more harm than good for NYC,” Dolan shared with Black Westchester.

• HOME | Marty Dolan - his campaign site
• Ocasio-Cortez facing primary challenge from Wall Street veteran | The Hill
• Ground News - Ocasio-Cortez facing primary challenge from Wall Street veteran

From his campaign announcement:

The June 25th, 2024 primary will be a referendum: are we better or worse off from following Radical policies?

We are all for the "progress" implied by the word Progressive. However, within the Progressive movement, there are Radicals whose influence on the Democratic Party is overweight.

The impact in NYC is obvious: bail reform a disaster, the National Guard in the subway, toothpaste locked up in drugstores but criminals running free, scarce resources directed to (non-sanctuary) immigrants coming from all over the world.

These difficulties must be addressed in the context of a runaway $34 trillion federal debt and NYC's 14% marginal tax rate. Regional tax inequality is far more exaggerated in the USA than in any other country. Losing 500,000 taxpayers is unsustainable: fixing this must be our overwhelming priority.

The Radicals can't deliver more than breadcrumbs when they ignore that the primary breadwinners are leaving and brush off taxpayer concerns in favor of abstract populist ideologies. Enough is enough.

New Yorkers have seen it all, including scams like the Radicals offer.

 

[lpetrich]

Ex-Wall Street Banker Takes On AOC in New York Democratic Primary : politics - Reddit

Zanchbot - 2 days ago
Yeah just what the Dems need, another status-quo empty suit from New York. No fucking thank you.

BrtFrkwr - 2 days ago
Wall street suit vs. a bartender? She's gonna mop the floor with him.

mvario - 2 days ago
sniff, sniff, I smell AIPAC money.

Brokkyn21 - 2 days ago
Seems like a really dumb district for him to go after. The last person the people who voted for AOC are going to switch to is a Wall Street banker.

AwareName - 2 days ago
A person b who is active in her district and progressive in their ideology vs a person who abused the stock market and it's attached from reality. Really?

That's my thought. He isn't even doing the MCC gambit - Michelle Caruso-Cabrera was a Caribbean Hispanic woman and CNBC reporter who challenged AOC in 2020, and who got crushed.

 

[lpetrich]

From bloomberg.com in Reddit:

Martin W. Dolan, 66, who spent 30 years working for Jefferies Financial Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and other financial firms, formally registered a campaign committee this week to run against Ocasio-Cortez. He now begins a month-long sprint to gather the necessary signatures to land a spot on the ballot for the 14th congressional district, which includes parts of northern Queens and the Bronx.

...
“I call it a referendum on common sense,” said Dolan, who’s harbored an interest in running for office since volunteering as a driver for former New York Representative Peter Peyser in the 1970s.

Hard to tell what he wants, since he mostly grumbles.

It got this response:

Ferelwing - 2 days ago
So basically, he wants to go back to the Clinton Era where trickle down was king, and CEO's weren't asked to pay their fair share? How about no. News flash: Income inequality is a problem that 90% of the voters agree on. We may not completely agree on how to solve it but we all know that Wall Street and the top are the only "acceptable hoarders" out there and that the money they "gather" is never shared with the rest of us, the people who create the "product" that they sell. We'd like our time back and we'd like to share in the profits we made for them. So how about, no. Go back to Wall Street, we're not craving yet another trickle down wannabe.

When those on Wall Street stop paying 3% of taxes on their "investments" and stop getting the "earned income credit" that the rest of us will never see, then maybe we can talk.

 

[lpetrich]

Ex-Wall Street Banker Takes On AOC in New York Democratic Primary : nyc - Reddit

Some of the commenters mentioned AOC beating Joe Crowley back in 2018, noting that he didn't pay much attention to his district.

jojisky - 2 days ago
He lives in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester, an hour from her district, and was previously running against Bowman. He says at the end of the article that people in her district don’t feel represented by her, but how would he know? He lives nowhere near it. Why is nobody anywhere near her district lines running then?

From Co-op City, at the north edge of her district:

• Dobbs Ferry - 14 mi north, 27 min
• Irvington - 16 mi north, 31 min

He should stock up on carpetbags for visiting NY-14.

BebophoneVirtuoso - 2 days ago
It's savvy if only that he'll grift off a lot of money off AOC haters from out of district in the next few months. Her haters better get used to her, she ain't going anywhere.

DaoFerret - 2 days ago
If that’s his play then just imagine how much good he’ll do by siphoning that money from places where it might actually make a difference in the local race?

Why did Joe Crowley lose?

jojisky - 1 day ago
Joe Crowley was vulnerable because he had low name ID and didn’t really bother to introduce himself to his changing district as he amassed power in DC and nobody dared challenge him in a primary. The NYT reported after his primary loss that his polling had him with shockingly low name ID and favorability.

