BUSINESS INSIDER
This is the platform that launched Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Democratic socialist, to the biggest political upset of the year"
John Haltiwanger
Jun. 27, 2018, 4:31 PM
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, won a shocking victory against longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in the New York Democratic Party congressional primary on Tuesday night.
This is her first time running for office.
Less than a year ago she was still working as a bartender.
Speaking on her victory on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said it was speaking with constituents about issues, instead of focusing on President Donald Trump, that helped her win.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, won a shocking victory against Rep. Joe Crowley in the New York Democratic congressional primary on Tuesday night.
With a progressive platform and message aimed at the working class, Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley, who's represented New York's 14th district since 1999, in a landslide.
She won 57.5% of the vote, while Crowley had just 42.5%.
Ocasio-Cortez is a Bronx native, member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and former campaign organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
This is her first time running for office.
Less than a year ago she was still working as a bartender.
Speaking on her victory on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said it was speaking with constituents about issues, instead of focusing on President Donald Trump, that helped her win.
"We have to stick to the message: What are we proposing to the American people?"
"Not, 'What are we fighting against?'" Ocasio-Cortez said.
"We understand that we're under an antagonistic administration, but what is the vision that is going to earn and deserve the support of working-class Americans?"
"And we need to be explicit in that vision and legislation, not just 'better,' but what exactly is our plan?"
Here's the platform that helped launch Ocasio-Cortez to the biggest political upset of 2018 so far via an unconventional campaign she started out of a Trader Joe's bag.
Medicare for all
Ocasio-Cortez wants a single payer health care system that would cover medicine, vision, dental, and mental health care.
"Almost every other developed nation in the world has universal healthcare," Ocasio-Cortez's website says.
"It's time the United States catch up to the rest of the world in ensuring all people have real healthcare coverage that doesn't break the bank."
Fully funded public schools and universities
Ocasio-Cortez, who is still paying off student loans, wants to establish tuition-free public college and trade school.
She also wants to cancel all student debt.
Universal jobs guarantee
Ocasio-Cortez believes there should be a Federal Jobs Guarantee, creating a "baseline quality for employments that guarantees a minimum $15 wage (pegged to inflation), full healthcare, and paid child and sick leave for all," according to her website.
Housing as a human right
Ocasio-Cortez believes housing is a right and "that Congress must tip the balance away from housing as a gambling chip for Wall Street banks and fight for accessible housing that's actually within working families' reach," her website says.
She says she wants to extend tax benefits to working- and middle-class homeowners, expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, provide housing for the homeless, and permanently fund the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Justice-system reform
Ocasio-Cortez calls for ending the war on drugs, demilitarizing police departments, and abolishing for-profit prisons.
She also supports legalizing marijuana at the federal level, releasing individuals sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses, ending cash bail, and "automatic, independent" investigations when people are killed by law enforcement officials.
"Mass incarceration is the latest iteration of a long line of policies (Jim Crow, redlining, etc) rooted in the marginalization of African Americans and people of color," her website says.
"Comprehensive criminal justice reform is part of the work that must be done to heal our past and pursue racial justice in the United States."
Immigration reform
Ocasio-Cortez wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and believes there should be a "clear" path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants.
"As overseen by the Trump administration, ICE operates with virtually no accountability, ripping apart families and holding our friends and neighbors indefinitely in inhumane detention centers scattered across the United States," Ocasio-Cortez said on her website.
She also wants more protections for young unauthorized immigrants known as "Dreamers" and immigrants who have temporary protections from deportation.
"New Green Deal" to combat climate change
Ocasio-Cortez wants the US to implement a carbon-free, 100% renewable energy system and a fully modernized electrical grid in the US by 2035 in an effort to combat climate change.
She says climate change is the "single biggest national security threat for the United States and the single biggest threat to worldwide industrialized civilization," according to her website.
She's pushing for a "New Green Deal," a federal plan to thwart climate change via investing trillions in infrastructure.
"The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan," she recently told HuffPost.
"We must again invest in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and distribution of energy, but this time green energy."
Campaign-finance reform
Ocasio-Cortez ran a low-budget campaign, raising around $200,000 and refusing to accept donations from lobbyists.
She says changing the way elections are funded is the "only way for real reform to happen in Washington," according to her website.
To bring about campaign finance reform, Ocasio-Cortez calls for overturning the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United via a constitutional amendment.
She also wants to push for legislation that would require wealthy people and corporations who make large campaign contributions to disclose where their money is going.
https://www.businessinsider.com/alexand ... ues-2018-6
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"From New York to the Heartland: Ocasio-Cortez Debuts on National Campaign Stage"
By Sydney Ember
July 20, 2018
ST. LOUIS, Mo. Less than four weeks after she stunned the political establishment with an upset victory in a New York House primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stepped out onto the national campaign stage for the first time this week, an emerging star of the insurgent left bringing her message to the heartland.
She campaigned in two conservative Midwestern states at rallies for House candidates who are also delivering a progressive message to their constituents.
Change takes courage, she told a packed auditorium at a downtown convention center in Wichita on Friday, in the first of two appearances in Kansas before heading to Missouri on Saturday.
Change takes guts.
What you have shown me, and what we will show in the Bronx, is that working people in Kansas share the same values - the same values as working people anywhere else, she said.
It was a message that had carried Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, to victory in New York last month and all but assured her election to Congress in a heavily Democratic district in Queens and the Bronx.
And whether establishment politicians like it or not, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist, is now rushing to transport her unapologetically left-wing message to other parts of the country.
In Wichita, she shared the energy with the white-haired lion of the left, Bernie Sanders, who came on stage after her to deafening cheers, telling the crowd, "Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, we share common hopes and aspirations that are much greater than the superficial differences that may separate us."
But even those who came primarily to see Mr. Sanders were aware of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her message.
Many had seen her on social media and television and said they were inspired by her youth and enthusiasm.
Nicholas Beddow, 25, a preschool teacher wearing a vintage Bernie for President T-shirt, said he hadnt heard of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez until she won her primary, but now was a full-throated supporter.
Shes very strong, he said.
The fact that she is young, he said, carries the progressive message further.
He said he felt that message could resonate, even in an area labeled the Bible Belt.
I'm thinking we can give it a blue buckle right in the middle, he said.
That could be a tough sell in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress in a decade.
But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders nevertheless were campaigning here and in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday in support of two candidates, Brent Welder and James Thompson, who are running progressive, grass-roots campaigns in districts Democrats consider winnable.
In St. Louis on Saturday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez campaigned with Cori Bush, a community activist and nurse, whom some members of the progressive left hope can become another standard-bearer for their message.
After knocking on doors together during the day, they appeared at a rally at night, with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez bounding onto the stage at an eclectic concert venue to raucous cheers.
Speaking to a youthful, cocktail-sipping crowd, she called for a different kind of political leader but did not directly attack Ms. Bush's opponent, William Lacy Clay, a popular nine-term Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
More than ever, we need a salt-of-the-earth Congress, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.
And she seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the recent assertion that she was the party's future.
No person is the future of the Democratic Party, she said, later adding, "The future of the Democratic Party is not in my hands."
The trip to the Midwest was a critical test for whether she and her Bronx-born brand of Democratic socialism resonate in the heartland and whether she is overplaying her hand.
In the weeks since her primary victory, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has publicly endorsed a flurry of candidates across the country.
On Twitter and in interviews with the media, she has championed a progressive policy agenda that includes Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, ending private prisons and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
While she has quickly become a political sensation, however, she has also revealed her inexperience.
She provoked some outrage by referring to Israel's occupation of Palestine, for instance, saying later that she was not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.
She incorrectly said unemployment was low because everyone has two jobs.
Still, her appearance in Kansas alongside Mr. Sanders was the clearest indication yet that she views herself as one of progressivism's next ambassadors and that far-left Democrats, at least, see her as a key player in the party's effort to retake the House.
If there was a better way to say its the highest, the best, the number one event we've ever had, I would, Mr. Thompson said in an interview the day before Fridays rally.
If candidates can show that even Kansas can be changed running on progressive principles, he added, then its possible anywhere.
Conservatives in the state have taken notice of the support for progressive ideas that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders have championed.
Earlier this week Mr. Trump tweeted support for Mr. Welder's Republican opponent, Kevin Yoder.
And Mr. Thompson's opponent, Ron Estes, the incumbent, sounded the alarm on the Wichita rally even as it was taking place.
At this very moment self-described socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are hosting a rally in Wichita for Kansas Democrats, he wrote in an email to supporters.
Their goal is ambitious, extreme and dangerous.
