AOC Ruffles Conservatives' Feathers

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, affectionately known as AOC, has conservatives so agitated that they are foaming at the mouth.  She has become their favorite target.  Whenever Ocasio-Cortez is in the news, conservatives fall all over themselves trying to find new ways to attack her intelligence.

Ocasio-Cortez should be flattered by this.  When else has a freshman Representative in Congress engendered so much fear from her opposition that they spend so much time and effort trying to insult her whenever she happens to make the news?

That is exactly what is going on here.  Conservatives fear Ocasio-Cortez.  That is because she represents a threat to the political establishment. 

Coming seemingly from nowhere, Ocasio-Cortez,  who is of Puerto Rican descent, defeated a powerful member of the House Democratic leadership, Joseph Crowley, in the congressional primary for a district representing parts of Queens and the Bronx.  Crowley had been rumored to be a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi when Pelosi eventually steps down from her role as Speaker of the House. 

At the time of her primary victory, Ocasio-Cortez worked as a waitress in a taqueria in New York. She has been described as a political novice.  However, she had worked as an intern for Ted Kennedy, an organizer for Bernie Sanders' 2016 primary campaign, and for an organization that supported leadership in the Hispanic community, the National Hispanic Institute.  Her education includes a bachelor of arts degree in International Relations and Economics from Boston College. 

Ocasio-Cortez, who emphasized her working class background, captured national attention running a grass-roots campaign.  She won the general election, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Her agenda is unabashedly progressive.  She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and represents a very liberal congressional district.

When preparing to join Congress, Ocasio-Cortez complained of the orientation program for new members hosted by Harvard.  She expressed exasperation that guests included corporate CEOs and lobbyists, but no one from labor unions, no activists and no community leaders.  In doing so, she exposed the bias the pervades the American political system to the detriment of the working class.

Ocasio-Cortez boldly spoke out about the disadvantages and unfair images that the working class, and in particular minorities, face.  She criticized the use of unpaid interns by congressional members, noting that it prevented working class students from receiving valuable experience during their education, since such students often had to find paying jobs to support their education.  She rallied against the image that the poor were responsible for their own position in life, panning a Chase Bank tweet that implied that the poor should skip coffee houses, restaurants and taxi cabs.

Ocasio-Cortez noted that before she became a Representative in Congress, she would wake up n the middle of the night worried if she had paid a certain bill on time.  This was not because she was irresponsible.  It was because she was not being paid a living wage.  Now she had a congressional salary and government health insurance, eliminating a major expense from her former life.  She wanted all Americans to be able to avoid the anxiety caused by low wages.

In sum, Ocasio-Cortez bucked the system, and exposed its biases against minorities and the working class, commanding media attention along the way.  She defeated a powerful incumbent, and then won a general election without relying heavily on corporate donations to her campaign.  She freely exposes how intertwined corporate special interests and the government are, and how freshman members are expected to continue with system.  She decries the situation of the working class poor, and debunks the myths that lead to their stigmatization.

It is because she bucks the system, and does so successfully, while representing views to which conservatives are diametrically opposed, that conservatives feel the need to attack her.  In doing so, conservatives have, at times, shown how ridiculous and petty their criticisms are.

Ocasio-Cortez uses social media, such as Instagram and Twitter, to reach her constituency directly.  She takes advantage of social media's platform, which emphasizes the use of video, to present herself talking about issues in informal settings.  Conservatives have scoured over this video repeatedly in an attempt to find what they consider to be gaffes in order to question her intelligence.

On the campaign trail, for example, Ocasio-Cortez spoke at her alma matter, Boston College.  She cautioned supporters that even if the Democrats won big in the election, they would not get everything they wanted right away.  "[A]s much as I would love that. I would like to get inaugurated January 3, January 4 we’re signing health care, we’re signing this, we’re signing de-incarceration.  But really, it is that we have a duty to always fight and maintain the strength of our values."

Taking Ocasio-Cortez's words out of context, Fox and Friends presented the video, saying to their audience that she lacks the requisite knowledge of how government works.  Specifically, they laughed, it is only the President who is inaugurated and signs bills into law.