This is obviously not something that impacts one of the most famous politicians on the planet.

Adding to that was when he sent NYC Councilmember Annabel Palma to debate AOC instead of him, and AOC tweeted that she has "slight resemblance to me". AP talked mainly about herself, not quite what JC wanted.

BebophoneVirtuoso - 2 days ago
Martin Dolan, a septuagenarian wall st banker running in majority Latin NY 14, is no 2018 AOC. Remind me of this comment in June primaries

 

[lpetrich]

SigmaWhy - 2 days ago
Midtown
AOC has moderated a lot of her opinions and appears to be learning how to be an actually effective politician in DC these days. Attacking her as a communist or ineffective isn’t going to have the same appeal it did a few years ago. Dont see a challenge against her being successful

Some people speculated that she might want to run for Senate, but I think that that's doubtful.

Moderating? She refused to participate in the "Force the Vote" initiative, where one demands that a House Speaker candidate promises to hold a vote on Medicare for All.

sideAccount42 - 2 days ago
That's not really her moderating her position. Just not taking part in a performative purity test.

I like that perspective. It seemed to me pointless. Such a vote would likely fail without having a good bill and a lot of lobbying to support it.

Then

overfloaterx - 2 days ago
And effective thus far or not, I think the majority of people agree that it's pretty clear she actually has people's best interests at heart and isn't just another cynical politician.

Versus Mr. "66-year-old ex-Wall Street banker". Not to judge a book by its cover... but this cover has "conservative plant" written all over it.

...
HoSang66er - 2 days ago
Closet conservative running as a Democrat so he can turn heel and change parties because reasons!

Twovaultss - 2 days ago
66 year old former banker funded by AIPAC money is sure gonna have your best interests at heart /s

PizzaPartyMassacre - 2 days ago
Ah yes. Another rich old banker is exactly what we need in our government.

...
Aromatic_Lemon_9317 - 2 days ago
Imo she’s helped normalize slightly left of center ideology which, given how the dems generally operate, is a win for me

 

[lpetrich]

lawanddisorder - 2 days ago
Nassau
The only more desperate plea for attention than this is whoever will seek the Republican nomination to take on AOC in the general election in this D+29 district.

Tina Forte is trying again this year - she ran against AOC in the general election back in 2022. She seems a lot like MTG, complete with being a Jan. 6 insurrectionist.

I remember one Republican candidate back in 2020 who ran on how decrepit NYC public housing it, while being totally ignorant of AOC's own awareness of that, and also her proposing a Green New Deal for Public Housing.

PlaneStill6 - 2 days ago
Light that investment banking money on fire pal.

Timbishop123 - 1 day ago
Here is his LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-dolan-ba5b631a1?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app

He was a Managing Director at JP Morgan in 2008. I'm sure he'll do great!

 

[lpetrich]

Help AOC Win! She has a primary challenger again this year : AOC - Reddit

mailmehiermaar - 12 hr. ago

A man of the people! /s "Martin W. Dolan, 66, who spent 30 years working for Jefferies Financial Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and other financial firms, formally registered a campaign committee this week to run against Ocasio-Cortez"

AOC was an intern at Teddy Kennedy's office, and Marty Dolan was a driver for a politician nearly 50 years ago. Seems to me that AOC was closer to how politics works than MD.

 

[Derec]

At least Dolan made good use of his Economics degree, unlike Sergeant Sandy.

 

[Derec]

So basically, he wants to go back to the Clinton Era where trickle down was king, and CEO's weren't asked to pay their fair share? How about no.

Clinton Era was pretty good, all things considered.

News flash: Income inequality is a problem that 90% of the voters agree on.

[citation needed]

We may not completely agree on how to solve it but we all know that Wall Street and the top are the only "acceptable hoarders" out there and that the money they "gather" is never shared with the rest of us, the people who create the "product" that they sell.

This Ferelwing character doesn't have the foggiest about how the economy actually works.
"Wall Street" does not hoard money - it's not like it's in some vault like Scrooge McDuck. It gets invested in the economy, and those companies spend on their employees' salaries, spend with their suppliers etc.

We'd like our time back and we'd like to share in the profits we made for them.

If you want to share the profits I suggest you buy stock in the company. But then you also share the losses.
Many companies do offer favorable employee stock purchase as a perk.

So how about, no. Go back to Wall Street, we're not craving yet another trickle down wannabe.

And AOC has been so successful with her initiatives?

When those on Wall Street stop paying 3% of taxes on their "investments" and stop getting the "earned income credit" that the rest of us will never see, then maybe we can talk.

Capital gain taxes are far higher than 3% and those on Wall Street also would not qualify for EITC unless they are very unsuccessful. This guy is so ignant[sic], it's pathetic.

 

[Derec]

mvario - 2 days ago
sniff, sniff, I smell AIPAC money.

What's wrong with that?