Despite all the enthusiasm surrounding Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, many establishment Democrats have bristled at the suggestion that the far-left ideas espoused by her and Mr. Sanders represent the partys position.
And they reject the notion that Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs victory last month over Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, signaled a fundamental dissatisfaction with the party's aging leaders.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs swift rise has also exposed divisions in the party over whether the insurgent candidates can capture victories across the country in general elections, against Republicans.
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat-turned-independent Senator from Connecticut, urged voters to vote for Mr. Crowley on a third-party line instead of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez because, he said, her policies were too far left.
Her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems, he wrote.
Some political strategists question whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's presence in districts vastly different from hers will turn off, rather than invigorate, voters.
I would hope that she would keep her eye on the critical need to elect a House Democratic majority to stop Donald Trump and allow and trust candidates to run their campaigns in a way that results in the majority that we need, said Steve Israel, a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and longtime New York representative.
"Theres an important role for her to play in progressive districts, and with vitally needed base voters."
"But a message that resonates in some districts could seem out of tune in others."
But supporters of Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs Democratic socialism have primarily exhibited a sense of optimism in her, in her star power, in the progressive message generally since her victory.
They note that Mr. Sanders won the 2016 presidential primaries in both Kansas and Michigan and hope they can build on that energy.
They also point to the fact that many Democratic candidates have embraced key pieces of the progressive policy agenda, including Medicare for all and a higher minimum wage.
For his part, Mr. Sanders has said he sees Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs success as proof that his progressive message is not only spreading, but winning.
(He did not endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.)
His swing with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez through Kansas came about organically, according to a person familiar with the decision process, after they realized they were both interested in going to the state to support candidates there.
Both were eager to show that a message that works in Burlington, Vt., and New York City can also work in a red state.
The same goes for Michigan, where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will campaign next weekend with Abdul El-Sayed, a former director of Detroit's health department, who is running for governor.
Inspired by her message and campaign style, Dr. El-Sayed first connected with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.
He now hopes he can one day tell his young daughter about the night Auntie Alexandria won in New York.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs win is a validation point, he said in an interview.
She showed us how its done.
A version of this article appears in print on July 22, 2018, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: New Yorkers Firebrand Socialism Plays in Heartland.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/p ... nders.html
"From New York to the Heartland: Ocasio-Cortez Debuts on National Campaign Stage"
By Sydney Ember
July 20, 2018
ST. LOUIS, Mo. Less than four weeks after she stunned the political establishment with an upset victory in a New York House primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stepped out onto the national campaign stage for the first time this week, an emerging star of the insurgent left bringing her message to the heartland.
She campaigned in two conservative Midwestern states at rallies for House candidates who are also delivering a progressive message to their constituents.
Change takes courage, she told a packed auditorium at a downtown convention center in Wichita on Friday, in the first of two appearances in Kansas before heading to Missouri on Saturday.
Change takes guts.
What you have shown me, and what we will show in the Bronx, is that working people in Kansas share the same values - the same values as working people anywhere else, she said.
It was a message that had carried Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, to victory in New York last month and all but assured her election to Congress in a heavily Democratic district in Queens and the Bronx.
And whether establishment politicians like it or not, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist, is now rushing to transport her unapologetically left-wing message to other parts of the country.
In Wichita, she shared the energy with the white-haired lion of the left, Bernie Sanders, who came on stage after her to deafening cheers, telling the crowd, "Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, we share common hopes and aspirations that are much greater than the superficial differences that may separate us."
But even those who came primarily to see Mr. Sanders were aware of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her message.
Many had seen her on social media and television and said they were inspired by her youth and enthusiasm.
Nicholas Beddow, 25, a preschool teacher wearing a vintage Bernie for President T-shirt, said he hadnt heard of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez until she won her primary, but now was a full-throated supporter.
Shes very strong, he said.
The fact that she is young, he said, carries the progressive message further.
He said he felt that message could resonate, even in an area labeled the Bible Belt.
I'm thinking we can give it a blue buckle right in the middle, he said.
That could be a tough sell in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress in a decade.
But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders nevertheless were campaigning here and in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday in support of two candidates, Brent Welder and James Thompson, who are running progressive, grass-roots campaigns in districts Democrats consider winnable.
In St. Louis on Saturday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez campaigned with Cori Bush, a community activist and nurse, whom some members of the progressive left hope can become another standard-bearer for their message.
After knocking on doors together during the day, they appeared at a rally at night, with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez bounding onto the stage at an eclectic concert venue to raucous cheers.
Speaking to a youthful, cocktail-sipping crowd, she called for a different kind of political leader but did not directly attack Ms. Bush's opponent, William Lacy Clay, a popular nine-term Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
More than ever, we need a salt-of-the-earth Congress, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.
And she seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the recent assertion that she was the party's future.
No person is the future of the Democratic Party, she said, later adding, "The future of the Democratic Party is not in my hands."
The trip to the Midwest was a critical test for whether she and her Bronx-born brand of Democratic socialism resonate in the heartland and whether she is overplaying her hand.
In the weeks since her primary victory, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has publicly endorsed a flurry of candidates across the country.
On Twitter and in interviews with the media, she has championed a progressive policy agenda that includes Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, ending private prisons and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
While she has quickly become a political sensation, however, she has also revealed her inexperience.
She provoked some outrage by referring to Israel's occupation of Palestine, for instance, saying later that she was not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.
She incorrectly said unemployment was low because everyone has two jobs.
Still, her appearance in Kansas alongside Mr. Sanders was the clearest indication yet that she views herself as one of progressivism's next ambassadors and that far-left Democrats, at least, see her as a key player in the party's effort to retake the House.
If there was a better way to say its the highest, the best, the number one event we've ever had, I would, Mr. Thompson said in an interview the day before Fridays rally.
If candidates can show that even Kansas can be changed running on progressive principles, he added, then its possible anywhere.
Conservatives in the state have taken notice of the support for progressive ideas that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders have championed.
Earlier this week Mr. Trump tweeted support for Mr. Welder's Republican opponent, Kevin Yoder.
And Mr. Thompson's opponent, Ron Estes, the incumbent, sounded the alarm on the Wichita rally even as it was taking place.
At this very moment self-described socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are hosting a rally in Wichita for Kansas Democrats, he wrote in an email to supporters.
Their goal is ambitious, extreme and dangerous.
Despite all the enthusiasm surrounding Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, many establishment Democrats have bristled at the suggestion that the far-left ideas espoused by her and Mr. Sanders represent the partys position.
And they reject the notion that Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs victory last month over Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, signaled a fundamental dissatisfaction with the party's aging leaders.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs swift rise has also exposed divisions in the party over whether the insurgent candidates can capture victories across the country in general elections, against Republicans.
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat-turned-independent Senator from Connecticut, urged voters to vote for Mr. Crowley on a third-party line instead of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez because, he said, her policies were too far left.
Her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems, he wrote.
Some political strategists question whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's presence in districts vastly different from hers will turn off, rather than invigorate, voters.
I would hope that she would keep her eye on the critical need to elect a House Democratic majority to stop Donald Trump and allow and trust candidates to run their campaigns in a way that results in the majority that we need, said Steve Israel, a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and longtime New York representative.
"Theres an important role for her to play in progressive districts, and with vitally needed base voters."
"But a message that resonates in some districts could seem out of tune in others."
But supporters of Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs Democratic socialism have primarily exhibited a sense of optimism in her, in her star power, in the progressive message generally since her victory.
They note that Mr. Sanders won the 2016 presidential primaries in both Kansas and Michigan and hope they can build on that energy.
They also point to the fact that many Democratic candidates have embraced key pieces of the progressive policy agenda, including Medicare for all and a higher minimum wage.
For his part, Mr. Sanders has said he sees Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs success as proof that his progressive message is not only spreading, but winning.
(He did not endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.)
His swing with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez through Kansas came about organically, according to a person familiar with the decision process, after they realized they were both interested in going to the state to support candidates there.
Both were eager to show that a message that works in Burlington, Vt., and New York City can also work in a red state.
The same goes for Michigan, where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will campaign next weekend with Abdul El-Sayed, a former director of Detroit's health department, who is running for governor.
Inspired by her message and campaign style, Dr. El-Sayed first connected with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.
He now hopes he can one day tell his young daughter about the night Auntie Alexandria won in New York.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs win is a validation point, he said in an interview.
She showed us how its done.
A version of this article appears in print on July 22, 2018, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: New Yorkers Firebrand Socialism Plays in Heartland.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/p ... nders.html
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer"
By Vivian Wang
June 27, 2018
She has never held elected office.
She is still paying off her student loans.
She is 28 years old.
Women like me aren't supposed to run for office, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a viral campaign video released last month.
