There was much gnashing of teeth in establishment Democratic circles when 29-year-Old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes beat high-ranking Congressman Joe Crowley. Upstart! How dare she?
But don’t cry for Joe Crowley. He has landed a job at one of DC’s top lobbying firms, which represents fossil fuels, private prisons, and other distinctly non-liberal corporations.
Since I’m meeting AOC in a week to talk about education, I started reading about her. Clearly Republicans are obsessed with her to the point of madness. I worry about her safety.
I liked this article in Vox.
This satirical piece by the wonderful Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post made me laugh out loud.
It starts:
“Enough is enough! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs to stop inserting herself into our every waking moment!
“I am sick of hearing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from my voice talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I would like to spend just one day without seeking out, looking at and commenting on pictures of her everywhere she goes. It would be nice, just once, not to have to be enraged by clicking on an article that mentions her name, and then another, and then another. Just once I want to spend a day without bringing her up, unprovoked, in the middle of a discussion of an unrelated subject.
I just don’t know why people are so obsessed with her, specifically, myself. Why has she compelled me to type her name so many times that when I type the letter “A,” my phone supplies “OC”? It is a conspiracy, I think.
“Just yesterday, I had to listen to an exhausting, 10-minute lecture from some idiot who would not shut up about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, only to discover that it was myself, talking to myself. This happens every day.
“Why is it that when I look into fire, her face emerges and when I gaze at the spots on a cow (She hates the cows! She wants to destroy them!), I see what appears to be her profile? How can it be that this week alone I have read 18 articles about her, two of which I did not write?” And more in that vein.
I think I have figured out why so many of those curmudgeons not only don’t like her, they hate her. She is not only young and joyful but she has the ideals they long ago lost. They are jealous. They are not young. They are not joyful. And they have no ideals, just deals.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great piece! And happy to hear that you are meeting with AOC. The coming together of two great minds who also have passion and integrity can only mean good things to come…
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I’m glad that she is infuriating the GOP. It’s time that someone had the guts to speak out against their politics that only benefit the wealthy. I also worry about her health. This country isn’t as great as my fifth grade teacher said.
“It would be nice, just once, not to have to be enraged by clicking on an article that mentions her name, and then another, and then another.”…I feel the exact same way about our heinous King Trump and his little men & women.
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Keep it up! Keep it up!
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I am surrounded by right wing conservatives. I am a Facebook friend with one of them who seems like a decent fellow…until you see his posts. I generally ignore his posts, but I do not “unfriend” him because I want to see what the right wing is thinking. He posts all kinds of religious and political material. Most of it is based on what he gleans from conservative news. The right wing is obsessed with AOC. They see her as a threat. They ridicule her Green New Deal and act as though she is a communist. Many of these folks suffer from paranoia, and the fear factor feeds their insecurities.
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The GOP playbook for nowand2020 is to portray every Democratic initiative since 1933 as socialist, Marxist, radical.
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People who really should know better scare me the most because while they appear to be smart enough to see the full picture around politics, some will suddenly spout off something so one-sided, so shallow that it could only come from far right media outlets like Fox — it is hard to grasp why are they still treating that station as a source of information, why they are even tuning in, unless it is what you mention: they are intentionally looking for the fear factor to feed their own insecurities.
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At Conservative Conference, Speakers Were Obsessed With the Socialist Boogeyman
THE RED SCARE continued on day two of the conference, with a particular focus on democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her signature policy, the Green New Deal. The New York representative’s resolution, which she introduced with Sen. Ed Markey, lays out a decadelong plan envisioning a dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of millions of “good, high-wage jobs,” and an eventual goal of 100 percent clean electricity. At CPAC, it was portrayed as a communist policy that, in the words of Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, “would literally destroy the economy.”…
https://interc.pt/2IMfU0D
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You are right to worry about AOC’s safety b/c conservatives are targeting her relentlessly for “character assassination.” Deranged and dangerous ‘lone wolves’ pick up such intense messaging. Character assassination has become a massive operation on the right. It existed all along–J Edgar Hoover used the FBI to spy on MLK and collect nefarious evidence; Joan Baez was caricatured in the 60s by renegade Al Capp the cartoonist who drew a “Joanie Phony” figure; Obama had the “birther” attacks and was denounced as a “socialist” during the o8 campaign, had to deny he was a socialist on TV with Steve Croft of “60 Mins.” AOC and Bernie are now being called “commies.” This nonstop use of mass media, social media, and covert “opposition research” operatives to discredit and bring down left of center advocates compels the targets to carry themselves with awareness of being intensely surveiled.
