AOC

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Trump, Kamala Harris come to Pelosi’s defense after AOC criticism
Their comments came after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the speaker had been ‘outright disrespectful’ to newly elected women of color.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-kamala-harris-come-pelosi-s-defense-after-aoc-criticism-n1029336?fbclid=IwAR3kXWeQXWDDC-wk7lpcVoeopSaoTiceFF-onsfS5BfVcKjBPzd-Xzxa0fA

President Donald Trump and one of the women vying for his job, Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, have found common ground — neither believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is racist.

Trump made the comments defending frequent foe Pelosi when he was asked Friday about recent infighting in the Democratic Party, in which freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi have been trading jabs publicly. Ocasio-Cortez said this week that Pelosi has been “outright disrespectful” by “the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”

Trump began his defense of Pelosi by shortening Ocasio-Cortez’s last name, and saying she’s the one who’s been disrespectful.

“I think Cortez is being very disrespectful to somebody that’s been there a long time. I deal with Nancy Pelosi a lot, and we go back and forth and it’s fine. But I think that a group of people is being very disrespectful to her, and you know what? I don’t think that Nancy can let that go on,” Trump said, referring to Ocasio-Cortez’s fellow freshmen progressive Democrats.

He then took a shot at another member of that group, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who like Ocasio-Cortez has become a favored target of Republicans.

“A group of people that came from — I don’t know where they came from — I’m looking at this Omar from Minnesota. And if one half of the things they’re saying about her are true, she shouldn’t even be in office,” he said of the Somali refugee, who came to the United States when she was 12.

“Cortez should treat Nancy Pelosi with respect,” Trump continued. “She should not be doing what she’s doing. And I’ll tell you something about Nancy Pelosi that you know better than I do. She is not a racist, OK? She is not a racist. For them to call her a racist is a disgrace.”

Democratic presidential candidate Harris, in an appearance on the popular “Breakfast Club” radio show, was asked why Ocasio-Cortez has become a polarizing figure “to older Democrats.”

“I think she is bold and smart as anything,” the California Democrat said. “She’s not gonna go with status quo because that’s the way it’s always been done. She questions it, and I think that’s healthy. I think that’s healthy and then if you can defend what we’ve always been doing, then that’s great. And if you can’t because it’s based on stuff that is faulty or it’s older and it’s not happening anymore, then answer for that.”

Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments on Pelosi, Harris said, “That’s not my experience with Nancy Pelosi and I’ve known her and worked with her for years. I’ve known her to be very respectful of women of color and very supportive of them, so I have a different experience.”

Pelosi has been publicly dismissive of the progressive group, telling The New York Times last week, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”

On Thursday, Pelosi told reporters she respects all of her members. “Diversity is our strength. Unity is our power,” she said.

Asked by a reporter Friday if she’d been “playing the race card” against Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez replied, “What? That’s stupidly untrue.”

wv wrote:

“…They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”

Pelosi is right about this. It ‘is’ a very small group of leftists in the system.

w
v

Yes, but it is gratifying at least to see that just those few people are making the establishment very uncomfortable.

For being a freshman congresswoman in her first 6 months of time on the hill, AOC has waaaayyyyy disproportionate influence on the national conversation. While it is true that the attention she receives does not directly translate into policy, it is at least giving mainstream daylight to some critical issues that can no longer be ignored. It’s progress (although it does feel like scoring a TD late in the 4th quarter to narrow the deficit to 42-17). So…yay to her and Omar (who has been abusively targeted for her religion, race, and gender – the trifecta).

Don Irwin, in the above tweet, left out Feinstein is his comment of regressive California Democrats. She’s considerably more right wing than even Pelosi and Harris. (Though what’s this about Harris receiving a donation from Trump? I knew about Mnuchin, but this is the first I’ve heard about Trump. I’m surprised he would donate to ANYTHING, let alone a bi-racial, female politician in the opposition party).

wv wrote:

Why give her such a huge platform all the time? I know they wanna control the debate, and smear her when they can, but why not just ignore her? If they ignored her, problem solved. Yes? No?

Well, the right-wing view is that AOC is a brain-controlling demon from hell with the power to force her ideas on people.

Well…maybe that’s true.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

…

AOC was not prepared for Former ICE Director Thomas Homan 2.0, "If you want to seek asylum you go through the port of entry. You do it the legal way." #BorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/r7GrxmiueA

— IWV (@IWV) July 12, 2019

Wasn’t sure where to put this.

Redid my political compass and I keep moving left, it appears.

Here’s my latest:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=-9.25&soc=-7.44

Mackeyser wrote:

Wasn’t sure where to put this.

Actually that sounds like its own topic. Could you make it a separate thread? After you do that I will delete this one.

You can make it about your self-discovery, which is interesting and could generate discussion. I think it would be good that way.

AOC To Zuckerberg: Why Is a White Supremacist-Tied Publication Fact-checking for Facebook?

Can Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debate Trump next fall, even though she’s not running? She has quite a knack for making clueless rich men squirm.

Today, while testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg looked gobsmacked in response to AOC’s line of questioning.

At one point she asked Zuckerberg whether he removed proven lies from the social media platform (first tweet), and he didn’t seem to have an answer. And then she went for the jugular.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Can you explain why you’ve named The Daily Caller, a publication well-documented with ties to white supremacists, as an official fact-checker for Facebook?

ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman, sure. We actually don’t appoint the independent fact-checkers. They go through an independent organization called the Independent Fact-Checking Network that has a rigorous standard for who they allow to serve as a fact-checker.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: So you would say that white supremacist-tied publications meet a rigorous standard for fact-checking?

ZUCKERBERG: …

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Thank you.

ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman, I would say we’re not the one assessing that standard. The International Fact-Checking Network is the one setting that standard.

So what is AOC talking about?

Here’s some background, from an August 2017 article by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

On Monday, August 14, the Daily Caller very quietly removed white nationalist Jason Kessler’s contributions to the publication after the violence and chaos in Charlottesville. The white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally was organized by Kessler.

But the white nationalist problem at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, a conservative political outlet launched in 2010 as a “response” to the Huffington Post, is bigger than just Kessler. Throughout the 2016 election and since, the Daily Caller has not only published the work of white nationalists, but some of its writers have routinely whitewashed the Alt-Right, while one editor there is an associate of key Alt-Right figures. Two Daily Caller contributors, including a senior investigative reporter, were recently announced as speakers at the upcoming white nationalist H.L. Mencken Club conference organized by Paul Gottfried, a godfather of the Alt-Right.

In addition, Tucker Carlson, the founder of The Daily Caller, has gone on record as saying the whole concept of white supremacy is a “conspiracy theory.” Which, of course, is factually incorrect.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I would think Facebook could afford to find better fact-checkers. It’s just another example of the laziness and half-assedry that has long infected the social media giant.

Meanwhile, AOC also pressed Zuckerberg on Facebook’s new cash-for-lies policy:

@AOC: Could I run ads on Facebook targeting Republicans & falsely saying they voted for the Green New Deal?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head

AOC: Do you see a potential problem here?

ZUCKERBERG: Well congresswoman, I think lying is bad

I guess we can count that as a breakthrough.

Why do you insist on bringing good news
to the board?

w
v