They certainly weren't supposed to win.
But in a stunning upset Tuesday night that ignited the New York and national political worlds, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx-born community organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Representative Joseph Crowley, a 19-year incumbent and Queens political stalwart who had not faced a primary challenger in 14 years.
Mr. Crowley, who is twice Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs age, is the No. 4 Democrat in the House of Representatives and had been favored to ascend to the speakers lectern if Democrats retook the lower chamber this fall.
If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez defeats the Republican candidate, Anthony Pappas, in the predominantly Democratic district in November, she would dethrone Elise Stefanik, a Republican representative from upstate New York, as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress (Ms. Stefanik was 30 when she took office in 2015).
I'm an organizer in this community, and I knew living here and being here and seeing and organizing with families here, that it was possible, a visibly shocked Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview at her victory party on Tuesday.
I knew that it was long odds, and I knew that it was uphill, but I always knew it was possible.
The daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a Bronx-born father, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez earned a degree in economics and international relations from Boston University but worked as a waitress and bartender after graduating in 2011 to supplement her mother's income as a house cleaner and bus driver, according to The Intercept.
Her father, a small-business owner, had died three years earlier of cancer; after his death, her family fought foreclosure and her mother and grandmother eventually moved to Florida.
She dabbled in establishment politics during college, working for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, on immigration issues, but soon turned her attention to the grass-roots work that would come to define her candidacy.
Returning to the Bronx after graduation, she began advocating improved childhood education and literacy, starting a childrens book publishing company that sought to portray her home borough in a positive light, according to a 2012 article in The New York Daily News.
The importance of education had been instilled in her from a young age: As a child, she was sent to school in Yorktown in Westchester County because of the dearth of quality schools in the Bronx.
She returned to national politics when she worked as an organizer for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.
But even then, the idea of one day seeking office herself seemed unattainable.
I never really saw myself running on my own, she told New York magazine this month.
"I counted out that possibility because I felt that possibility had counted out me."
"I felt like the only way to effectively run for office is if you had access to a lot of wealth, high social influence, a lot of dynastic power, and I knew that I didnt have any of those things."
But if Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has, overnight, become the face of progressives hopes for ousting not only Republicans but also moderate Democrats who they see as insufficiently outraged about President Trump, her bid against Mr. Crowley predates the anti-Trump backlash that has fueled what many see as a blue wave across the country.
She has credited her decision to seek office with her experience protesting at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Soon after, she was contacted by Brand New Congress, a newly formed progressive organization that asked her to run.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has called for Medicare for all, tuition-free public colleges and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, made her underdog status the central pillar of her upstart campaign.
In her bid against Mr. Crowley, she was unafraid to foreground race, gender, age and class.
When Mr. Crowley sent a Latina surrogate to debate Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last week, citing scheduling conflicts, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez blasted him on Twitter for sending someone with a slight resemblance to me.
She attacked Mr. Crowley for taking corporate money, for not living in the district and for looking increasingly unlike the constituents of the Bronx and Queens he was elected to represent.
These communities have been so ignored, she said in an interview with The New York Times earlier this month.
"What other leaders or what other choices does this community even have?"
"For me, I just feel like its a responsibility to show up for this community."
She has joined activists in Flint, Mich., calling for safe drinking water, and traveled to the Mexican border this past weekend to protest family separations of migrants.
Like Mr. Sanders, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made her rejection of corporate donations and reliance on small donors a rallying cry for supporters; nearly 70 percent of her campaign funds came from individual contributions under $200.
Not all Democrats are the same, she said in her May campaign video, adding - her voice rising with emotion - that a Democrat who doesn't send his kids to our schools, doesn't drink our water or breathe our air cannot possibly represent us.
Congress is too old, she told a reporter from the website Elite Daily.
They don't have a stake in the game.
Before Tuesdays victory catapulted her to the front of the political conversation, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seemed to find readier audiences with outlets such as Elite Daily, Mic or Refinery29, websites most often associated with millennial and female audiences than with traditional publications.
That is about to change.
I'm hoping that this is a beginning, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said at her victory party on Tuesday.
That we can continue this organizing and continue what weve learned.
Still, shock seemed to be the predominant emotion at Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs party on Tuesday.
Oh my God, oh my God, she said as she realized she had won, her hands flying to her mouth and her eyes widening.
Throughout the night, as more and more people flooded into the packed Bronx pool hall, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was trailed by a swarm of reporters, supporters and campaign staff clamoring for hugs, selfies or just a glimpse of the woman behind a feat many had considered impossible.
She added, I hope that this reminds us of what the Democratic Party should be about, which is, first and foremost, accountability from the working-class people.
Correction: June 27, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated the significance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's potential election to Congress. If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is elected, she would be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, not the youngest person over all.
The article stated incorrectly that Elite Daily, Mic and Refinery29, popular among millennials and women, were not national outlets.
They do, in fact, reach a national audience.
Follow Vivian Wang on Twitter: @vwang3.
Shane Goldmacher and John Surico contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/nyre ... ortez.html
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer"
By Vivian Wang
June 27, 2018
She has never held elected office.
She is still paying off her student loans.
She is 28 years old.
Women like me aren't supposed to run for office, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a viral campaign video released last month.
They certainly weren't supposed to win.
But in a stunning upset Tuesday night that ignited the New York and national political worlds, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx-born community organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Representative Joseph Crowley, a 19-year incumbent and Queens political stalwart who had not faced a primary challenger in 14 years.
Mr. Crowley, who is twice Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs age, is the No. 4 Democrat in the House of Representatives and had been favored to ascend to the speakers lectern if Democrats retook the lower chamber this fall.
If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez defeats the Republican candidate, Anthony Pappas, in the predominantly Democratic district in November, she would dethrone Elise Stefanik, a Republican representative from upstate New York, as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress (Ms. Stefanik was 30 when she took office in 2015).
I'm an organizer in this community, and I knew living here and being here and seeing and organizing with families here, that it was possible, a visibly shocked Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview at her victory party on Tuesday.
I knew that it was long odds, and I knew that it was uphill, but I always knew it was possible.
The daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a Bronx-born father, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez earned a degree in economics and international relations from Boston University but worked as a waitress and bartender after graduating in 2011 to supplement her mother's income as a house cleaner and bus driver, according to The Intercept.
Her father, a small-business owner, had died three years earlier of cancer; after his death, her family fought foreclosure and her mother and grandmother eventually moved to Florida.
She dabbled in establishment politics during college, working for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, on immigration issues, but soon turned her attention to the grass-roots work that would come to define her candidacy.
Returning to the Bronx after graduation, she began advocating improved childhood education and literacy, starting a childrens book publishing company that sought to portray her home borough in a positive light, according to a 2012 article in The New York Daily News.
The importance of education had been instilled in her from a young age: As a child, she was sent to school in Yorktown in Westchester County because of the dearth of quality schools in the Bronx.
She returned to national politics when she worked as an organizer for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.
But even then, the idea of one day seeking office herself seemed unattainable.
I never really saw myself running on my own, she told New York magazine this month.
"I counted out that possibility because I felt that possibility had counted out me."
"I felt like the only way to effectively run for office is if you had access to a lot of wealth, high social influence, a lot of dynastic power, and I knew that I didnt have any of those things."
But if Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has, overnight, become the face of progressives hopes for ousting not only Republicans but also moderate Democrats who they see as insufficiently outraged about President Trump, her bid against Mr. Crowley predates the anti-Trump backlash that has fueled what many see as a blue wave across the country.
She has credited her decision to seek office with her experience protesting at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Soon after, she was contacted by Brand New Congress, a newly formed progressive organization that asked her to run.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has called for Medicare for all, tuition-free public colleges and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, made her underdog status the central pillar of her upstart campaign.
In her bid against Mr. Crowley, she was unafraid to foreground race, gender, age and class.
When Mr. Crowley sent a Latina surrogate to debate Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last week, citing scheduling conflicts, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez blasted him on Twitter for sending someone with a slight resemblance to me.
She attacked Mr. Crowley for taking corporate money, for not living in the district and for looking increasingly unlike the constituents of the Bronx and Queens he was elected to represent.
These communities have been so ignored, she said in an interview with The New York Times earlier this month.
"What other leaders or what other choices does this community even have?"
"For me, I just feel like its a responsibility to show up for this community."
She has joined activists in Flint, Mich., calling for safe drinking water, and traveled to the Mexican border this past weekend to protest family separations of migrants.
Like Mr. Sanders, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made her rejection of corporate donations and reliance on small donors a rallying cry for supporters; nearly 70 percent of her campaign funds came from individual contributions under $200.
