Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[lpetrich]

CSPAN on Twitter: "WATCH: Complete exchange between @RepAOC @AOC and Michael Cohen.… "

She quizzed him on the National Enquirer's catch-and-kill strategy about Trump scandals. Also about Trump's golf courses, like one in NYC that was paid for by taxpayers yet that Trump owns. Also about a strategy for reducing one's tax bill: reduce one's claimed value of one's property. That was also done for the assets that he received from his father. Also mentioned was increasing that claimed value for insurance companies.

Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in Bronx, New York, USA | Golf Advisor

 

[blastula]

 

[steve_bank]

The questions of Cohn were all predictable. Standard political theater playing to constituents.

She remains inexperienced in the economy, organization, foreign affairs and is prone to ideologue sound bites.

The Green Deal is absurdly impossible to implement.

 

[angelo]

I agree, but she is doing so with hesitation:



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...eal-idea-of-guaranteed-employment/2991691002/

To anybody who understands capitalism and how it works, the "often" in the bolded statement is kind of strange. It's not that sometimes, if you have a really crappy boss or work for a greedy corporation, you might be unlucky enough to get paid far less than the value you create. As a structural feature, regardless of the business or the attitude of its owners, workers must be paid considerably less than the value they create, as this is the only way the owners can guarantee a return on their investment. Her phrasing here, which directly positions worker pay against value created, is undoubtedly taken from Marx. She knows what she's saying. But she doesn't want to come out and SAY it, which would be crossing a line that separates reformers of capitalism and unabashed critics of it. She frames the issue as people having the right to earn a wage high enough to live, which echoes the refrain of many progressives who say things like "Nobody should go hungry if they work 40 hours a week." That's a cop-out, a miserable substitute for what should be the actual commitment: nobody should go hungry! Again, I believe (or I hope) AOC knows this, but she feels she must straddle the fence and portion out her radicalism in measured doses.

For instance, this tweet is textbook Marx with a nice dose of Richard D. Wolff:

View attachment 20340

Yet, she never completes the circle and actually says why there should be workplace democracy, why it matters that workers create all the surplus value, and what this means for our way of economic and political life in America. This can only be tactical, as her language here and in other places convinces me she is well aware of the implications behind her words.

Yeah, and she shouldn't hesitate.

But almost everyone else on the supposedly left/progressive side has been cleaving to household-fallacy economics for decades. Labour MPs (UK) are still instructed not to challenge it publicy. Because "focus groups" suggest that voters can't get their heads round the difference between an economy and a household - as otherwise sympathetic posters here evidently can't ..yet.

Eventually someone with no corporate ties and charisma coming out of their ears has to start saying the unacceptable - like the above - and then it enters public discourse..

Except for the uncomfortable fact that workers don't create all the surplus value. In fact, many products are developed years before a single worker is even hired. For example, I invented a dental device. We built the prototype, established the supply chain, set up the manufacturing process, secured all the IP and patents, built the first 100 devices, established the initial markets, established the initial financing and equity, all before we hired our first worker.

That's just the problem. Most wannabe politicians of the left have never owned or run any kind of business. Many think even a small business is just a licence to print money. They have no inkling of the high risk of investment involved.

 

[angelo]

Racism? As one of our Australian clueless politicians [also a female] would say: please explain!

No one named "Obango" has won the Nobel Peace Prize. And throwing in a tinge of misogyny in your attempt to defend your idiotic argument does not really help at all.

You've got the name wrong. I didn't call him Obango, I call him Obongo. Perhaps I should call him Hussain?

 

[poster]

The questions of Cohn were all predictable. Standard political theater playing to constituents.

She remains inexperienced in the economy, organization, foreign affairs and is prone to ideologue sound bites.

The Green Deal is absurdly impossible to implement.

You know this because you're better suited to be a freshman member of Congress than she is? Apparently, you'd not be shackled by freshman innocence if you were elected since you can identify her shortcomings so clearly?

IOW, who the fuck are you to criticize her?

 

[untermensche]

The questions of Cohn were all predictable. Standard political theater playing to constituents.

She remains inexperienced in the economy, organization, foreign affairs and is prone to ideologue sound bites.

The Green Deal is absurdly impossible to implement.

You know this because you're better suited to be a freshman member of Congress than she is? Apparently, you'd not be shackled by freshman innocence if you were elected since you can identify her shortcomings so clearly?

