Billionaire Leon Cooperman asked Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exactly what it is that he has done wrong. They refused to answer him.
The Washington Post recently published this article on billionaire Leon Cooperman.
The article states:
He… wrote letters to politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) whenever they criticized billionaires in their speeches, because he couldn’t understand: What exactly had he done wrong? What rule had he broken? He’d been born to poor immigrant parents on the losing end of a capitalist economy. He’d attended public schools, taken on debt to become the first in his family to attend college, worked 80-hour weeks, made smart decisions, benefited from some good luck, amassed a fortune for himself and for his clients and paid hundreds of millions in taxes to the government. He had a wife of 57 years, two successful children, and three grandchildren who were helping him decide how to give most of his money away to a long list of charities. “My life is the story of the American Dream,” he’d said while accepting an award at one charity gala, and he’d always imagined himself as the rags-to-riches hero, only to now find himself cast as the greedy villain in a story of economic inequality run amok.
Warren, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez have all refused to answer Cooperman’s question.
‘Squad’ members spend close to $100,000 of campaign donations to fund private police forces
‘Squad’ members spend close to $100,000 of campaign donations to fund private police forces
By Luke Gentile
October 19, 2021
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , a New York Democrat, and the other members of her progressive “Squad” spent close to $100,000 on private security in the third quarter while championing the defund the police movement, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The campaign for Ocasio-Cortez paid nearly $10,000 for a private police force to keep the representative safe, while Rep. Ayanna Pressley , a Massachusetts Democrat, racked up a private security bill totaling nearly $4,000, records indicate.
Both Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley have championed a diminished and “reimagined” police state, with the latter suggesting she is “ready to continue the systemic work necessary to radically reimagine a system of public safety in our country that finally censures the dignity and humanity of all,” according to a Fox report.
Still, the bills collected by Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley appear modest to those of Reps. Ilhan Omar , a Minnesota Democrat, and Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat, according to the records.
Omar’s own private security cost $22,000, while the protection needed for Bush carried a price tag of almost $65,000, according to the report.
Omar has called the police in her district “rotten to the root” and stated that “the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore, and we can’t go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place.”
The money that went toward the private security forces for the Squad members was paid out of their campaigns, the report said.
This means it is possible that donations that were sent to aid calls for defunding the police were, in reality, spent to rent out private police.
‘The Squad’ Pushes To ‘Defund The Police’ While Spending Thousands On Private Security To Protect Themselves
‘The Squad’ Pushes To ‘Defund The Police’ While Spending Thousands On Private Security To Protect Themselves
By Henry Rodgers
April 19, 2021
Members of the progressive-Democrat group in Congress called “the Squad” who have been pushing to defund the police, spent thousands of dollars on private security for themselves, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reviewed by the Daily Caller.
Democrats New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush each spent thousands of dollars on their own security. The payments were described in the FEC filings as either “security” or “security services.”
In Jan. 2020, Ocasio-Cortez criticized New York City’s proposed $1 billion cuts from the police department budget, saying it did not go far enough. (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez Defends Defund Police Movement Despite Pushback From Democrats)
“Defunding police means defunding police,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools.”
During a June 2020 Instagram live, Ocasio-Cortez said America would look like a suburb if the police lost funding across the country.
“Affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth, health, housing etc more than they fund police,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
In January, February, and March of 2021, Ocasio-Cortez spent $3,000 per month on a security consultant based out of Brooklyn, New York. Records show she spent a total of $9,000 for 3 months of security consulting from this one company.
On Jan. 25, 2021, Ocasio-Cortez spent $24,279.13 on “security.”
On Jan. 19, 2021, she spent $3,986.60 on “security services.”
On Feb. 2., Ocasio-Cortez spent $849.22 on “security services.”
On Feb. 25, Ocasio-Cortez spent $1552.50 at 24 & 7 Security & Investigation, Inc., which her office said was for a “security detail in Houston.”
Omar, who also supports defunding the police, spent $3,103.61 on her own security in her state of Minnesota, according to her April Quarterly 2021 financial report:
On Jan. 20, 2021, Omar spent $66.97 on “Security Services.”
On Jan. 29, 2021, Ilhan Omar spent $202.70 on Security “Services.”
On Feb. 19, 2021, Ilhan Omar spent $66.97 on “Security Services.”
On Feb. 26, 2021, Omar spent $2,700 on “Security Services.”
On March 16, 2021, Ilhan Omar spent $66.97 on “Security Services.”
In a June 2020 appearance on CNN, when Omar was asked about defunding the police she said the system could not be reformed.
“You can’t really reform a department that is rotten to the root. What you can do is rebuild,” Omar said. “No one is saying crimes will not be investigated.”
“What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore, and we can’t go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place,” she said.
Pressley, another avid supporter of defunding the police, spent $4,186.75 on “Security Services,” according to her April Quarterly 2021 financial report:
On Jan. 26, 2021, Pressley spent $1,292.00 while in her home state.
On Jan. 27, 2021, Pressley spent $1,267.50 for security in Alexandria, Virginia.
