Tag: alexandria ocasio cortez

AOC Wasn’t Even in the Capitol Building During Her ‘Near Death’ Experience

We’ve reported various aspects of the account of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) of what happened to her on Jan. 6 during the breach at the Capitol. But there are some very critical facts that have been missing from her story that I wanted to talk about here.

The story, as it was initially related by AOC, suggested that she was about to be assassinated by rioters in her office in a video that has been viewed over 6 million times.

Newsweek even claimed that’s what AOC said.

Ocasio-Cortez said that rioters actually entered her office, forcing her to take refuge inside her bathroom after her legislative director Geraldo Bonilla-Chavez told her to “hide, hide, run and hide.”

“And so I run back into my office,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I slam my door. There’s another kind of like back area to my office, and I open it, and there’s a closet and a bathroom. And I jump into my bathroom.”

As it turns out, however, as my colleague Bonchie reported earlier, AOC said in her Instagram drama that the person who came to her office was a Capitol Police officer. But she denigrated the officer who came to help, claiming he “didn’t feel right” and that he was looking at her “in all of this anger and hostility.” Her staffer reportedly wondered if he would have to fight the officer and suggested that he might put them in a “vulnerable situation.”

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AOC’s body politics

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is no stranger to attention. The second-term congresswoman was the second most talked-about politician in 2019, just behind then-President Donald Trump. AOC loves to frequently jump on livestream videos to talk directly to her fans and voters, whether while she’s making macaroni, building furniture, or playing a wildly popular multiplayer game. It was during one of these Instagram livestreams on Monday night that she committed perhaps her gravest sin yet as a politician.

AOC, who has somehow not yet dried the well of public sympathy for the January 6 storming of the Capitol, linked the experience to an alleged sexual assault she suffered in the past:

‘The reason I’m getting emotional in this moment is because these folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize — these are the same tactics of abusers. And I’m a survivor of sexual assault and I haven’t told many people that in my life, but when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.’

This is gross manipulation, and AOC should be ashamed. Not for sharing that she was sexually assaulted — I have no way of knowing whether or not her story is true and, ultimately, it’s irrelevant to the issue of the storming of the Capitol. The real story here is that AOC used her alleged trauma as a cudgel against her political opponents. She has weaponized her alleged experience to silence anyone who criticizes her and even went so far as to compare them to the person or people who abused her. This type of behavior cheapens sexual assault

AOC, who has somehow not yet dried the well of public sympathy for the January 6 storming of the Capitol, linked the experience to an alleged sexual assault she suffered in the past:

‘The reason I’m getting emotional in this moment is because these folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, that we should forget what’s happened, or even telling us to apologize — these are the same tactics of abusers. And I’m a survivor of sexual assault and I haven’t told many people that in my life, but when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.’

This is gross manipulation, and AOC should be ashamed. Not for sharing that she was sexually assaulted — I have no way of knowing whether or not her story is true and, ultimately, it’s irrelevant to the issue of the storming of the Capitol. The real story here is that AOC used her alleged trauma as a cudgel against her political opponents. She has weaponized her alleged experience to silence anyone who criticizes her and even went so far as to compare them to the person or people who abused her. This type of behavior cheapens sexual assault

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AOC proposes funding to deprogram white supremacists

The federal government needs to fund the de-programming of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday night.

“The White supremacist cause is futile, it’s nihilist,” AOC, a Democrat who represents parts of The Bronx and Queens, said during a virtual town hall meeting Friday night.

“Their world will never exist. That’s why we’re seeing violence right now.,” she said, speaking in the wake of the violent siege on the US Capitol by radical supporters of President Trump.

“We have to pick up those pieces.”

Ocasio-Cortez said the House subcommittee on civil rights she serves on has held hearings over the prior two years on white supremacy and said there are programs to “de-radicalize” brain-washed adherents.

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No, AOC, It’s Not the Government’s Job to ‘Rein in Our Media’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) told her social media followers earlier this week that Democrats in Congress might respond to the Capitol riot with some sort of “media literacy” initiative.

The phrase media literacy ordinarily implies helping individuals make sense of the media landscape, but AOC seems to have more in mind than that: She suggested “we’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.”

It’s true that both traditional media and social media sometimes spread “disinformation and misinformation.” But the federal government has no formal role to play in suppressing its spread. The First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from infringing on freedom of the press or freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has recognized no exceptions for disinformation. If the government could ban disinformation, after all, it could use that as a cover for banning speech that is not actually false but merely critical of the government, or of specific politicians. Recall that Democrats swiftly denounced The New York Post‘s report on Hunter Biden’s foreign connections as “disinformation,” even though many underlying aspects of the story have since been confirmed.

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Ocasio-Cortez Says Congress Must ‘Rein In’ Media Environment

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday that Congress is looking into reining in “our media environment” to prevent the spread of disinformation.

Ocasio-Cortez discussed how she feared for her life during last week’s Capitol Riot in a live stream on Instagram Tuesday evening, Fox News reported. A viewer asked Ocasio-Cortez if Congress is discussing “truth and reconciliation or media literacy initiatives” to help with healing following the turbulent events of the past few weeks, the publication reported.

“I can say, there is absolutely a commission being discussed but it seems to be more investigatory in style rather than truth and reconciliation, so I think that’s an interesting concept for us to explore,” Ocasio-Cortez said. 

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