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I’m worried about her physical safety. The character assassinatuon is already in high gear.
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I completely agree that her physical safety is at risk. Sick lone wolves will be aroused to attack her if the character assassination continues. Can you pls discretely raise this with her when you see her at the forum, that she is aware of security risk? She will take you seriously.
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Love the article. Love AOC.
Yes, the conservatives are “taken” with AOC. They don’t know what to make of her because of her honesty and ability to see through the BS. AOC is truly a breath of fresh air and smart.
Wish I could be in NYC for the panel discussion.
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What’s new?
The grand old white people’s party finally found a puppet president who got them 2 Supreme Court justices, tax breaks for the wealthy, and an angry man who says racist things they used to have say in the privacy of locker rooms, bar-b-ques, (and rallies).
Kennedy disrupted the U.S. from being stuck forever in the ’50s: Oh how the president and cronies miss the 50s… Segregated, White males in charge of everything. June Cleaver in the kitchen wearing pearls. Foreigners are the bad guys.
And – Kennedy – just like AOC – young! big smile! smart! going to the moon.
Johnson – southern good old boy who shook them up with Civil Rights laws. Spoke his mind, not politically correct – just like AOC
Clinton – youthful – smart! – played the sax on MTV – popular and heckuva speaker –
Obama – ‘Where’d he come from?” (literally and figuratively) – represented real America – knew how much a loaf of bread cost – captivated crowds –
And the grand old white party hated everyone of them.
President is poster child of “Make America the 50s Again” –
Yeh – they don’t know what to do with AOC!
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‘She is not only young and joyful but she has the ideals they long ago lost. They are jealous.’
She does have ideas which would be disliked by the Republican rich supporters. Some of her ideas are bold and are things which they would not want to see. Any politician must have signed on to make changes benefiting the country, but as the article says, some of them have forgotten their ideals. Some GOP politicians have lost any hint of what could be called an ideal, unfortunately.
It is good that you are going to meet with AOC, and only good can come from such a meeting.
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She is a light in the dark and members of Congress that are bought off by corporations are not happy. AOC is exactly the voice I support!
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This business of GOP red baiting, comparing Democrats to communists, statists, socialists a la Cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, DDR, North Korea, etc., has been going on for almost a 100 years. Bernie and AOC are democratic socialists which means they do not want the state to control the means of production and that they are not against free enterprise or entrepreneurship. They want the rich to pay their fair share in taxes, universal health care, tuition free university, a decent minimum wage, family leave and a stronger social safety net as in the Scandinavian countries. What’s going on now against AOC is repackaged McCarthyism combined with crude gotchaism. AOC is so amazing especially in a person so young. You go girl!
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So happy you are meeting AOC! Maybe if a politician actually learns from an educator, we will see decent education legislation. She seems willing to learn, and she is seeking expert advice, not influence from big money.
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I worry about her safety too. If I had the money, I’d pay for a squad of former Special Forces troops to protect her 24/7. I think she needs that level of protection, and if she stays true to herself, we the people need her and others like her.
In fact, I’m not sure I’d trust many men (and Speical Forces is mostly a man’s world) to protect her so maybe I’d recruit the toughest kick-ass women alive to form her protection detail.