On March 4, 2021, Pressley spent $675.25 in ADT security, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida.
On March 9, 2021, Pressley spent $252.00 while in her home state.
On March 19, 2021, Pressley spent $700.00 for a security company in Washington D.C. called LGC Security LLC.
In a June 2020 interview with TIME, Pressley said she supports efforts to defund police departments, saying it is “about the investment in our communities which have historically been divested from.”
Cori Bush, a freshman Democrat who has pushed to defund the police, spent over $30,000 on her own security, according to her April Quarterly 2021 financial report.
On Jan. 18, 2021, Bush spent $1,060.00 on security from Whole Armor Executive Protection in Bowie, Maryland.
On Jan. 21, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Nathaniel Davis, Jr in her home state.
On Jan. 25, 2021, Bush spent $530.00 on security from Nathaniel Davis in Palo Alto, Calif.
On Feb. 17, 2021, Bush spent $7,743.75 on security from RS&T Security Counseling LLC in New York City.
On Feb. 25, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Sandler, Reiff, Lamb, Rosenstein & Birk in Washington DC.
On Feb. 26, 2021, Bush spent $5,812.00 on security from RS&T Security Counseling, LLC in NYC.
On March 15, 2021, Bush spent $5,000 on security from Nathaniel Davis Davis, in Saint Louis, Missouri.
On March 15, 2021, Bush spent $2,456.25 on security from RS&T Security Consulting LLC in NYC.
Bush sent out a tweet in Dec. 2020, that criticized former President Barrack Obama for not calling to defund the police.
“With all due respect, Mr. President—let’s talk about losing people. We lost Michael Brown Jr. We lost Breonna Taylor. We’re losing our loved ones to police violence. It’s not a slogan. It’s a mandate for keeping our people alive. Defund the police,” Bush said in a tweet.
The Daily Caller contacted the offices of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Bush about the amount of money spent on security, to which they did not immediately respond. Daily Caller reached out to many of the security companies and learned that they indeed provide armed security, but couldn’t comment on the nature of security provided to the congresswomen.
AOC, ‘Squad’ members promote ‘Defund the Police’ but spend thousands on private security
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-defund-police-squad-private-security
AOC, ‘Squad’ members promote ‘Defund the Police’ but spend thousands on private security
Bush has spent the most on security services so far this year
April 20, 2021
Bush has spent the most on security services so far this year
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and other members of the progressive “Squad” spent thousands of dollars on private security despite calling on cities to defund police departments, Federal Election Commission filings show.
The group of progressive, Democratic congresswomen including Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Cori Bush of Missouri, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan have voiced their support for measures to reduce police spending and allocate those funds toward other community services in an effort to curb police violence.
Tlaib’s filings do not show any security-related spending, though the other four congresswomen have spent tens of thousands of dollars on different private security services.
Ocasio-Cortez
“Defunding police means defunding police,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a June 30 statement — about a month after George Floyd’s death. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools.”
The statement came in response to New York City’s proposed $1 billion police department budget cut, which the city aimed to use for education, social services and summer youth programming instead.
Just last week, Ocasio-Cortez said the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright happened not as an accident but because of “an indefensible system that grants impunity for state violence, rewards it [with] endlessly growing budgets at the cost of community investment, [and] targets those who question that order.”
Meanwhile, however, Ocasio-Cortez has paid $3,000 per month on a New York-based “security consultant” service since December, 2020, though she was spending $5,000 per month on the same security consultant beginning May 5, 2020, as The Daily Caller first reported.
Since the start of 2021, she has spent more than $25,000 on “security” costs dated Jan. 25; more than $1,500 on security detail for a February trip to Houston after a shocking winter storm devastated the area; nearly $4,000 on “security services” dated Jan. 19; and nearly $850 on “security services” dated Feb. 2.
The congresswoman did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News.
Ayanna Pressley
Pressley and Tlaib in July introduced the BREATHE Act to defund police departments, establish a reparations program for African Americans and people harmed by the police and the criminal justice system and eliminate federal programs and agencies used to finance Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Massachusetts congresswoman said in a July video posted to Facebook Live announcing the legislation that she stands “ready to continue the systemic work necessary to radically reimagine a system of public safety in our country that finally censures the dignity and humanity of all.”
n a June tweet, Pressley said “the defund movement isn’t new” but that “folks are just finally listening.”
Pressley’s own safety system, however, cost nearly $4,200 in 2021, FEC filings show.
The congresswoman spent nearly $2,300 and about $250 on security services from Massachusetts-based firms in January and March; about $1,260 on security services from a Virginia-based firm in January; $675 on ADT security services in March; and $700 on security services from a Washington, D.C.-based firm in March.
She did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News.
Ilhan Omar
Omar’s state and district have been rocked by both violent and peaceful protests in the year following the fatal, officer-involved shooting of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as the more recent officer-involved shooting death of Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb.
Omar in June said on CNN’s “State of the Union” said Minneapolis has to “rebuild” its police department, which described as “rotten to the root” and impossible to reform.
“What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore, and we can’t go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place,” she said at the time.