Not all Democrats are the same, she said in her May campaign video, adding - her voice rising with emotion - that a Democrat who doesn't send his kids to our schools, doesn't drink our water or breathe our air cannot possibly represent us.
Congress is too old, she told a reporter from the website Elite Daily.
They don't have a stake in the game.
Before Tuesdays victory catapulted her to the front of the political conversation, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seemed to find readier audiences with outlets such as Elite Daily, Mic or Refinery29, websites most often associated with millennial and female audiences than with traditional publications.
That is about to change.
I'm hoping that this is a beginning, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said at her victory party on Tuesday.
That we can continue this organizing and continue what weve learned.
Still, shock seemed to be the predominant emotion at Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs party on Tuesday.
Oh my God, oh my God, she said as she realized she had won, her hands flying to her mouth and her eyes widening.
Throughout the night, as more and more people flooded into the packed Bronx pool hall, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was trailed by a swarm of reporters, supporters and campaign staff clamoring for hugs, selfies or just a glimpse of the woman behind a feat many had considered impossible.
She added, I hope that this reminds us of what the Democratic Party should be about, which is, first and foremost, accountability from the working-class people.
Correction: June 27, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated the significance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's potential election to Congress. If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is elected, she would be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, not the youngest person over all.
The article stated incorrectly that Elite Daily, Mic and Refinery29, popular among millennials and women, were not national outlets.
They do, in fact, reach a national audience.
Follow Vivian Wang on Twitter: @vwang3.
Shane Goldmacher and John Surico contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/nyre ... ortez.html
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
THE HILL
"Ocasio-Cortez backs campaigns to replace Dem incumbents with progressives"
By John Bowden
11/17/18 10:28 PM EST
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), implored more than 700 attendees of a Justice Democrats strategy call to run for office against incumbent Democrats as well as Republicans in their home districts.
During the video call with supporters Saturday evening, Ocasio-Cortez remarked that her own journey to the House began on the other end of a Justice Democrats strategy call while calling on supporters to mount similar bids in their own districts around the country.
"Long story short, I need you to run for office," she said on the call.
"All I’m asking you to do is throw your hat in the ring, say 'what the heck.' ”
Ocasio-Cortez was elected Tuesday after running a successful primary against Rep. Joseph Crowley, who was House Democratic Caucus Chairman.
The incoming lawmaker added that she and other members of the Justice Democrats, a group of progressives seeking to shift the Democratic Party left, would support challenges to incumbent Democrats they view as insufficiently aligned with the views of progressives in the party, particularly on the issue of corporate campaign donations.
"All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves," she said.
“I don't think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health-care legislation."
"I don't think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting climate legislation,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez made headlines this week when a reporter from the Washington Examiner, a right-leaning newspaper, appeared to question her claims of financial struggles in a tweet stating that her "jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles."
"If I walked into Congress wearing a sack, they would laugh & take a picture of my backside," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response.
"If I walk in with my best sale-rack clothes, they laugh & take a picture of my backside."
"Dark hates light - that’s why you tune it out."
"Shine bright & keep it pushing."
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4172 ... ogressives
"Ocasio-Cortez backs campaigns to replace Dem incumbents with progressives"
By John Bowden
11/17/18 10:28 PM EST
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), implored more than 700 attendees of a Justice Democrats strategy call to run for office against incumbent Democrats as well as Republicans in their home districts.
During the video call with supporters Saturday evening, Ocasio-Cortez remarked that her own journey to the House began on the other end of a Justice Democrats strategy call while calling on supporters to mount similar bids in their own districts around the country.
"Long story short, I need you to run for office," she said on the call.
"All I’m asking you to do is throw your hat in the ring, say 'what the heck.' ”
Ocasio-Cortez was elected Tuesday after running a successful primary against Rep. Joseph Crowley, who was House Democratic Caucus Chairman.
The incoming lawmaker added that she and other members of the Justice Democrats, a group of progressives seeking to shift the Democratic Party left, would support challenges to incumbent Democrats they view as insufficiently aligned with the views of progressives in the party, particularly on the issue of corporate campaign donations.
"All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves," she said.
“I don't think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health-care legislation."
"I don't think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting climate legislation,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez made headlines this week when a reporter from the Washington Examiner, a right-leaning newspaper, appeared to question her claims of financial struggles in a tweet stating that her "jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles."
"If I walked into Congress wearing a sack, they would laugh & take a picture of my backside," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response.
"If I walk in with my best sale-rack clothes, they laugh & take a picture of my backside."
"Dark hates light - that’s why you tune it out."
"Shine bright & keep it pushing."
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4172 ... ogressives
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
POLITICO
"Ocasio-Cortez backs campaign to primary fellow Democrats -
The incoming congresswoman endorses an effort by the group Justice Democrats to make the House Democratic Caucus more liberal and diverse by taking on incumbents."
By ALEX THOMPSON
11/17/2018 07:24 PM EST
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday threw her weight behind a new national campaign to mount primaries against incumbent Democrats deemed to be ideologically and demographically out of step with their districts.
The incoming star congresswoman from New York again put the Democratic establishment on notice that she and activist groups on the left aren’t content with a Democratic-controlled House: They are determined to move the party to the left.
"Long story short, I need you to run for office," Ocasio-Cortez said Saturday on a video conference call hosted by Justice Democrats, as the group launched a campaign dubbed “#OurTime.”
Justice Democrats supported Ocasio-Cortez's primary campaign against powerful Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.).
"All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves," Ocasio-Cortez added.
"That's really what we need to do to save this country."
"That's just what it is."
The incoming congresswoman's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, a co-founder of Justice Democrats, was blunter.
"We need new leaders, period," he said on the call.
"We gotta primary folks."
The group said it wants Democratic members of Congress to be representative of their diverse communities and support liberal policies like "Medicare for all," abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, implementing a "Green New Deal" and rejecting corporate PAC donations.
On the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez talked about forming a "corporate-free caucus" as a means to push for reform.
That type of group, if it forms, could turn out to be the left's counterpart to the Freedom Caucus, which pushed Republican leadership to the right.
“I don't think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting climate legislation,” Ocasio-Cortez said on the call.
As for which Democrats they will target, the grass-roots organization welcomed its members to submit nominations of candidates and potential districts to target in 2020.
Justice Democrats said it will prioritize women and diversity in its recruitment.
All four incoming House members who were backed by Justice Democrats are women of color: Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez.
“If you’re a strong progressive leader in your community and committed to getting money out of politics, I want you to join me in Congress."
"I want you to run,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter on Saturday
The 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats want her victory over Crowley to be the beginning of a movement rather than just a one-off upset.
“We recruited and supported Ocasio-Cortez all the way to a historic victory and now we’re going to repeat the playbook,” Justice Democrats Executive Director Alexandra Rojas said in a statement.
Tlaib, a fellow democratic socialist who had the support of Justice Democrats in her competitive primary for Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s old seat, threw her support behind the new campaign as well.
“Help uplift women like us at all levels of government."
"We still need more of you to run with us."
"So get your squad together."
"We are waiting for you,” Tlaib said in a statement.
The grass-roots group expects to focus more on safe Democratic seats — as Crowley’s was — than on the swing districts, largely centered in the suburbs, that the party won en route to the House majority.
That’s a slight shift in strategy after all of the group’s candidates, such as Kara Eastman in Nebraska, came up short in Republican-held congressional districts in 2018.
Replacing safe Democratic incumbents with more progressives and diverse leaders, the thinking goes, could move the Overton window of what is and is not acceptable in the Democratic Party.
“There’s lots of blue districts in this country where communities want to support a new generation of diverse working class leaders who fight tirelessly for their voters and build a movement around big solutions to our country’s biggest problems,” said Rojas.
There are parallels between this effort and the tea party movement during Barack Obama’s presidency, when congressmen in solid Republican seats, like former Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia faced primary challenges from the right.
Still, it is unusual for freshmen Democrats to throw their support behind an organization that is threatening to wage primaries against their new colleagues.
And it’s unclear whether it could trigger a backlash from incumbent lawmakers who want to take advantage of their newfound majority to get things done, rather than sweating a primary challenge.
But Ocasio-Cortez has already made clear she’s looking to break the mold.
During her first week in Washington, she joined a protest in Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s office, supporting calls for a “Green New Deal."
”It wasn’t a very polite move to do," Chakrabarti said.
Ocasio-Cortez said at the sit-in that she was not there to protest Pelosi but to support the activists and their agenda.
“Should Leader Pelosi become the next speaker of the House, we need to tell her that we’ve got her back in showing and pursuing the most progressive energy agenda that this country has ever seen,” she told them.