AOC and others like her are a clear threat to the wealthiest 0.01-percent who are mostly narcissists and/or psychopaths making them even more dangerous. I’m talking about the lies of Bill Gates, the Koch family, the Walton family, Eli Broad, et al.
But it seems AOC has the critical thinking and problems solving skills to neutralize the frenzy of attacks directed at her and that makes her more of a threat to the 0.01-percent.
She is a voice that must not be silenced.
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Several years ago, I met a Muslim woman who wrote a best-selling book critical of Islamist radicalism. She was outspoken and tough. I met her at a dinner party. She was accompanied by her guard, who was a former Israeli commando. Funny world we live in.
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I amend my idea for AOC’s protection. I think former Israeli female Mossad agents would be the best ones to guard her.
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I’m worried for Alexandria’s safety, but I’m even more concerned for Ilhan Omar. There has been graffiti that says “Assasinate Ilhan Omar”. In ordinary times, I’d feel confident that appropriate measures are being observed to assure the safety of all members of Congress,but these aren’t normal times in the least. Trump seems to get all his information through the TV set, tuned to Fox. Look what Jeanine Pirro had to say yesterday.
https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/1104729537311473664?s=20
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Christine Langhoff: I agree with you. Trump has done a great job of spreading hatred towards Muslims and anyone who is progressive. I will be SO happy when he and Pence are totally our of our lives. I’m disgusted with the corruption that never ends.
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When any Democrat dares to mention any social program that helps other people, Trump and Pence shout “Socialism! Marxism! Communism!”
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and way too many on the Democratic side find their own ways of doing the same
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The extreme Alt-Rights “rule of the thumb” (the Koch brothers libertarians, the ALEC machine, the Tea Party so-called Freedom Caucus, the Bill Gates Billionaires Bully Club) is to turn over rocks and look under weeds and garbage to find anything, any hint, that they can weaponize to destroy anyone that stands in their way.
For instance, if they found a rusty paperclip, they will weaponize it into a WMD to be used on the individual they are targeting like AOC and Omar.
This warlike propaganda at the political level that is designed to smear people was perfected during the extreme rights relentless war against the Clintons.
Now that the extreme alt-right has created this propaganda machine-weapon and normalized its use, they are going to use the same tactics to smear anyone that they think will be a threat to their agenda to turn the United States into an autocratic-theo-kleptocracy ruled by the 0.01 percent and not by the U.S. Constitution.
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If you have not seen it, this poster was displayed by a vendor in the West Virginia State House on March 1.
Screen Shot 2019-03-10 at 4.09.29 PM
It lead to the resignation of the sargent-at-arms for responding with an anti-Muslim remark.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/02/poster-linking-rep-ilhan-omar-sparks-outrage-injuries-wva-state-capitol/?utm_term=.30ca7bda6e15
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Trying again:
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Christine Langhoff: There is no end to the hatred that ignorance brings.
I have a very dear Islamic friend who lives in Malaysia. I got ill while working in KL and for months she would pick me up in her car each weekend and take me to buy groceries. She prayed 5 times a day and is the proof of what the Muslim religion means.
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I am not afraid myself, but I fear for so many who are othered and targeted by weaponized hatred.
Teachers, in the normal course of our work everyday, come into intimate contact with so many humans whose experience is at variance with our own. Most grownups don’t, and for them fear of people different from themselves has no counterpoint.
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I would think AOC has a fine security force, brave, tough, strong, and legion, called New York City. I wouldn’t recommend any of those izod clad, tiki torch toting alt-right nitwits who spend their time in easy chairs watching Fox News on tv, no matter how crazy they are, ever go to Brooklyn. They would get hurt.
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I am not a person who read a great deal in the popular press. This new voice in the American living room has aroused a new round of red baiting. This more resembles the late nineteenth century red scares than the A. Mitchell Palmer red scare of the post World War I era or the McCarthist publicity grabbing during Korea. The similarity is interesting since many have been suggesting that we live in a new Guilded age of corruption embedded in money and congress.