In November, the congresswoman appeared to defend the Minneapolis City Council’s proposal to transfer $8 million from the city’s police department to other community services.
“Don’t fall for the fear-driven narratives,” Omar tweeted at the time. “We can craft a justice system that prioritizes people’s basic needs like mental health [and] violence prevention, [and] allow the city to put public safety first.”
The Minnesota lawmaker, however, has spent upwards of $3,100 on security-related services so far in 2021. That includes a monthly payment of about $67 to a Minneapolis-based firm — as well as an additional $200 to the same firm on Jan. 29 — and $2,700 on “security services” from a different Minneapolis firm.
Omar did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News.
Cori Bush
Bush, the newest member of the “Squad,” has previously taken issue with both police and Defense Department spending.
“Defunding the police isn’t radical, it’s real,” she tweeted in January.
On April 12, she noted that Minnesota invested $12 million in police training after “Philando Castile was murdered by police at a traffic stop in 2016.
“Where was that training when they killed Daunte Wright just 10 miles from where Derek Chauvin sits on trial for murdering George Floyd?” she tweeted. Two days later, she called on lawmakers to “remove police from traffic enforcement.”
But Bush has spent the most on security services so far this year compared to her other progressive colleagues. In 2021 alone, Bush spent more than $30,000 on “security services” from different companies.
Bush has spent $5,000 per month on services from a security consulting company based in California; more than $1,500 total on security from another Maryland-based firm in January; $5,000 on security from a Missouri-based firm in January; more than $7,700 on security from a New York-based firm in February; and more than $8,200 on services from a New-York based security company.
Bush did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News.
Calls to “defund” police departments or reduce state and citywide police budgets became popularized after Floyd’s death nearly a year ago, and the slogan has become commonplace among protesters, political pundits and progressive lawmakers on both the local and federal levels.
Other more moderate Democrats have pushed back against the phrase as an idea that could be damaging to the party.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames Trump for the fact that New York and New Jersey forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. And she apparently doesn’t know that Florida’s sunshine is good for your immune system. And she apparently thinks Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
May 17, 2020
Wow!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets so many different things wrong in the video below.
As I have explained here and here, New York and New Jersey both required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This caused the disease to spread, and infect, and kill, a huge number of people who lived in these nursing homes. This constitutes mass murder.
But instead of blaming this mass murder on New York and New Jersey, Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames it on Trump.
And as I explained here, Florida banned nursing homes from admitting patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This saved a huge number of lives.
But instead of praising Florida’s actions, Ocasio-Cortez criticizes the state.
Ocasio-Cortez also apparently doesn’t understand that the sunshine at Florida’s beaches helps people’s bodies to generate vitamin D, and that this helps to protect them from COVID-19.
Also, Ocasio-Cortez apparently doesn’t seem to understand that just about every single mass outbreak of COVID-19 that has been documented, happened inside.
And Ocasio-Cortez apparently thinks that Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
But here are the real numbers. COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population, as of May 17, 2020. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
New York: 1,446
New Jersey: 1,155
Florida: 92
Likewise, the Palm Beach Post reported the following rates of elder-care resident deaths per 100,000 people, as of May 13, 2020:
New York: nearly 27
New Jersey: 51
Florida: 3.5
But I’m not surprised. Time and time and time and time and time and time again, Ocasio-Cortez has proven herself to be completely ignorant when it comes to anything involving numbers.
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1245651038977179653
Note from Daniel Alman: I have written a book called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants to Stop Cows from Farting.
You can buy the paperback version at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1796936030
You can buy the amazon kindle version at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NRL9ZM8
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “It’s legitimate to talk about” allegations against Joe Biden
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “It’s legitimate to talk about” allegations against Joe Biden
April 15, 2020
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday night said the Democratic Party should discuss the recent sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden, a charge the presumptive nominee’s campaign has denied.
On Tuesday evening in an online conversation with The Wing, a networking and community space for women, a questioner asked Ocasio-Cortez about the accusation recently leveled against Biden by Tara Reade, who worked for him when he was a Delaware senator in the 1990s. The questioner opposes President Trump’s reelection, but also “really resent[s] the fact that the other choice is someone who has a really long history of being creepy to women.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded, “What you’re voicing is so legitimate and real. That’s why I find this kind of silencing of all dissent to be a form of gaslighting.”
She went on to say, “I think it’s legitimate to talk about these things. And if we want, if we again want to have integrity, you can’t say, you know — both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us.”
“A lot of us are survivors, and it’s really, really hard and uncomfortable.” Not discussing allegations is the “exact opposite of integrity” the congresswoman said, adding that it is “not okay” to prioritize beating Trump over discussing sensitive #MeToo issues like these because they are “very legitimate thing[s].”
“I think a lot of us are just in this moment where it’s like, how did we get here? You know, it almost felt like we started this cycle where we had kind of moved on from, you know, from all of this. And now it feels like we’re kind of back in it,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And, you know, the most diverse field that we’ve ever seen — that we’re kind of back kind of replaying old movies in a way.”