“This is about unity."
"This is about solidarity.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/ ... ts-1000529
"Ocasio-Cortez backs campaign to primary fellow Democrats -
The incoming congresswoman endorses an effort by the group Justice Democrats to make the House Democratic Caucus more liberal and diverse by taking on incumbents."
By ALEX THOMPSON
11/17/2018 07:24 PM EST
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday threw her weight behind a new national campaign to mount primaries against incumbent Democrats deemed to be ideologically and demographically out of step with their districts.
The incoming star congresswoman from New York again put the Democratic establishment on notice that she and activist groups on the left aren’t content with a Democratic-controlled House: They are determined to move the party to the left.
"Long story short, I need you to run for office," Ocasio-Cortez said Saturday on a video conference call hosted by Justice Democrats, as the group launched a campaign dubbed “#OurTime.”
Justice Democrats supported Ocasio-Cortez's primary campaign against powerful Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.).
"All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves," Ocasio-Cortez added.
"That's really what we need to do to save this country."
"That's just what it is."
The incoming congresswoman's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, a co-founder of Justice Democrats, was blunter.
"We need new leaders, period," he said on the call.
"We gotta primary folks."
The group said it wants Democratic members of Congress to be representative of their diverse communities and support liberal policies like "Medicare for all," abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, implementing a "Green New Deal" and rejecting corporate PAC donations.
On the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez talked about forming a "corporate-free caucus" as a means to push for reform.
That type of group, if it forms, could turn out to be the left's counterpart to the Freedom Caucus, which pushed Republican leadership to the right.
“I don't think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting climate legislation,” Ocasio-Cortez said on the call.
As for which Democrats they will target, the grass-roots organization welcomed its members to submit nominations of candidates and potential districts to target in 2020.
Justice Democrats said it will prioritize women and diversity in its recruitment.
All four incoming House members who were backed by Justice Democrats are women of color: Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez.
“If you’re a strong progressive leader in your community and committed to getting money out of politics, I want you to join me in Congress."
"I want you to run,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter on Saturday
The 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats want her victory over Crowley to be the beginning of a movement rather than just a one-off upset.
“We recruited and supported Ocasio-Cortez all the way to a historic victory and now we’re going to repeat the playbook,” Justice Democrats Executive Director Alexandra Rojas said in a statement.
Tlaib, a fellow democratic socialist who had the support of Justice Democrats in her competitive primary for Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s old seat, threw her support behind the new campaign as well.
“Help uplift women like us at all levels of government."
"We still need more of you to run with us."
"So get your squad together."
"We are waiting for you,” Tlaib said in a statement.
The grass-roots group expects to focus more on safe Democratic seats — as Crowley’s was — than on the swing districts, largely centered in the suburbs, that the party won en route to the House majority.
That’s a slight shift in strategy after all of the group’s candidates, such as Kara Eastman in Nebraska, came up short in Republican-held congressional districts in 2018.
Replacing safe Democratic incumbents with more progressives and diverse leaders, the thinking goes, could move the Overton window of what is and is not acceptable in the Democratic Party.
“There’s lots of blue districts in this country where communities want to support a new generation of diverse working class leaders who fight tirelessly for their voters and build a movement around big solutions to our country’s biggest problems,” said Rojas.
There are parallels between this effort and the tea party movement during Barack Obama’s presidency, when congressmen in solid Republican seats, like former Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia faced primary challenges from the right.
Still, it is unusual for freshmen Democrats to throw their support behind an organization that is threatening to wage primaries against their new colleagues.
And it’s unclear whether it could trigger a backlash from incumbent lawmakers who want to take advantage of their newfound majority to get things done, rather than sweating a primary challenge.
But Ocasio-Cortez has already made clear she’s looking to break the mold.
During her first week in Washington, she joined a protest in Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s office, supporting calls for a “Green New Deal."
”It wasn’t a very polite move to do," Chakrabarti said.
Ocasio-Cortez said at the sit-in that she was not there to protest Pelosi but to support the activists and their agenda.
“Should Leader Pelosi become the next speaker of the House, we need to tell her that we’ve got her back in showing and pursuing the most progressive energy agenda that this country has ever seen,” she told them.
“This is about unity."
"This is about solidarity.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/ ... ts-1000529
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
FOX NEWS
"Ocasio-Cortez called out for claiming Pentagon $$ error could fund Medicare for all"
Adam Shaw
4 DECEMBER 2018
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was roundly fact-checked this week — by even liberal-leaning publications — for suggesting a reported $21 trillion in Pentagon accounting errors could fund most of the proposed "Medicare for all" health care program.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the highest-profile figures among the new wave of liberal Democrats entering Congress in 2019, cited a Nation story about how $21 trillion in "Pentagon financial transactions" between 1998 and 2015 could not be documented or explained.
“$21T in Pentagon accounting errors."
"Medicare for All costs ~$32T,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
“That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.”
Ocasio-Cortez and others pushing "Medicare for all" have long faced questions about the government-backed health care program's price tag and how it could be funded.
They often push back by noting Americans already spend enormous amounts on private insurance premiums and other out-of-pocket expenses, and taxpayers fund a variety of other costly government schemes that could be curtailed.
But multiple fact-checkers gave a clear verdict to Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion that Pentagon accounting errors could largely cover the costs: it wasn’t true.
As left-wing Vox explained: “The Pentagon’s accounting errors are genuinely enormous, but they’re also just accounting errors — they don’t represent actual money that can be spent on something else.”
Underscoring the disconnect between the original story and Ocasio-Cortez's Twitter claim, Vox continued: "Indeed, there simply hasn’t been $21 trillion in (nominal) Defense Department spending across the entirety of American history."
According to The Nation story, the Defense Department is accused of fabricating numbers to disguise that it doesn’t spend all the money allocated.
Instead of returning unspent money to the Treasury, it shifts money to other parts of the budget.
The Nation story clarified that the analysis on which the story was based does not contend that it was all secret or misused funding.
It also said that the money shifts “are found on both the positive and negative sides of the ledger, thus potentially netting each other out.”
The crux of the story is not so much misspending, as an alleged lack of transparency by the Pentagon.
The New York Times noted that the $21 trillion is the value of adjustments made to Pentagon records that couldn’t be traced: “That is not the same thing as $21 trillion in spending.”
Vox sympathized with Ocasio-Cortez’s frustration with mammoth military spending but concluded: “[T]here’s no $21 trillion pot of gold that can be raided to pay for a comprehensive health insurance program, even though the United States really does spend an awful lot on the military.”
The Times agreed.
“It’s the sum of all transactions — both inflows and outflows — for which the Defense Department did not have adequate documentation,” its analysis said.
Ocasio-Cortez later made an additional note that her central point concerned the level of scrutiny applied to health care proposals versus, say, military spending: “To clarify, this is to say that we only demand fiscal details w/ health+edu, rarely elsewhere.”
“The point, I think, was more about how we care so little about the ‘how do you pay for it’ when we are talking about war and military spending,” her spokesman told The Washington Post.
“It’s only when we are talking about investing in the physical and economic well-being of our citizenry that we become concerned with the price tags.”
The Post, however, still described the original tweet as a “swing and a miss!” and awarded her claim “four Pinocchios.”
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein lamented how the original tweet nevertheless took off on social media.
“The fact that Ocasio-Cortez promoted the idea that slashing Pentagon fraud could mostly pay for ‘Medicare for all,’ and further that the tweet is now approaching 67,000 likes, says something about the fantasy world that socialists are living in, and their lack of understanding of the enormous trade-offs involved in instituting their agenda,” he wrote.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
"Ocasio-Cortez called out for claiming Pentagon $$ error could fund Medicare for all"
Adam Shaw
4 DECEMBER 2018
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was roundly fact-checked this week — by even liberal-leaning publications — for suggesting a reported $21 trillion in Pentagon accounting errors could fund most of the proposed "Medicare for all" health care program.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the highest-profile figures among the new wave of liberal Democrats entering Congress in 2019, cited a Nation story about how $21 trillion in "Pentagon financial transactions" between 1998 and 2015 could not be documented or explained.
“$21T in Pentagon accounting errors."
"Medicare for All costs ~$32T,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
“That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.”
Ocasio-Cortez and others pushing "Medicare for all" have long faced questions about the government-backed health care program's price tag and how it could be funded.
They often push back by noting Americans already spend enormous amounts on private insurance premiums and other out-of-pocket expenses, and taxpayers fund a variety of other costly government schemes that could be curtailed.
But multiple fact-checkers gave a clear verdict to Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion that Pentagon accounting errors could largely cover the costs: it wasn’t true.