As for the Republicans suggesting that the new proposals by the young democratic left (which is not very far left) are socialism, I can only suggest that they tell the voters which of the parties ever nationalized any private industry. If the right continues to cry socialism every time a political leader wants to have a government do something for the entire body politic, they will one day find that their cry of “wolf” will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In 1877, a year of violent strikes spread across the United States that frightened a rising urban middle class. The Haymarket riots in 1886, the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 by an anarchist wannabe, and continued labor protests convinced a generation of people like John Peter Altgeld of Illinois and the first president Roosevelt that we needed a middle class from a war between radicals on the left and right. Violence on the left disappeared from the country with the arrest of the Unibomber. Still, the right screams of danger from the socialists. A more truthful picture was painted by a 1980s SNL skit in which a group of journalists followed a “liberal” as though he was the yeti.
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IMHO, all children naturally grow up with a mindset that is almost exactly being nurtured and taught by the influence of WHERE they live and go to a primary school UP TO grade 12th.
Children easily trust their parents, teachers, classmates and neighbors.
In short, general speaking, tell me where you come from, I can guess a minimum 50% of who you are. In other word, the attitude of parents, teachers, classmates and neighbors will definitely affect the children’s natural personality in their perception about a reality of life.
Today is a modern day of “IOT” or Internet of things. Young people can acquire more INFORMATION than the older generation. Hopefully, the naivety in young age can be sharpened or acquired with the help of all CONSCIENTIOUS VETERAN TEACHERS’ WISDOM.
Hopefully, AOC will pay attention and ask as many HELPFUL QUESTIONS as possible when she meet privately with Dr. Ravitch, before appearing in public event, next week. Also, I believe that all citizens in Bronze, NY, and Boston who support AOC, will be alert of the environment around AOC so that they can inform AOC any trouble or danger might happen to AOC. Back2basic
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This is absolute insanity. Let the crook and everyone around him go free. What is wrong with the GOP’ers? Why stick with this loosing Moron?
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The Memo: Team Trump insists Dem probes could ‘boomerang’
BY NIALL STANAGE – 03/10/19 06:00 AM EDT
The Trump camp argues that Democrats will play into the president’s hands if they subject him, his associates and his family to an endless barrage of investigations.
Their theory — vigorously contested by critics of the president — is that such moves would bolster Trump’s case that he is being subjected to unfair attacks…
Trump himself has been making the case that Democrats are engaged in what he refers to as “presidential harassment” — a phrase that he tweeted again on Friday. He appears to be using the term in a manner akin to his attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt.”
But Mueller’s probe has proven resilient, in terms of public opinion, despite the president’s onslaught. A Quinnipiac University poll in recent days indicated that 54 percent of registered voters believe the Mueller investigation is fair — exactly double the 27 percent who contend it is unfair…
“They are trying to drain him of his resources to get things done by creating this monster investigation,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican consultant who worked closely with the White House on the 2017 confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch…
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/433301-the-memo-team-trump-insists-dem-probes-could-boomerang
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The revolving door… a nail in the coffin of American democracy.
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This doesn’t say much for the Democrats. They are wrecking the ‘democratic socialist’ label. Are they afraid of Bernie? McConnell, ” …Democrats have taken “a sharp and abrupt left turn toward socialism.”
Proponents of democratic socialism have argued that it’s necessary to guarantee citizens adequate health care, housing and education as well as to expand the rights of workers. Oh my. Can’t get worse than promoting all of that. The GOP is made up of lame brains, but why are the Dems no better on this?
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Most 2020 Dems reject socialism label
BY MICHAEL BURKE – 03/10/19 02:05 PM EDT
…Hickenlooper, who announced his candidacy last week, said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he “absolutely” rejects the label of democratic socialist, though he added that he thinks labels “do nothing but divide us.”
“I’m happy to say I’m a capitalist but I think at a certain point the labels do nothing but divide us,” he said. “What I’m trying to build this campaign around, is to say that as a country we’ve got to stop finding every excuse to divide ourselves and begin working together.”