Reade is grateful for Ocasio-Cortez’s support. “I’m very humbled and honored because she is literally the only politician that has spoken up on my behalf,” Reade told CBS News after the initial publication of this story.
In March, Reade told CBS News she came forward with these allegations during the height of the primary contest, when she supported Bernie Sanders, because she was offered a platform to do so on a podcast.
Biden himself has not addressed the allegation directly.
According to the New York Times, Reade accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in the halls of the Capitol in 1993. The paper cited both interviews with Reade’s family members who say she told them about the allegation, and also interviews with Reade’s former colleagues who did not remember any complaints from Reade about the kind of behavior from Biden she describes now.
“Several people who worked in the Senate office with Ms. Reade said they did not recall any talk of such an incident or similar behavior by Mr. Biden toward her or any women. Two office interns who worked directly with Ms. Reade said they were unaware of the allegation or any treatment that troubled her,” the Times wrote.
One of Reade’s former colleagues, Marianne Baker, Biden’s former executive assistant, provided a statement to the Times through the campaign.
“I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period — not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone,” the statement from Baker said. “I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager.”
The Washington Post reported that Reade’s accusation has changed over the past year in interviews she has given. When she accused Biden of inappropriate touching last year she did not mention anything about the physical assault.
The Post reported Reade voted for the Obama-Biden ticket twice and sometimes tweeted positively about Biden. The paper noted in conversations with Reade last year she faulted Biden’s staff for “bullying” her and said the then-senator should have been more aware.
“This is what I want to emphasize: It’s not him. It’s the people around him who keep covering for him,” the Post reported Reade told the paper last year, adding later, “For instance, he should have known what was happening to me. . . . Looking back now, that’s my criticism. Maybe he could have been a little more in touch with his own staff.”
In addition, the AP reported that after speaking with Reade about her complaints in April 2019, it “declined to publish details of the interview at the time because reporters were unable to corroborate her allegations, and aspects of her story contradicted other reporting.”
Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, told CBS News the accusation was “untrue.”
“Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women,” Bedingfield’s statement read. “He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard — and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”
These new statements from the New York congresswoman come just hours after former President Barack Obama broke his 2020 campaign silence and endorsed Biden via an online 12-minute video, a day after Biden’s remaining opponent, Sanders, also endorsed him.
Ocasio-Cortez was Sanders’ highest-profile supporter. She also explained in the Tuesday evening conversation how she sees her role as a prominent progressive voice in the presidential race: “My job is to push and push back against everyone. To push back against Republican Party and the Democratic Party. That makes people uncomfortable, but we’re just not where we need to be right now.”
Ocasio-Cortez Appears On ‘The Price Is Right,’ Guesses Everything Is Free [satire]
https://babylonbee.com/news/ocasio-cortez-appears-on-price-is-right-guesses-everything-is-free
Ocasio-Cortez Appears On ‘The Price Is Right,’ Guesses Everything Is Free
April 12, 2019
HOLLYWOOD, CA — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was pumped to attend a taping of The Price Is Right in Hollywood this week. The special guest introduced herself as a U.S. representative and rising star of the Democratic Party. Things got interesting when the game began and every time it was her turn to estimate the price of an item her answer was “free.”
Items included a set of Italian leather handbags, an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas, and a brand new 2019 BMW 330i, at all of which Ocasio-Cortez shouted, “FREE!”
When host Drew Carey asked if Ocasio-Cortez understood the game’s rules, she told Carey not to cat-call her and then responded, “Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me.”
She went on to guess that diamond earrings, a set of jet skis, and even a giant pile of cash were all free. Carey unveiled a package containing world-class healthcare and she said, “Definitely free.” She was at one point puzzled by a stack of croissants but eventually guessed that they also were free.
Ocasio-Cortez was never able to advance to the game proper, and as the credits rolled she appeared visibly upset. A hot mic picked up comments she made in frustration, claiming that the game was rigged by capitalism and that “everybody knows giant piles of money are free, that’s like basic economics 101.”
This video is hilarious! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blames “elected officials” for not doing enough about COVID-19, while she herself – who is an “elected official” – makes margaritas in her kitchen!
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not aware of the fact that she herself is one of the “elected officials” that she criticizes in this video.
Ocasio-Cortez criticizes “elected officials” for not doing enough about COVID-19.
But while Ocasio-Cortez is saying this, she herself isn’t doing anything about COVID-19 either. Instead, she’s making margaritas in her kitchen.
Ocasio-Cortez is herself an “elected official.” She is a member of the U.S. Congress. But she seems to be totally unaware of this fact.
One year after her first false denials, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is still trying to pretend that she doesn’t want to ban airplanes and cows
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
February 29, 2020
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just stated the following:
“… as we’ve discussed the Green New Deal, I’ve noticed that there’s been an awful lot of misinformation about what is inside this resolution – a tremendous amount of wild claims – everything from saying we’re seeking to ban airplanes to ending ice cream…”
You can see and hear her saying those words in this video. Skip to 1:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Fma_esNe4
While it’s true that the specific resolution that she is referring to does not say anything about banning airplanes and cows, Ocasio-Cortez herself does support such a ban.