IOW, who the fuck are you to criticize her?

We all have things to learn.

But she is a breath of fresh air and the yammering from her critics is music to my ears.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The questions of Cohn were all predictable. Standard political theater playing to constituents.

She remains inexperienced in the economy, organization, foreign affairs and is prone to ideologue sound bites.

The Green Deal is absurdly impossible to implement.

You know this because you're better suited to be a freshman member of Congress than she is? Apparently, you'd not be shackled by freshman innocence if you were elected since you can identify her shortcomings so clearly?

IOW, who the fuck are you to criticize her?

Holy Crap! He's an American, and he can criticize any politician that he wants to. We shouldn't be like the right and worship our candidates.

 

[Harry Bosch]

But we couldn't have done it on our own. We needed capital. We brought in an investor who financed our startup. He also had connections in the dental world. We have him 30% and a seat. He pretty much stayed out of the way. But we wouldn't have gotten to where we are now without his trust, connections, and excess cash to invest! BTW: we offered early workers a chance to invest in the company by forgoing some wages in exchange for shares. Most wanted the higher wages. Startups are very risky...

So imagine if the investor had just given you the money without you having sussed that dental innovation. You could, at best, just have given him the same money back. Any multiplication of his investment necessarily came from your having "built the prototype, established the supply chain, set up the manufacturing process, secured all the IP and patents, built the first 100 devices". That is all human labour, without which there'd be no profit. Capitalism, as Marx observed, is an astonishing multiplying force - the most progressive in history.

The rate of return for an investment is usually pretty close the amount of risk in the project. My partners and I have done this before, but there is considerable risk when developing a new product. A million things can go wrong at any time. Probably 80% of all startups fail. The investor needed a higher rate of return to offset the risk he was taking. We needed the capital to continue going forward. It's very difficult to get financing from banks or private investors until a company is selling product and is profitable. So to answer your question, we wouldn't be where we are now unless we had his capital.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I just want to say that AOC did an excellent job when questioning Cohen, just a few minutes ago. She handled herself extremely well and I can't say that about any of the Republicans or many of the Democrats.

I agree. Asking Cohen if Trump ever provide inflated values to insurance companies was understated but very very important. She helped set the table to catch Trump down the road.

 

[poster]

The questions of Cohn were all predictable. Standard political theater playing to constituents.

She remains inexperienced in the economy, organization, foreign affairs and is prone to ideologue sound bites.

The Green Deal is absurdly impossible to implement.

You know this because you're better suited to be a freshman member of Congress than she is? Apparently, you'd not be shackled by freshman innocence if you were elected since you can identify her shortcomings so clearly?

IOW, who the fuck are you to criticize her?

Holy Crap! He's an American, and he can criticize any politician that he wants to.

That's true, but he's not the authority he makes himself out to be. I'm good now that I know he's been told that fact in no uncertain terms.

 

[laughing dog]

Racism? As one of our Australian clueless politicians [also a female] would say: please explain!

No one named "Obango" has won the Nobel Peace Prize. And throwing in a tinge of misogyny in your attempt to defend your idiotic argument does not really help at all.

You've got the name wrong. I didn't call him Obango, I call him Obongo. Perhaps I should call him Hussain?

A tinge of racism, a tinge of misogyny, doubling down on racism and a ton of stupid - I'd like to say that is a new record for you, but it is not even close.

 

[lpetrich]

To
matt blaze on Twitter: "Are we sure @AOC is a former bartender and not a former prosecutor? That was a pretty amazing line of questions today."
she responded
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Thanks! Bartending + waitressing (especially in NYC) means you talk to 1000s of people over the years. Forces you to get great at reading people + hones a razor-sharp BS detector. Just goes to show that what some consider to be “unskilled labor” can actually be anything but … https://t.co/QDSzueqmUr"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "“At the end of the day, people here think that their intentions are gonna save them, but the actual decisions you make matter. We’re not gonna get out of this through incrementalism. We need moonshots.” https://t.co/0pdMlV1Smk"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. Congresswoman on Fixing the Country – Rolling Stone

You originally wanted to be an OB-GYN. Why did you make the switch?
I had spent time living in West Africa while I was an undergrad, helping midwives deliver babies in the Sahara, and I contracted malaria while I was there. In the developing world, malaria is an economic disease. It’s a disease that impacts so many people as to be actually impacting national GDP, so I started thinking about these health issues as more macro-economic public-policy issues.