As left-wing Vox explained: “The Pentagon’s accounting errors are genuinely enormous, but they’re also just accounting errors — they don’t represent actual money that can be spent on something else.”
Underscoring the disconnect between the original story and Ocasio-Cortez's Twitter claim, Vox continued: "Indeed, there simply hasn’t been $21 trillion in (nominal) Defense Department spending across the entirety of American history."
According to The Nation story, the Defense Department is accused of fabricating numbers to disguise that it doesn’t spend all the money allocated.
Instead of returning unspent money to the Treasury, it shifts money to other parts of the budget.
The Nation story clarified that the analysis on which the story was based does not contend that it was all secret or misused funding.
It also said that the money shifts “are found on both the positive and negative sides of the ledger, thus potentially netting each other out.”
The crux of the story is not so much misspending, as an alleged lack of transparency by the Pentagon.
The New York Times noted that the $21 trillion is the value of adjustments made to Pentagon records that couldn’t be traced: “That is not the same thing as $21 trillion in spending.”
Vox sympathized with Ocasio-Cortez’s frustration with mammoth military spending but concluded: “[T]here’s no $21 trillion pot of gold that can be raided to pay for a comprehensive health insurance program, even though the United States really does spend an awful lot on the military.”
The Times agreed.
“It’s the sum of all transactions — both inflows and outflows — for which the Defense Department did not have adequate documentation,” its analysis said.
Ocasio-Cortez later made an additional note that her central point concerned the level of scrutiny applied to health care proposals versus, say, military spending: “To clarify, this is to say that we only demand fiscal details w/ health+edu, rarely elsewhere.”
“The point, I think, was more about how we care so little about the ‘how do you pay for it’ when we are talking about war and military spending,” her spokesman told The Washington Post.
“It’s only when we are talking about investing in the physical and economic well-being of our citizenry that we become concerned with the price tags.”
The Post, however, still described the original tweet as a “swing and a miss!” and awarded her claim “four Pinocchios.”
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein lamented how the original tweet nevertheless took off on social media.
“The fact that Ocasio-Cortez promoted the idea that slashing Pentagon fraud could mostly pay for ‘Medicare for all,’ and further that the tweet is now approaching 67,000 likes, says something about the fantasy world that socialists are living in, and their lack of understanding of the enormous trade-offs involved in instituting their agenda,” he wrote.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
NEWSWEEK
"Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back at Mike Huckabee"
Tom Porter
3 DECEMBER 2018
Democratic Socialist rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit back at Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, calling his daughter Sarah Sanders a liar.
This comes after Huckabee trolled Ocasio-Cortez as “looney” for comparing her election to the moon landing.
Former Arkansas Governor Huckabee on Sunday mocked New York Representative Ocasio-Cortez for a speech in which she compared her victory and that of other progressives mid-term to landmark moments in U.S. history, including the moon landing and the civil rights movement.
“Ocasio-Cortez compares her election to moon landing."
"Huh?"
"Big difference."
"Moon landing was LUNAR, not LOONEY; Moon landing done by ppl who knew what they were doing...those who elected someone who thought there were 3 branches of Congress did NOT,” he tweeted, linking to a Daily Mail article reporting the speech in which she drew the comparison.
Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on the comparison, however, this time with reference to her Green New Deal.
“A Green New Deal will take a level of ambition + innovation on the scale of the moon landing."
"We’ve been done it before, and can do it again,” she wrote.
She also aimed a barb at Huckabee’s daughter, White House Press Secretary Huckabee Sanders—and questioned why he still uses the title 'Governor' on his Twitter profile.
“Leave the false statements to Sarah Huckabee."
"She’s much better at it.”
“Also, you haven’t been a Governor of any state for 10+ years now.”
The Mail reported that Ocasio Cortez made the speech at a press conference hosted by the Sunshine Movement, an anti-global warming advocacy group.
“We've done what we thought was impossible," she said.
“We went to the moon."
"We electrified the nation."
"We established civil rights."
"We enfranchised the country."
"We dig deep, and we did it."
"We did it when no one else thought that we could."
"That's what we did when so many of us won an election this year.”
Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning for what she terms a Green New Deal, which would involve “transitioning the United States to a carbon-free, 100-percent renewable energy system, and a fully modernized electrical grid by 2035.”
It is not the first time Ocasio-Cortez—who won New York’s 14th congressional district in a shock victory over incumbent Joe Crowley—has clashed with a senior Republican.
After comparing migrants who were attacked with tear gas by U.S. border agents to refugees fleeing Nazi genocide, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham recommended she “take a tour of the Holocaust Museum in DC."
"Might help her better understand the differences between the Holocaust and the caravan in Tijuana.”
In response, she wrote: “I heard your 'joke' about ethnic DNA preferences last month," referring to a Fox News interview in which Graham said he wouldn't like to find out he had Iranian ancestry.
"Perhaps you would enjoy a visit (or revisit) to the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture."
She added: “It’s a great educational experience.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
"Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back at Mike Huckabee"
Tom Porter
3 DECEMBER 2018
Democratic Socialist rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit back at Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, calling his daughter Sarah Sanders a liar.
This comes after Huckabee trolled Ocasio-Cortez as “looney” for comparing her election to the moon landing.
Former Arkansas Governor Huckabee on Sunday mocked New York Representative Ocasio-Cortez for a speech in which she compared her victory and that of other progressives mid-term to landmark moments in U.S. history, including the moon landing and the civil rights movement.
“Ocasio-Cortez compares her election to moon landing."
"Huh?"
"Big difference."
"Moon landing was LUNAR, not LOONEY; Moon landing done by ppl who knew what they were doing...those who elected someone who thought there were 3 branches of Congress did NOT,” he tweeted, linking to a Daily Mail article reporting the speech in which she drew the comparison.
Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on the comparison, however, this time with reference to her Green New Deal.
“A Green New Deal will take a level of ambition + innovation on the scale of the moon landing."
"We’ve been done it before, and can do it again,” she wrote.
She also aimed a barb at Huckabee’s daughter, White House Press Secretary Huckabee Sanders—and questioned why he still uses the title 'Governor' on his Twitter profile.
“Leave the false statements to Sarah Huckabee."
"She’s much better at it.”
“Also, you haven’t been a Governor of any state for 10+ years now.”
The Mail reported that Ocasio Cortez made the speech at a press conference hosted by the Sunshine Movement, an anti-global warming advocacy group.
“We've done what we thought was impossible," she said.
“We went to the moon."
"We electrified the nation."
"We established civil rights."
"We enfranchised the country."
"We dig deep, and we did it."
"We did it when no one else thought that we could."
"That's what we did when so many of us won an election this year.”
Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning for what she terms a Green New Deal, which would involve “transitioning the United States to a carbon-free, 100-percent renewable energy system, and a fully modernized electrical grid by 2035.”
It is not the first time Ocasio-Cortez—who won New York’s 14th congressional district in a shock victory over incumbent Joe Crowley—has clashed with a senior Republican.
After comparing migrants who were attacked with tear gas by U.S. border agents to refugees fleeing Nazi genocide, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham recommended she “take a tour of the Holocaust Museum in DC."
"Might help her better understand the differences between the Holocaust and the caravan in Tijuana.”
In response, she wrote: “I heard your 'joke' about ethnic DNA preferences last month," referring to a Fox News interview in which Graham said he wouldn't like to find out he had Iranian ancestry.
"Perhaps you would enjoy a visit (or revisit) to the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture."
She added: “It’s a great educational experience.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
OCASIO-CORTEZ, WHO IS NOT A DEMOCRAT, KNOWS A LOT ABOUT SOCIALISM AS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST ...
SHE ALSO KNOWS HOW TO WHIP UP A MOB FRENZY …
WHAT SHE DOESN'T KNOW, OR CARE TO KNOW, IS OUR HISTORY AS A NATION …
SHE INTENDS TO START A NEW HISTORY …
NOT CONTINUE THE OLD ONE …
NOR DOES SHE UNDERSTAND OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT …
OR ACCEPT IT ...
And so ...
CNN
"Kellyanne Conway says Ocasio-Cortez 'doesn't seem to know much about anything'"
By Sophie Tatum, CNN
12 DECEMBER 2018
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway took a shot Tuesday at Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying the incoming lawmaker "doesn't seem to know much about anything."
The remark from Conway, made while defending chief of staff John Kelly from an accusation of "cowardice" by Ocasio-Cortez, is the latest swipe by a top conservative against the New York Democrat, who has emerged as a central figure in the progressive movement and is a top critic of President Donald Trump.
"This country owes him a debt of gratitude," Conway said Tuesday morning on "Fox & Friends," referring to Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who served in Iraq.