A year ago, Ocasio-Cortez put a document on her official Congressional website which said she wanted to get rid of airplanes and cows.
After a huge number of people criticized her for this, she took the document down.
Fortunately, the internet archive has a copy of that same webpage from Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website at this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20190207191119/https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/blog-posts/green-new-deal-faq
The original link (which no longer works) to the page at Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website is https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/blog-posts/green-new-deal-faq
In addition, NPR (a highly reliable source, which liberals love) published a copy of the same document at this link: https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ
And in case NPR ever takes that page down, here is the internet archive of that NPR page: https://web.archive.org/web/20190207164217/https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ
Here are Ocasio-Cortez’s exact words, as reported by NPR:
“Yes, we are calling for a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases. Anyone who has read the resolution sees that we spell this out through a plan that calls for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from every sector of the economy. Simply banning fossil fuels immediately won’t build the new economy to replace it – this is the plan to build that new economy and spells out how to do it technically. We do this through a huge mobilization to create the renewable energy economy as fast as possible. We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.”
The version from Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website is slightly different, as it replaces the phrase “farting cows” with “emissions from cows.” Since the version that she gave NPR is funnier, that’s the version that I quoted.
Anyway, that’s proof and more proof that Ocasio-Cortez really does want to ban airplanes and cows.
So her recent statement that she does not want to ban airplanes and cows is a lie.
And this is not the first time that she tried to pretend that she never said she wanted to ban airplanes and cows.
Her earlier denial from a year ago, as reported in this article by the Washington Post, was that Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, blamed “typos” for the fact that Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website said that Ocasio-Cortez wanted to ban airplanes and cows.
The Washington Post reported that Chakrabarti said:
“People are trying to take the focus away from the big picture to these little typos.”
Typos?
Seriously?
I’m not buying that.
A “typo” is when you type “pwn” instead of “own.”
There is no way that the following text from Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website is a “typo”
“The Green New Deal sets a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, at the end of this 10-year plan because we aren’t sure that we will be able to fully get rid of, for example, emissions from cows or air travel before then.”
There’s no way that those words are a “typo.”
Someone deliberately typed those words into the document.
And who might that someone be?
Well, as I explained in this previous post, the document’s metadata proves that the document was created by Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff.
That’s the same Saikat Chakrabarti who blamed “typos” for the fact that Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website said that Ocasio-Cortez wanted to get rid of airplanes and cows.
Chakrabarti’s lie about “typos” is just as unbelievable as the other lie that I mentioned in my previous post, where Ocasio-Cortez advisor and Cornell Law School professor Robert Hockett blamed “Republicans” for starting a rumor about the document being on Ocasio-Cortez’s official Congressional website. Here’s the video of that again. Skip to 1:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qyx6eDkrmw
At the end of that previous post, I wrote:
“Hockett is a Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. So I’m 100% certain that he is familiar with the laws against defamation. I hope that he will apologize to the “Republicans” that he falsely accused of lying about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s positions on the above issues.”
Hockett must have read my post, because he later admitted that he had been wrong.
So first they blamed this on “Republicans.”
And then later, they’re blamed it on “typos.”
And now, with Ocasio-Cortez’s most recent statement, she’s still trying to pretend that she does not want to ban airplanes and cows.
Again, to be clear, Ocasio-Cortez was telling the truth when she said that the current resolution does not say anything about banning airplanes and cows.
Her lie is when she said that it’s a “wild claim” that she wants to ban airplanes and cows.
It’s not a “wild claim,” because she said it on her own Congressional website, as well as in a document that she gave to NPR.
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
Yes, AOC, we can ‘capitalism our way out of poverty’
Yes, AOC, we can ‘capitalism our way out of poverty’
January 22, 2020
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez studied economics, but she isn’t exactly known for fluency. But even considering the New York Democrat’s track record of economic illiteracy, her latest comments about capitalism are still a doozy.
Ocasio-Cortez made headlines this week for claiming that the Democratic Party is actually moderate and centrist. It was a silly claim to make, but people largely ignored another part of her comment. She asserted, as a way of dismissing centrist Democrats, that they are fools for believing that we can “capitalism our way out of poverty.”
Actually, congresswoman, we can. Literally billions of people have done so in the very recent past.
The last several centuries of human history demonstrate that capitalism and free trade can work wonders when it comes to expanding global prosperity and reducing poverty.