But I was personally impacted when my father passed away in the heat of the financial crisis, and I graduated college and was waitressing. The thing that people don’t understand about restaurants is that they’re one of the most political environments. You’re shoulder-to-shoulder with immigrants. You’re at one of the nexuses of income inequality. Your hourly wage is even less than the minimum wage. You’re working for tips. You’re getting sexually harassed. You see how our food is processed and handled. You see how the prices of things change. It was a very galvanizing political experience for me.

She also states that the Republican Party is in a "hostage situation", where many Republicans recognize the right thing to do, but are unwilling to push for it. I think that she's right, because of how the Never Trumpers ended up shutting up.

I am tired of people saying, “I’m gonna vote the same way as bigots, but I don’t share the ideology of bigots.” Well, you share the action and the agenda of bigots. We need to hold that accountable.

She also stated about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that "I have not found an issue where we are really opposed." Asked about whether NP is too willing to compromise, "I do think that as a party we compromise too much. I don’t think it’s necessarily all on her, because she can only push as much as she can coalition-build."

Many Americans are really worried about the economic state of this country, where people working full-time jobs cannot support their families. It’s astounding to me that this is not seen as a national crisis.

Well, we have never gotten out of desperate situations in this country with a scarcity mindset. We have never austerity’d our way to prosperity, ever. It’s never happened. The only way we got out of the Great Depression is through a massive injection of public investment, and also a massive expansion in public ambition and the idea of what is possible in America. We’re not gonna get out of this through incrementalism. We need moonshots.

FDR was very cautious about the New Deal, almost too cautious. But Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor changed that by provoking a massive mobilization and shutting up the professional pennypinchers.

After being asked whether she is polarizing the country,

What we are seeing now is a ruling class of corporations and a very small elite that have captured government. The Koch brothers own every Republican in the Senate. They own ’em. They don’t cast a vote unless their sugar daddies tell ’em what to do.

About being underestimated, she says it's OK to be initially underestimated.

Where I do tell people to come correct is when they try to paint me as unintelligent, as unsubstantive. That’s when you see me fire back. When you call Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris “unlikable,” that’s an unsubstantial, unsubstantive, fluff, bullshit, misogynistic word to use. Unlikable? What is that? It’s not a policy critique. Paul Ryan was a con man for 10 years, and he was called a wunderkind for policies that were designed to just gut working families dry. But I’m the charlatan. So . . .

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I always entertained law school, but couldn’t afford it. So now I’m learning in the job … "
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "On the job*** Agh"
responding to
E Randol Schoenberg on Twitter: "I was VERY impressed with @AOC today. She should have been a lawyer. Would be happy to have her do all the questioning from now on. Bravo!"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I wonder if after yesterday’s hearing conservatives still think my staff is “overpaid.” … "
Refinery29 on Twitter: "Staff working for @AOC will be paid at least $52,000 per year, a major shift from the tradition of underpaying congressional staffers. https://t.co/yM4H3iqRl1"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "People think it’s a joke when folks say we have to work 2x as hard for the same seat. Whether you believe it or not, the upside is when we do get here,we’re used to being held to a diff bar. To being doubted. To getting new hoops thrown @ us last min. So we know how to perform.… https://t.co/c6yY2sygS2"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "GOP defensively say, “we’re not scared of dancing women!” yet proceed to use footage of me dancing “with the color drained to make it look more ominous.” Spoiler: The GOP *is* scared of dancing women, because they fear the liberation of all identities taught to feel shame.… https://t.co/AVizO6TWy3"
noting
Dave Weigel on Twitter: "The Democrat appearing in CPAC videos and speeches the most, by far: @AOC. More than any 2020 Dem. An Oliver North-narrated NRA video just ended with the footage of her dancing outside her office, with the color drained to make it look more ominous."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I guess WSJ Editorial Page takes pride in their ignorance of our nation’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, & mass incarceration; willful doubt on the decades of science on climate change; targeting of indigenous peoples, and the classist, punitive agenda targeting working families.… https://t.co/kQ8B6xR2si"
noting
WSJ Editorial Page on Twitter: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "leads a generation of young people to take pride in their ignorance—of the laws of nature, of history, of the Constitution, of the eternal battle for freedom—and still succeed." https://t.co/ygb7GiLNRD"