AwareName - 2 days ago
A person b who is active in her district and progressive in their ideology vs a person who abused the stock market and it's attached from reality. Really?

"Attached from reality"? Really?

And how did Dolan "abuse the stock market"? Did the stock market indicate where he touched it on a puppet?

 

[Swammerdami]

AOC was an intern at Teddy Kennedy's office, and Marty Dolan was a driver for a politician nearly 50 years ago. Seems to me that AOC was closer to how politics works than MD.

AOC worked as an intern for Teddy Kennedy? You MUST be mistaken: One Infidel has repeatedly insisted that her ONLY experience was tending bar.

As for her degree in International Relations and Economics, she did use her expertise to ask witness Michael Cohen questions about the Trump crime family that no one else had, leading prosecutors to new lines of inquiry. That does seem to have more practical value than another paper on 19th century bimetallism.

At least Dolan made good use of his Economics degree, unlike Sergeant Sandy.

"Sergeant Sandy" and "Let's Go Brandon"? Why not "Corporal Trixxxee"? The X is a better match with her real name than S, and a name like "Trixxxee" will feed the narrative that she doubled as an exotic stripper while tending bar.

And surely "Corporal" is a high enough rank for her; we must stress the difference in status between her and the ex-chauffeur General Marty Dolan.

I wonder what titles will be bestowed in the dystopia that gives your Ilk wet dreams. Sean the Duke of Hannity? Caliph Kushner? Michael Pence was once a Duke, but demoted to Sergeant when he turned against the Emperor. But still Sergeant Pence to stress his superiority over the harlot stripper named Corporal Trixxxee!

 

[Derec]

AOC worked as an intern for Teddy Kennedy? You MUST be mistaken: One Infidel has repeatedly insisted that her ONLY experience was tending bar.

And by "one infidel" you must mean yourself?
That said, interning for a campaign during college is not exactly a career. It's an internship.

As for her degree in International Relations and Economics, she did use her expertise to ask witness Michael Cohen questions about the Trump crime family that no one else had, leading prosecutors to new lines of inquiry.

Can you give more details about this claim? And it's not like prosecutors do not have enough lines of inquiry anyway, some more credible (the documents case for example) than others (Bragg's hush money case).

That does seem to have more practical value than another paper on 19th century bimetallism.

Now that you mention it, she does remind me of William Jennings Bryan in her pathos. Only her cross is made of oil pipelines.
But no, I am not suggesting papers on bimetallism, but maybe a more workable plan to fight climate change. Because her Green New Deal show a great deal of naïveté and ignorance of economics. Her socialist ideology and membership in DSA for that too.

"Sergeant Sandy" and "Let's Go Brandon"? Why not "Corporal Trixxxee"?

I used to call her a corporal, when her "Squad" was more like a fireteam. Since then, she got some new members (like Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman and Maxwell Frost), so I thought a promotion was in order.

The X is a better match with her real name than S, and a name like "Trixxxee" will feed the narrative that she doubled as an exotic stripper while tending bar.

She would have made a decent shot girl, but let the record reflect that these ideas are by Swammerdami, not me.
But no, Sandy is the name she actually went by back in the day. I learned this, like most things I learned about AOC, from lpetrich and this thread. And the military rank was, of course, a reference to her calling her group of far-left congresscritters her "Squad".

I wonder what titles will be bestowed in the dystopia that gives your Ilk wet dreams.

I suspect you are the one with wet dreams. After all, ...

But still Sergeant Pence to stress his superiority over the harlot stripper named Corporal Trixxxee!

... you dubbed her "Corporal Trixxxee" and are calling her a harlot and a stripper. Not me.

 

[ZiprHead]

"harlot"??? What century is this again?

 

[lpetrich]

AOC's Personal Experience With Deepfake AI Porn Inspired Her To Act - "Deepfakes are easier to make than ever — and our sense of reality and democracy are at risk"

"AOC has been the victim of AI-generated deepfakes for years."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in a car talking with her staffers about legislation and casually scrolling through her X mentions when she saw the photo. It was the end of February, and after spending most of the week in D.C., she was looking forward to flying down to Orlando to see her mom after a work event. But everything left her mind once she saw the picture: a digitally altered image of someone forcing her to put her mouth on their genitals. Adrenaline coursed through her, and her first thought was “I need to get this off my screen.” She closed out of it, shaken.

“There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” the congresswoman tells me. It’s a few days after she saw the disturbing deepfake, and we’re waiting for our food in a corner booth of a retro-style diner in Queens, New York, near her neighborhood. She’s friendly and animated throughout our conversation, maintaining eye contact and passionately responding to my questions. When she tells me this story, though, she slows down, takes more pauses and plays with the delicate rings on her right hand. “As a survivor of physical sexual assault, it adds a level of dysregulation,” she says. “It resurfaces trauma, while I’m trying to — in the middle of a fucking meeting.”