"Not the nonsense that has been spewed about him even recently from the left and from this 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything when you ask her basic concepts about the economy, the Middle East, military funding -- really embarrassing."
A message left with Ocasio-Cortez's office seeking a response was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.
Conway didn't mention any particular issues or instances, though Ocasio-Cortez started a minor controversy over the summer when she referred to Israel's presence in parts of the region as an "occupation" and later acknowledged that she is not an "expert on geopolitics on this issue."
Ocasio-Cortez addressed some of her critics prior to Conway's comments Tuesday in a tweet on Monday, comparing the treatment of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, when he was first elected to Congress in his 20s to the criticism she has faced during her own path to Capitol Hill.
"Double standards are Paul Ryan being elected at 28 and immediately being given the benefit of his ill-considered policies considered genius; and me winning a primary at 28 to immediately be treated with suspicion & scrutinized, down to my clothing, of being a fraud," she said.
Trump announced on Saturday that Kelly would be departing his role as chief of staff at the end of the year.
In response, California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee called for Kelly to apologize for comments he made about her fellow Democrat from Florida, Rep. Frederica Wilson, with whom Kelly engaged in a spat following the deaths of US service members in Niger.
Ocasio-Cortez echoed Lee's statement in her own tweet.
"John Kelly was straight up exposed for lying about @RepWilson in comments aimed at discrediting her," she wrote on Twitter on Monday.
"He absolutely owes her an apology, and his refusal to do so isn't a sign of strength - it's cowardice."
Conway, without naming Ocasio-Cortez, called the criticism of Kelly a "slur" Tuesday.
"But let me stand up for Gen. John Kelly," Conway said.
"He's done a magnificent job for this country, for almost 50 years."
"And that includes here in the White House as our chief of staff for about a year and a half."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
SHE ALSO KNOWS HOW TO WHIP UP A MOB FRENZY …
WHAT SHE DOESN'T KNOW, OR CARE TO KNOW, IS OUR HISTORY AS A NATION …
SHE INTENDS TO START A NEW HISTORY …
NOT CONTINUE THE OLD ONE …
NOR DOES SHE UNDERSTAND OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT …
OR ACCEPT IT ...
And so ...
CNN
"Kellyanne Conway says Ocasio-Cortez 'doesn't seem to know much about anything'"
By Sophie Tatum, CNN
12 DECEMBER 2018
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway took a shot Tuesday at Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying the incoming lawmaker "doesn't seem to know much about anything."
The remark from Conway, made while defending chief of staff John Kelly from an accusation of "cowardice" by Ocasio-Cortez, is the latest swipe by a top conservative against the New York Democrat, who has emerged as a central figure in the progressive movement and is a top critic of President Donald Trump.
"This country owes him a debt of gratitude," Conway said Tuesday morning on "Fox & Friends," referring to Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who served in Iraq.
"Not the nonsense that has been spewed about him even recently from the left and from this 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything when you ask her basic concepts about the economy, the Middle East, military funding -- really embarrassing."
A message left with Ocasio-Cortez's office seeking a response was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.
Conway didn't mention any particular issues or instances, though Ocasio-Cortez started a minor controversy over the summer when she referred to Israel's presence in parts of the region as an "occupation" and later acknowledged that she is not an "expert on geopolitics on this issue."
Ocasio-Cortez addressed some of her critics prior to Conway's comments Tuesday in a tweet on Monday, comparing the treatment of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, when he was first elected to Congress in his 20s to the criticism she has faced during her own path to Capitol Hill.
"Double standards are Paul Ryan being elected at 28 and immediately being given the benefit of his ill-considered policies considered genius; and me winning a primary at 28 to immediately be treated with suspicion & scrutinized, down to my clothing, of being a fraud," she said.
Trump announced on Saturday that Kelly would be departing his role as chief of staff at the end of the year.
In response, California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee called for Kelly to apologize for comments he made about her fellow Democrat from Florida, Rep. Frederica Wilson, with whom Kelly engaged in a spat following the deaths of US service members in Niger.
Ocasio-Cortez echoed Lee's statement in her own tweet.
"John Kelly was straight up exposed for lying about @RepWilson in comments aimed at discrediting her," she wrote on Twitter on Monday.
"He absolutely owes her an apology, and his refusal to do so isn't a sign of strength - it's cowardice."
Conway, without naming Ocasio-Cortez, called the criticism of Kelly a "slur" Tuesday.
"But let me stand up for Gen. John Kelly," Conway said.
"He's done a magnificent job for this country, for almost 50 years."
"And that includes here in the White House as our chief of staff for about a year and a half."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
DEAR ALEXANDRIA
UNLIKE OTHER COUNTRIES YOU MIGHT BE MORE FAMILIAR WITH, LIKE THE CONGO AND SOMALIA AND ZIMBABWE, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHERE WE ARE, CONGRESS PERSONS ARE NOT ELECTED TO "SHAKE UP THE ESTABLISHMENT" …
IF YOU THINK THAT, ALEXANDRIA, YOU ARE BOTH STUPID AND IGNORANT …
SO THAT THE GREATEST SERVICE YOU CAN NOW RENDER THIS NATION IS TO RESIGN AND TURN YOUR CONGRESSIONAL SEAT OVER TO A REAL AMERICAN WHO DOES UNDERSTAND OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT YOU ARE SO OBVIOUSLY IGNORANT OF ...
And so …
THE HILL
"Ocasio-Cortez fires back at Conway: She has 'engaged in a War on Facts since Inauguration Day'"
Tal Axelrod
13 DECEMBER 2018
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday fired back at White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who recently called the New York Democrat "a 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything."
"Kellyanne Conway has been engaged in a War on Facts since Inauguration Day."
"Leveraging those who belittle my capacity is exactly how I defeated a multi-generation, multi-million $ political machine."
"GOP is even weaker bc their bias has no self-control," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez was likely referencing a remark Conway made on NBC's "Meet the Press" shortly after President Trump took office.
At the time, Conway said now-former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was presenting "alternative facts" after he mischaracterized the size of the inauguration crowd.
Conway's recent criticism of Ocasio-Cortez came during an interview on Fox News about possible successors to White House chief of staff John Kelly, who is stepping down before the end of the month.
Conway criticized Ocasio-Cortez for referring to Kelly as a liar.
"[Kelly] is in his fifth decade of public service, and this country owes him a debt of gratitude, not the nonsense that has been spewed about him recently from the left, and from this 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything when you ask her basic concepts about the economy, or the Middle East, or military funding," Conway said on Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Sunday that Kelly was "straight up exposed for lying" about Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who the congresswoman-elect said was owed an apology.
Kelly referred to Wilson last year as an "empty barrel" and claimed she had boasted about securing funding for a new FBI field office in her Miami-area district.
No video evidence could be found of Wilson making the claim.
Ocasio-Cortez burst onto the political scene after defeating House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) in a primary race.
She has been an outspoken progressive on a number of issues and spent her first day at orientation on Capitol Hill visiting protestors sitting in at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office.
Ocasio-Cortez has not been one to shy away from a fight, and has repeatedly called out those on Twitter who she views as representing the establishment that she says she was elected to shake up.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
UNLIKE OTHER COUNTRIES YOU MIGHT BE MORE FAMILIAR WITH, LIKE THE CONGO AND SOMALIA AND ZIMBABWE, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHERE WE ARE, CONGRESS PERSONS ARE NOT ELECTED TO "SHAKE UP THE ESTABLISHMENT" …
IF YOU THINK THAT, ALEXANDRIA, YOU ARE BOTH STUPID AND IGNORANT …
SO THAT THE GREATEST SERVICE YOU CAN NOW RENDER THIS NATION IS TO RESIGN AND TURN YOUR CONGRESSIONAL SEAT OVER TO A REAL AMERICAN WHO DOES UNDERSTAND OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT YOU ARE SO OBVIOUSLY IGNORANT OF ...
And so …
THE HILL
"Ocasio-Cortez fires back at Conway: She has 'engaged in a War on Facts since Inauguration Day'"
Tal Axelrod
13 DECEMBER 2018
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday fired back at White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who recently called the New York Democrat "a 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything."
"Kellyanne Conway has been engaged in a War on Facts since Inauguration Day."
"Leveraging those who belittle my capacity is exactly how I defeated a multi-generation, multi-million $ political machine."
"GOP is even weaker bc their bias has no self-control," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez was likely referencing a remark Conway made on NBC's "Meet the Press" shortly after President Trump took office.
At the time, Conway said now-former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was presenting "alternative facts" after he mischaracterized the size of the inauguration crowd.