Warren, meanwhile, has previously embraced capitalism and said Sunday that she is not a democratic socialist.
“I am not. And the centrists have to speak to whatever they are doing. What I can speak is to is how I am doing,” Warren also said Saturday during an interview at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, according to CNN.
“All I can tell you is what I believe,” she added. “And that is there is an enormous amount to be gained from markets. That markets create opportunities.”
Delaney argued in a CNN op-ed that Democrats should embrace capitalism and that “socialism is not the answer.”
“In its pure form, it is a bad economic model and it’s the wrong political approach,” he wrote.
Harris said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire last month that she is “not a democratic socialist.” Additionally, O’Rourke last month declared that he is a “capitalist.”
“I don’t see how we’re able to meet any of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country without, in part, harnessing the power of the market,” O’Rourke told reporters in El Paso, Texas.
Spokespeople for Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who are each seeking the nomination, also confirmed to the Associated Press last year that they don’t consider themselves democratic socialists. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also clarified during an MSNBC interview this month that she is “not a socialist.”
The campaigns for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) did not immediately return requests from The Hill seeking clarification on whether they consider themselves democratic socialists.
But even as the majority of the Democratic candidates have embraced capitalism, leaders in the GOP have highlighted a growing interest in democratic socialism to attack the party as a whole.
President Trump said during his State of the Union address last month that he was “alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week that Democrats have taken “a sharp and abrupt left turn toward socialism.”
“A flawed ideology that has been rejected time and again across the world is now driving the marquee policy proposals of the new House Democrat majority,” McConnell said from the Senate floor.
Proponents of democratic socialism have argued that it’s necessary to guarantee citizens adequate health care, housing and education as well as to expand the rights of workers.
Sanders said last month during an interview with MSNBC that his support of democratic socialism means he views “economic rights as human rights.”…
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/433399-2020-dems-push-away-socialist-label
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This is hilarious. We need some humor.
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Liberals want socialism, Ocasio-Cortez as queen. We’re taking your hamburgers too
Rex HuppkeContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
…We intend to enact a Green New Deal, which will outlaw planes and automobiles and farting. Walking will be the only form of transportation allowed, and the entire Midwest will be covered with one large solar panel that provides energy only to New York City.
There will be a flatulence tax.
That said, global warming is a complete hoax. We just wanted to take away your pickup trucks and not let you eat hamburgers because we’re twisted, hateful liberals.
Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is a witch hunt, an idea cooked up by billionaire George Soros and comedian Kathy Griffin after an evening of tantric Satan worshipping. (Ironically, a witch was present.)
And there are massive caravans of dangerous South Americans storming toward our southern border. Actually, some have already arrived. There’s one outside your kitchen window right now. It will only attack you if you look at it, so keep reading.
We killed the white Santa Claus and replaced him with a black one. He is also gay and an illegal immigrant.
We hope to ban the Pledge of Allegiance and replace it with the Pledge of She-llegiance to Not-Queen Ocasio-Cortez, benevolent wealth-redistributor of the Socialist States of Libmerica…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-met-fox-news-socialism-ocasio-cortez-trump-huppke-20190308-story.html#share=email~story
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There are two matters in life: important to humanity and trivial to any living sentient beings.
We can mimic the best attitude or personality of all famous people, but the own truth will be eventually appeared in public.
Old age, cheat working experience and tricky behavior from crooked people IS NOT considered as being WISE.
Young, smart working experience, and honest attitude from compassionate people IS DEFINITELY considered as being WISE.
In short, all fame, fortune, and lust are trivial to any living sentient beings. But being lifting up all compassionate people or sentient beings on Earth is truly IMPORTANT TO HUMANITY.
I hope that all seen and unseen Angels and Saints will protect all compassionate people as well as will ease the pain of all ignorant and greedy people so that bad people will have a chance to see the bright light sooner or later in their lives on Earth. Back2basic
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