The violent picture stayed in Ocasio-Cortez’s head all day.

“There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she says. “It’s not a question of mental strength or fortitude — this is about neuroscience and our biology.” She tells me about scientific reports she’s read about how it’s difficult for our brains to separate visceral images on a phone from reality, even if we know they are fake. “It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem. It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it, but on the people who see it and consume it.”

“And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “It parallels the same exact intention of physical rape and sexual assault, [which] is about power, domination, and humiliation. Deepfakes are absolutely a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.”

Ever since she beat long-time incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018, she has suffered that sort of fakery, like her complaining that all of her shoes were stolen during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

What used to take hours with an image editor is now very easy with the most recent AI software. I don't like to say "Photoshop" as that article does, because there are plenty of image editors with many of its capabilities, like the ability to do image fakery by making composite images.

It’s so important to me that people understand that this is not just a form of interpersonal violence, it’s not just about the harm that’s done to the victim,” she says about nonconsensual deepfake porn. She puts down her spoon and leans forward. “Because this technology threatens to do it at scale — this is about class subjugation. It’s a subjugation of entire people. And then when you do intersect that with abortion, when you do intersect that with debates over bodily autonomy, when you are able to actively subjugate all women in society on a scale of millions, at once digitally, it’s a direct connection [with] taking their rights away.”

She’s at her most energized in these moments of our conversation, when she’s emphasizing how pervasive this problem is going to be, for so many people. She doesn’t sound like a rehearsed politician spouting out sound bites. She sounds genuinely concerned — distressed, even — about how this technology will impact humanity.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recounts horror of seeing herself in ‘deepfake porn’ | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | The Guardian - "Progressive New York congresswoman describes resurfacing of trauma when seeing explicit materials with her image transposed on to them"

A recent Guardian podcast investigation – The hunt for ClothOff: The deepfake porn app – attempted to find out who is behind the deepfake porn explosion, which has recently hit dozens of well-known figures, including Taylor Swift.

A survey of five deepfake porn sites by Britain’s Channel 4 News analysis found 4,000 famous individuals listed.

Ocasio-Cortez told Rolling Stone that “digitizing violent humiliation” is akin to physical rape, and she predicted that “people are going to kill themselves over this”.

She continued: “There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she said, citing research into problems the human brain has in separating real from fake – even when material is understood to be fake.

“It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it, but on the people who see it and consume it. And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.”

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Leads Bipartisan, Bicameral Introduction of DEFIANCE Act to Combat Use of Non-Consensual, Sexually-Explicit “Deepfake” Media | Representative Ocasio-Cortez

“Victims of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes have waited too long for federal legislation to hold perpetrators accountable. As deepfakes become easier to access and create — 96% of deepfake videos circulating online are nonconsensual pornography — Congress needs to act to show victims that they won’t be left behind,” said Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The DEFIANCE Act will allow victims to finally defend their reputations and take civil action against individuals who produced, distributed, or received digital forgeries. I’m grateful to lead this legislation with Senator Dick Durbin, along with my Democratic and Republican colleagues in both the House and Senate.”

The DEFIANCE Act is led by U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D–IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee; U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R–SC), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D–MN) and Josh Hawley (R–MO). In the House, the legislation is co-sponsored by Representatives Mike Garcia (CA–27), Nancy Mace (SC–1), Lori Chavez De-Remer (OR–5), Max Miller (OH–7) Jennifer Wexton (VA–10), Ted Lieu (CA–36), Jamie Raskin (MD–8), and Deborah Ross (NC–2).

“We’ve struck a remarkable bipartisan note this Congress on protecting Americans – especially children – from exploitation online. This includes addressing the rise of non-consensual, sexually-explicit deepfakes, often targeted at women. The deepfakes may not be real, but they cause very real harms. It’s time to return power to the victims and give them a tool to demand justice from those responsible for these horrific images. I thank Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for her work to introduce the bipartisan DEFIANCE Act in the House and look forward to working with her to pass it into law,”said U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Sexually explicit deepfake content is often used to exploit and harass women – particularly public figures, politicians and celebrities,” said the Democratic Illinois senator, who pointed to the sexually explicit, fake images of Swift that had “swept across social media platforms” earlier in the year. “Although the imagery may be fake, the harm to the victims from the distribution of sexually explicit deepfakes is very real,” he added. “Laws have not kept up with the spread of this abusive content.”

Yes, it is cosponsored by the same Nancy Mace who once called her a drama queen about the Jan. 6 insurrection, even though she herself cowered in her office during that event.

H.R.7569 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): To improve rights to relief for individuals affected by non-consensual activities involving intimate digital forgeries, and for other purposes. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress - the bill's text is still only at AOC's Congressional site: DEFIANCE Act PDF