I don’t know what they taught Ocasio-Cortez in the economics department at Boston University — she might want to demand a refund — but I, along with most undergraduates in the field, learned in my very first year of studying economics the basic fact that capitalism has radically reduced poverty. Students are often taught about the “hockey stick of human history.” Incomes and economic growth were stagnant for centuries and centuries, and then came the advent of market capitalism and the spread of trade. As society shifted away from mercantilism and feudalism toward this new way of operating, economic growth instantly skyrocketed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FSnvtcEbg
https://twitter.com/HumanProgress/status/1003750249041747974
(Click on link below to see a larger version of the image)
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1247
https://twitter.com/HumanProgress/status/1003750249041747974
Economic history resembles a hockey stick. For thousands of years, economic growth was negligible. At the end of the 18th century, however, economic growth and the standard of living started to accelerate in Great Britain and then in the rest of the world
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) June 4, 2018
It can be hard to visualize all of this progress when we’re just talking about abstract economic growth figures at the country level. But as Bill Gates has famously noted, raw poverty data show radical reductions due to capitalism, too.
https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1086662632587907072
(Click on link below to see a larger version of the image)
https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts?linkId=62571595
https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1086662632587907072
This is one of my favorite infographics. A lot of people underestimate just how much life has improved over the last two centuries:
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) January 19, 2019
In recent decades, state-run economies such as the Soviet Union collapsed, while markets globally, including in formerly communist nations such as China, liberalized and trade expanded globally. This has resulted in outstanding progress. According to HumanProgress.org:
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1528
The World Bank has just released its latest numbers, and according to them, the proportion of the world population in extreme poverty, i.e. who consume less than $1.90 a day, adjusted for local prices, declined from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015.
Even though world population increased by more than two billion people, the number of extremely poor was reduced by almost 1.2 billion. It means that in the now much-despised era of globalization, almost 130,000 people rose out of poverty every day.
This is no coincidence. A report from the Fraser Institute concluded after comprehensive study that “nations that are economically free outperform non-free nations in indicators of well-being.”
No one is saying that capitalism is perfect, or that further progress doesn’t need to be made. But Ocasio-Cortez gets it exactly wrong when she asserts that we can’t “capitalism our way out of poverty.” It is a historically and economically ignorant thing to say, and it really highlights the mentality that would allow someone, even in this day and age, to embrace an outdated and backward ideology such as socialism.
Law abiding political candidate Marie Newman returns illegal campaign contribution that criminal Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had illegally given to her
Marie Newman is a law abiding political candidate who is running for office in Illinois.
The largest campaign contribution that anyone is allowed to legally give to her campaign is $2,000.
However, this report from the Federal Election Commission shows that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donated $5,000 to Newman’s campaign.
Here’s a screenshot which proves that Ocasio-Cortez broke federal campaign finance law. Source: https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00639591/1357189/sb/21
Fortunately, Newman is a law abiding citizen, and returned the excess $3,000.
On the other hand, Ocasio-Cortez is a criminal who violated federal campaign finance law.
Democrats are always going on and on and on about how much we need to reform the current campaign finance laws. Well, here’s a chance for those very same Democrats to publicly speak out in favor of prosecuting one of their own for breaking the campaign finance laws which are already on the books.
Environmental hypocrite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flies to Denmark to tell everyone else to reduce their use of fossil fuels
https://nypost.com/2019/10/08/aoc-takes-first-international-trip-as-lawmaker/
AOC takes first international trip as lawmaker
October 8, 2019
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking the Green New Deal global.
The New York Democrat posted an Instagram story Tuesday afternoon showing herself walking through the airport as she headed for her first trip abroad as a freshman lawmaker.
She’s off to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the C40 World Mayors Summit.
“After a very busy week in district, I’m headed to Copenhagen for a global C40 conference where mayors and a lot of other public servants are going to be convening to discuss what we’ll be – what actions we need to take for the climate crisis,” she told her followers.
Mayors from Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia, among others, will all be in attendance. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will not attend, The Post confirmed.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is raising money to support Antifa members who threw urine at police officers. DNC Chairman Tom Perez said she “represents the future of our party.”
In July 2018, DNC Chairman Tom Perez said that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
“represents the future of our party”
You can see him saying those words in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIriGu5dtHM
Given Perez’s statement, I think that it’s important that we pay attention to the many ridiculous and absurd things that Ocasio-Cortez says and does.
You can read about many of them here and here.
And now on to the newest example.
Ocasio-Cortez is raising money to support Antifa members who threw urine at police officers.
I’d be curious to hear what each of the current Democratic presidential candidates thinks of this.
Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refuse to answer reporter’s questions regarding whether or not they condemn the recent Antifa terrorist attack on an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington
The Rebel reporter Keean Bexte repeatedly asked Ilhan Omar whether or not she condemned the recent Antifa terrorist attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma, Washington.
Omar repeatedly refused to answer Bexte’s questions.
These are the questions that Bexte asked Omar, and which Omar refused to answer:
“Will you condemn the Antifa attack in Washington over the weekend?”
“It’s easy to condemn terrorism. Will you condemn it?”
“Antifa firebombed a facility in Tacoma over the weekend – it’s an ICE facility – will you condemn them for that?”
You can see it in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjwnRmtSNEY
Bexte also repeatedly asked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez if she condemned the attack.
And just like Omar, Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly refused to answer Bexte’s questions.
These are the questions that Bexte asked Ocasio-Cortez, and which Ocasio-Cortez refused to answer:
“Will you condemn Antifa for the attack in Washington?”
“It’s easy to condemn a terrorist attack. Will you be condemning Antifa?”
“They firebombed an American facility. Will you condemn them?”
“Will you be condemning them?”