Conway's recent criticism of Ocasio-Cortez came during an interview on Fox News about possible successors to White House chief of staff John Kelly, who is stepping down before the end of the month.
Conway criticized Ocasio-Cortez for referring to Kelly as a liar.
"[Kelly] is in his fifth decade of public service, and this country owes him a debt of gratitude, not the nonsense that has been spewed about him recently from the left, and from this 29-year-old congresswoman who doesn't seem to know much about anything when you ask her basic concepts about the economy, or the Middle East, or military funding," Conway said on Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Sunday that Kelly was "straight up exposed for lying" about Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who the congresswoman-elect said was owed an apology.
Kelly referred to Wilson last year as an "empty barrel" and claimed she had boasted about securing funding for a new FBI field office in her Miami-area district.
No video evidence could be found of Wilson making the claim.
Ocasio-Cortez burst onto the political scene after defeating House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) in a primary race.
She has been an outspoken progressive on a number of issues and spent her first day at orientation on Capitol Hill visiting protestors sitting in at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office.
Ocasio-Cortez has not been one to shy away from a fight, and has repeatedly called out those on Twitter who she views as representing the establishment that she says she was elected to shake up.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
TheNewAmerican
"Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Democrats to Take Over “All Three [?] Chambers of Government” in 2020"
Written by Steve Byas
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
The time was that the Democrat-favoring media liked to make fun of Republican politicians such as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and then-Vice President Dan Quayle, overtly insinuating that the two were not of sufficient intellectual capability to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
In both cases, however, the jokes told about Palin and Quayle were dishonest.
With Palin, they took her quite accurate remark that one could see Russia from places in western Alaska, and ridiculed her that she had instead said she could see Russia from her kitchen window.
Quayle had not even said anything to be distorted — they just made up the joke that he had said he wished he had studied Latin in school, since he was going to visit Latin America.
But with the soon-to-be U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), she actually said what she is now being quoted as saying.
In fact, she went to YouTube Sunday and made a video with the radical leftist group Justice Democrats urging her fellow socialists (she is a member of the Democratic Socialists for America) and radicals to begin working now for the 2020 election contests.
In the video (below), Ocasio-Cortez said that electoral success will not come easily, but we need to “make sure we take back all three chambers of Congress — rather all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate and the House in 2020, we can’t start working in 2020.”
It reminds one of former Vice President Joe Biden’s silly remark that after the stock market crashed in 1929, President Franklin Roosevelt “went on TV” to talk about it.
How many incorrect facts can one cram into one sentence?
Of course, when the stock market crashed in ’29, Roosevelt was not president, and he certainly did not go on television that night to talk about it, because TV was not even commercially available for another decade.
Ocasio-Cortez is soon to be a member of Congress, and yet she does not demonstrate even a minimum of knowledge of the constitutional structure put into place by the Framers of the Constitution.
Note that she began to say “three chambers of Congress,” then corrected herself.
Anyone can misspeak, of course, but her supposed correction indicated that she really does not know what the three branches of government are: the legislative (Congress), the executive (led by the president), and the judicial (the federal courts).
Instead she calls them “chambers,” and one could say, well, she meant “branches.”
But she still does not get it right.
The three branches — not chambers — of government are not the presidency, the Senate, and the House.
Ohio Representative Niraj Antani (R-Ohio) went on Twitter to ridicule her ignorance. “What is a chamber of government?”
Rather than own up to her mistake, Ocasio-Cortez attempted to redirect the issue to political issues.
“Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real-time, they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they don’t believe people deserve a right to healthcare.”
Exactly what her ignorance had to do with healthcare is not clear, but it was a typical liberal diversionary tactic when confronted with a problem.
Of course, Ocasio-Cortez did not correct in “real-time.”
After saying “three chambers of Congress,” she divided those three “chambers” as the House, the Senate, and the president.
She still left out the judicial branch (or “chamber” in her own words).
She never corrected the word “chamber” to “branch.”
Representative Antani responded, “I was elected at age 23, and I know what the three branches of government are, and that there are two chambers in Congress."
"Do you even know that?"
"Not sure how you work on any issue without that basic knowledge.”
Ocasio-Cortez can not properly identify the proper name of the three basic divisions of the federal government as “branches,” rather than “chambers,” and she did not even mention the judicial branch.
She either cannot explain why we have three branches of government, or perhaps she does not care why we have three branches.
After all, James Madison and the other Founding Fathers purposely divided the federal government into three branches, in what is termed “separation of powers,” because they wanted to limit the power of government.
For leftists such as Ocasio-Cortez, limiting the role of government in our lives is not a goal to respect (as long as they control the reins of government).
As an example, she recently expressed puzzlement that people keep asking her how the country can afford socialized medicine (or, as she calls it, Medicare for All).
Her answer was, “You just pay for it,” arguing that socialized medicine would be cheaper.
Exactly which “chamber” of government would take care of that, we are not sure.
But don't expect her to be ridiculed by her buddies in the media.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/c ... nt-in-2020
"Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Democrats to Take Over “All Three [?] Chambers of Government” in 2020"
Written by Steve Byas
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
The time was that the Democrat-favoring media liked to make fun of Republican politicians such as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and then-Vice President Dan Quayle, overtly insinuating that the two were not of sufficient intellectual capability to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
In both cases, however, the jokes told about Palin and Quayle were dishonest.
With Palin, they took her quite accurate remark that one could see Russia from places in western Alaska, and ridiculed her that she had instead said she could see Russia from her kitchen window.
Quayle had not even said anything to be distorted — they just made up the joke that he had said he wished he had studied Latin in school, since he was going to visit Latin America.
But with the soon-to-be U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), she actually said what she is now being quoted as saying.
In fact, she went to YouTube Sunday and made a video with the radical leftist group Justice Democrats urging her fellow socialists (she is a member of the Democratic Socialists for America) and radicals to begin working now for the 2020 election contests.
In the video (below), Ocasio-Cortez said that electoral success will not come easily, but we need to “make sure we take back all three chambers of Congress — rather all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate and the House in 2020, we can’t start working in 2020.”
It reminds one of former Vice President Joe Biden’s silly remark that after the stock market crashed in 1929, President Franklin Roosevelt “went on TV” to talk about it.
How many incorrect facts can one cram into one sentence?
Of course, when the stock market crashed in ’29, Roosevelt was not president, and he certainly did not go on television that night to talk about it, because TV was not even commercially available for another decade.
Ocasio-Cortez is soon to be a member of Congress, and yet she does not demonstrate even a minimum of knowledge of the constitutional structure put into place by the Framers of the Constitution.
Note that she began to say “three chambers of Congress,” then corrected herself.
Anyone can misspeak, of course, but her supposed correction indicated that she really does not know what the three branches of government are: the legislative (Congress), the executive (led by the president), and the judicial (the federal courts).
Instead she calls them “chambers,” and one could say, well, she meant “branches.”
But she still does not get it right.
The three branches — not chambers — of government are not the presidency, the Senate, and the House.
Ohio Representative Niraj Antani (R-Ohio) went on Twitter to ridicule her ignorance. “What is a chamber of government?”
Rather than own up to her mistake, Ocasio-Cortez attempted to redirect the issue to political issues.
“Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real-time, they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they don’t believe people deserve a right to healthcare.”
Exactly what her ignorance had to do with healthcare is not clear, but it was a typical liberal diversionary tactic when confronted with a problem.
Of course, Ocasio-Cortez did not correct in “real-time.”
After saying “three chambers of Congress,” she divided those three “chambers” as the House, the Senate, and the president.
She still left out the judicial branch (or “chamber” in her own words).
She never corrected the word “chamber” to “branch.”
Representative Antani responded, “I was elected at age 23, and I know what the three branches of government are, and that there are two chambers in Congress."
"Do you even know that?"
"Not sure how you work on any issue without that basic knowledge.”
Ocasio-Cortez can not properly identify the proper name of the three basic divisions of the federal government as “branches,” rather than “chambers,” and she did not even mention the judicial branch.
She either cannot explain why we have three branches of government, or perhaps she does not care why we have three branches.
After all, James Madison and the other Founding Fathers purposely divided the federal government into three branches, in what is termed “separation of powers,” because they wanted to limit the power of government.
For leftists such as Ocasio-Cortez, limiting the role of government in our lives is not a goal to respect (as long as they control the reins of government).
As an example, she recently expressed puzzlement that people keep asking her how the country can afford socialized medicine (or, as she calls it, Medicare for All).
Her answer was, “You just pay for it,” arguing that socialized medicine would be cheaper.
Exactly which “chamber” of government would take care of that, we are not sure.
But don't expect her to be ridiculed by her buddies in the media.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/c ... nt-in-2020