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Total bravery from @RashidaTlaib as she reminds the nation that tokenism *is* racism… "
noting
NowThis on Twitter: "Rashida Tlaib told GOP Rep. Meadows that using a Black Trump employee as a ‘prop’ to show Trump isn’t racist was a racist act in itself — he responded by demanding her words be struck from the record, nearly in tears… https://t.co/vZ4R2mSC3e"
That's the "some of my best friends are..." defense.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The more you chip in to fund Reps who don’t take corp money (even if it’s $5, $10, or $27) that’s less time they spend dialing for dollars & more time they spend in committee. I sit through committee hearings in full. They often last hours - but that’s hours each day *learning.*… https://t.co/H47XyUO0tR"
noting
Josh Eidelson on Twitter: ""One advantage Ocasio-Cortez has over some colleagues is that she consistently attends even the most mundane committee hearings, since she does not spend any of her day calling donors for money." [url]https://t.co/JbOHJ1obSG @danielmarans @PaulBlu @AOC"[/url]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Teamwork makes the dream work … "
noting
Daniel Marans on Twitter: "New: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) made it look easy, but staff worked with her for days to prepare her questions for Michael Cohen. @paulblu and I spoke to @AOC’s staff about her now-viral examination: https://t.co/RY4OnnSvQ6"
Behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Masterful Interrogation Of Michael Cohen | HuffPost "The questions that won the New York congresswoman praise were the combined product of committee staff expertise, collaboration and oratory skills."

First, she zeroed in on Trump Links, a golf course in Ocasio-Cortez’s district that was constructed with $127 million in city taxpayer funds. The city’s deal with Trump nonetheless stipulated that the Trump Organization could keep all of the profits it earned from the course for the first four years.

“This doesn’t seem to be the only time the president has benefited at the expense of the public,” Ocasio-Cortez said, pivoting to the heart of the matter: Whether Trump deliberately deflated the value of Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, to lower his local property tax bill.

“To your knowledge, was the president interested in lowering his local real estate tax bills?” she asked.

“Yes,” Cohen responded.

 

[angelo]

The left's going after Trump from day one reminds me of Wiley E Coyote chasing the Road Runner. The Acme Company [radical Left Dems] are the tools used but fail to catch him.

 

[angelo]

One just can't fix stupid, no matter how hard one tries.

 

[untermensche]

The left's going after Trump from day one reminds me of Wiley E Coyote chasing the Road Runner. The Acme Company [radical Left Dems] are the tools used but fail to catch him.

You're living in a delusion.

Trump is by far the most incompetent person ever to be elected president.

Nothing but a con man.

Who is still conning some.

 

[southernhybrid]

So who do we believe, An-jello, or the New York Times?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-cohen-hearing.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

But like so many congressional hearings, the fireworks were quick to flame out. Even with the tantalizing opportunity to grill Mr. Cohen on the myriad ways his former boss most likely sought to evade the law and avoid his creditors, many members of the committee, from both parties, could not resist their usual grandstanding.

Consider the line of questioning from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. She asked Mr. Cohen a series of specific questions about how Mr. Trump had handled insurance claims and whether he had provided accurate information to various companies. “To your knowledge,” she asked, “did Donald Trump ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?” He had.

She asked whether Mr. Trump had tried to reduce his local taxes by undervaluing his assets. Mr. Cohen confirmed that the president had also done that. “You deflate the value of the asset and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction,” Mr. Cohen said, explaining the practice. These were the sort of questions, and answers, the committee was supposed to elicit. Somehow, only the newer members got the memo.

I think I'm going with the NYTimes.

Like a good prosecutor, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was establishing the factual basis for further committee investigation. She asked one question at a time, avoided long-winded speeches on why she was asking the question, and listened carefully to his answer, which gave her the basis for a follow-up inquiry. As a result, Mr. Cohen gave specific answers about Mr. Trump’s shady practices, along with a road map for how to find out more. Mr. Cohen began his testimony calling Mr. Trump a “con man and a cheat”; In just five minutes, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez actually helped him lay out the facts to substantiate those charges.

It doesn't matter whether you like her politics or not, AOC did an excellent job of questioning Cohen.

 

[untermensche]

The Times is siding with rich fucks who want to cheat on their taxes.

Not surprising.

The real left, people like Chomsky, have scorn for the NYT.

Yet the very ignorant call it a left wing publication.