You can see it in this video. Skip to 2:02
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY7yVKHfauI
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizes Wayfair for providing beds to the children of illegal immigrants. Would she prefer that these children sleep on the floor?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently criticized Wayfair for providing beds to the children of illegal immigrants.
This is a screenshot of her tweet: (original, archive)
The text of her tweet states:
“Wayfair workers couldn’t stomach they were making beds to cage children.”
“They asked the company to stop. CEO said no.”
“Tomorrow, they‘re walking out.”
“This is what solidarity looks like – a reminder that everyday people have real power, as long as we’re brave enough to use it.”
Would Ocasio-Cortez prefer that these children sleep on the floor?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez falsely accuses border patrol agents of forcing illegal immigrants to drink from the toilet
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said that border patrol agents were forcing illegal immigrants to drink form the toilet. These are her exact words:
“There’s abuse in these facilities. There’s abuse. This was them on their best behavior, and they put them in a room with no running water, and these women were being told by CBP officers to drink out of the toilet – they were drinking water out of the toilet. And that was them knowing that a congressional visit was coming. This is CBP on their best behavior, telling people to drink out of the toilet.”
You can hear her saying these words in this video: (skip to 0:20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay8OkAYW0EY
Ocasio-Cortez also tweeted the following: (original, archive)
“Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets.”
However, in the real world, no one was drinking from the toilet. Instead, the facilities had the standard plumbing systems which are commonly found in prisons, where there is a sink above the toilet. The sinks provide clean, safe drinking water.
Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, a Hispanic pastor who had advised Presidents Trump, Obama, and George W. Bush on immigration reform, said:
“I read the reports, saw the news clips. I just wanted to see what was actually happening in order to better enable our efforts to find a fair and a just solution to our broken immigration system…”
“To my surprise, I saw something drastically different from the stories I’ve been hearing in our national discourse. Even as a veteran of immigration advocacy in the U.S., I was shocked at the misinformation of the crisis at the border…”
“We found no soiled diapers, no deplorable conditions and no lack of basic necessities…”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cries at empty parking lot, but falsely implies it’s a detention camp for illegal aliens
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made this tweet: (original, archive)
The tweet includes these four photographs:
The text of the tweet states:
“I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents,& caged them.”
“More kids died after this.”
“To date, no one has been held accountable. We need to save these kids.”
However, it was later reported that these photographs had actually been taken at a parking lot.
AOC and Bernie Sanders Don’t Understand Math
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajDfQ-hd3pQ
Senator Bernie Sanders’ and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Plan to Stop Big Banks and Payday Lenders from Ripping Off Americans
By Bernie Sanders
May 9, 2019
If you get a credit card from a store like Macy’s, Kohl’s, or Lowe’s, interest rates are even higher. Stores like these are charging customers an average interest rate of more than 27 percent. And many of the stores rely on these high-interest-rate cards for more than a third of their revenue. Incredibly, Macy’s earned almost 40 percent of its revenue from these cards and Kohl’s recently made 35 percent of its total profit from high-interest-rate cards.
What this means is that if you buy a $500 refrigerator from Lowe’s or Home Depot on one of their credit cards, you will likely owe an additional $136 in interest.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supports boycotting the New York Post because it published a photograph of the September 11 terrorist attacks after Ilhan Omar described the attacks as “some people did something”
Ilhan Omar recently said the following: (the bolding is mine)
“CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties”
In response, the New York Post published the following on its cover:
The cover shows a photograph of the World Trade Center on fire after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The top of the cover says:
Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was ‘some people did something’
The bottom of the cover says:
Here’s your something
2,977 people dead by terrorism
In response to this cover, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported a boycott of the New York Post. She made the following tweet: (original, archive)
The text of Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet states:
“Two years ago, Bodega owners across NYC (& cheered by neighbors) shut their shops citywide to protest Trump’s #MuslimBan.”
“Today, that same community is banding together to reject sales of the NY Post at bodegas citywide.”
“This is what real unity (& NYC solidarity) looks like”
Ocasio-Cortez made her tweet in response to a tweet by Dr. Debbie Almontaser, which said:
“Yemeni Americans held a 1,000 bodega strike against the #MuslimBan, tonight we just declared a boycott of the racist NY Post! Starting tomorrow morning Yemeni American merchants will be rejecting the sale of the NY Post! NY Post take your papers back! #BoycottNYPost”
Wow.
All the New York Post did was tell the truth.
And now a member of the U.S. Congress supports boycotting it for telling the truth.
And two members of Congress are grossly downplaying the severity of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the entire history of our country’s existence.
That’s really despicable.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: “We are going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers”
De Blasio’s Green New Deal will ban ‘classic glass and steel skyscrapers’
April 22, 2019
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s so-called Green New Deal will ban “classic glass and steel skyscrapers,” he said Monday.
“We are going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers which are incredibly inefficient,” Hizzoner said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“If someone wants to build one of those things, they can take a whole lot of steps to make it energy efficient, but we’re not going to allow what we’ve seen in the past.”
De Blasio’s new scheme to slash carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030 includes a ban on new buildings with all-glass facades “unless they meet strict performance guidelines,” City Hall said in a release Monday.
Economically illiterate New York Times writer Michelle Goldberg, who supports the Green New Deal, said she didn’t notice when thieves charged more than $11,000 to her credit card
Michelle Goldberg is an opinion writer for the New York Times. She is in favor of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. In a recent column, Goldberg wrote:
“Warren, of course, will also be good on climate, and she has endorsed the idea of a Green New Deal put forward by Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
In the same column, Goldberg displayed her own economic illiteracy when she explained that she never looks over her monthly credit card statement, and that it was only when her husband looked at it that she found out that a corrupt and fraudulent bank had been charging her hundreds of dollars per month, for years, for a total of more than $11,000. She wrote:
“A few years ago, when I was self-employed and had recently had my second child, my husband went combing through my credit card statements, looking for tax deductions that I’d missed. I’m financially disorganized at the best of times, and with a baby and a toddler, I was barely even trying to keep track of my business expenses. So it’s not surprising that I hadn’t noticed the hundreds of dollars of weird recurring bank charges that my husband discovered.”
“It turned out I’d been signed up for a dubious program that purported to protect users’ credit in certain emergency situations. My bank had been accused of fraudulent practices in connection with it and fined $700 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency that was Senator Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild. I tried, maddeningly, to seek redress from the bank — cycling through phone trees, screaming at automated operators. No one could tell me how I’d been enrolled in the program, or for how long.”
“Eventually, I turned to the C.F.P.B. itself, filling out a simple form on its website. A few weeks later, I was notified that the bank had been deducting money from my account for years, and I was being refunded more than $11,000. Having financed my own maternity leave, I badly needed the money.”
The fact that Goldberg never looked over her monthly credit card statements, and that she hadn’t noticed this theft and fraud, proves that she is economically illiterate.
And it’s that same economic illiteracy that causes Goldberg to support the Green New Deal.
Even the supporters of the Green New Deal admit that they don’t know where the money to pay for it is going to come from.
In September 2018, CNN published this transcript of a conversation between Ocasio-Cortez and CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, where Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly refused to answer Tapper’s questions about where the funding for the Green New Deal would come from. Here are their exact words:
TAPPER: Your platform has called for various new programs, including Medicare for all, housing as a federal right, a federal jobs guarantee, tuition-free public college, canceling all student loan debt.
According to nonpartisan and left-leaning studies friendly to your cause, including the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities or the Tax Policy Center, the overall price tag is more than $40 trillion in the next decade.
You recently said in an interview that increasing taxes on the very wealthy, plus an increased corporate tax rate, would make $2 trillion over the next 10 years.
So, where is the other $38 trillion going to come from?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, one of the things that we need to realize when we look at something like Medicare for all, Medicare for all would save the American people a very large amount of money.
And what we see as well is that these systems are not just pie in the sky. They are — many of them are accomplished by every modern, civilized democracy in the Western world. The United — the United Kingdom has a form of single-payer health care, Canada, France, Germany.
What we need to realize is that these investments are better and they are good for our future. These are generational investments, so that not just — they’re not short-term Band-Aids, but they are really profound decisions about who we want to be as a nation and as — and how we want to act, as the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.
TAPPER: Right. Now, I get that, but the price tag for everything that you have laid out in your campaign is $40 trillion over the next 10 years.
I understand that Medicare for all would cost more to some wealthier people and to the government and to taxpayers, while also reducing individual health care expenditures.
But I’m talking about the overall package. You say it’s not pie in the sky, but $40 trillion is quite a bit of money. And the taxes that you talked about raising to pay for this, to pay for your agenda, only count for two.
And I — we’re going by left-leaning analysts.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Right.
Well, when you look again at, again, how our health care works, currently, we pay — much of these costs go into the private sector. So what we see is, for example, a year ago, I was working downtown in a restaurant.
I went around and I asked, how many of you folks have health insurance? Not a single person did, because these — they were paying — they would have had to pay $200 a month for — for a payment for insurance that had an $8,000 deductible.
TAPPER: Yes.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: What these represent are lower costs overall for these programs.
And, additionally, what this is, is a broader agenda. We do know and we acknowledge that there are political realities. They don’t always happen with just the wave of a wand. But we can work to make these things happen.
And, in fact, when we — when you look at the economic activity that it spurs, for example, if you look at my generation, millennials, the amount of economic activity that we do not engage, the fact that we delay purchasing homes, that we don’t participate in the economy and purchasing cars, et cetera, as fully as possible, is a cost.
It is an externality, if you will, of unprecedented — unprecedented amount of student loan debt.
TAPPER: So, I’m assuming I’m not going to get an answer for the other $38 trillion.
So that’s the relevant part of the conversation between Ocasio-Cortez and CNN correspondent Jake Tapper.
You can see their conversation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CWUgPWRhxU
Supporters of the $40 trillion Green New Deal have already said where $2 trillion of its price will come from. But when Tapper repeatedly asked Ocasio-Cortez where the other $38 trillion was gong to come from, she repeatedly refused to answer him.
Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez could charge that $38 trillion to Michelle Goldberg’s credit card.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 