First, while members of Congress are technically "sworn-in," the dictionary definition of "inauguration" includes "the formal admission of someone to office."  Indeed, when she was sworn-in, news media, including NBC, referred her speech that followed as an "inaugural address."  Nit-picking over a word that conveys the same meaning just made Fox News, and others who repeated the criticism, look silly.

Second, when viewed in context, it is clear that Ocasio-Cortez was tempering the expectations of her supporters, and noting that progressives like herself have a lot of work to do before legislation could be passed.  The use of the word "we're" indicates that she was not speaking of signing bills herself, but of progressives like her passing legislation into law consistent with their agenda, such as expanding health care coverage and addressing criminal justice reform.

Likewise, conservatives attempted to attack her working class background.  A video showing how she dressed in the first days of the new Congress were meant to show that despite her claims that she personally had little money in the bank, that somehow she could afford expensive clothes.  A video showing Ocasio-Cortez dancing with friends while attending Boston College was used in an attempt to argue that her self-portrayal of understanding the struggling of the working class was inaccurate.  These attempts failed to convince a wider audience, and only demonstrated the pettiness of conservative criticism.

Ocasio-Cortez represents a political movement where women of color have started to gain inroads to governmental positions.  She joins Ilham Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, affectionately known as "the Squad," as freshman Representatives of color who vocally oppose President Trump and the Republican agenda.  Members of the Squad have not been shy in exposing the cruelty of Trump's immigration policies.  Upon visiting detention centers along the southern border, the Squad exposed abuses asylum-seeking families faced, such as lack of medical care and being forced to find drinking water from a cell's toilet.  Threatened by this revelation, Trump infamously responded that members of the Squad should "go back to where they came from."  Never mind that three of the four Representatives were born in the United States, and Ilham Omar was a Somali refugee who earned U.S. citizenship.  Opposing Trump earned the Squad racist criticism from the President.

Concerning her policy positions, conservatives love to remind the public that they amount to "socialism," a word meant to invoke fear in the electorate.  The conservative's playbook is to label a proposal they oppose as "socialism," and then cite a country, such as Venezuela, as their proof that socialism is bad.  Never mind that socialism is an economic system, not a political one, and that the political instability in Venezuela is due to authoritative overreaching of the executive.  Conservatives ignore that popular programs in the United States are socialistic in nature, such as social security and subsidies to farmers hurt by Trump's trade war.  President Trump loves to cite Norway as a model country.  Yet Norway implements socialist policies, such a free secondary education.

Conservatives also like to exaggerate Ocasio-Cortez's policy proposals.  Ocasio-Cortez, for example, became a spokesperson for the proposed House Resolution 109, known as the "Green New Deal."  The proposal was not legislation, in the sense that it created no legal obligations.  Rather, the Green New Deal was simply a list of goals divided into two parts.  The first part set goals for the United States to combat climate change, such as reducing carbon emissions to net zero within ten years.  The second part recognized that this would be a radical change in the economy, and that the Government should do what it could to protect those who would otherwise be displaced by the changes.  The resolution made nothing illegal, and contained no proposals on how to reach the goals.  It was meant simply to start the serious debate needed to address climate change in the hopes of avoiding catastrophic change.

Critics, of course, represented the resolution as banning popular items of Americana.  Thus, the proposal to build high speed rail was represented as a ban on domestic air travel.  The goal of eliminating America's dependence on fossil fuels was represented as a ban on cars and office buildings.  Proposed reductions in carbon emissions was represented as an attack on bovine flatulence, and thus a ban on hamburgers.  Thus, conservatives chose to oppose Ocasio-Cortez's proposals through misrepresentations and scare tactics.

Recently, Ocasio-Cortez has made a new ambitious legislative proposal, addressing the plight of the working class.  The proposal includes limiting rent increases, enforcing a living wage, redefining the poverty line to include expenses not originally contemplated such as child care and internet access, and ratifying the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

These proposals recognize problems that the working class poor face in their daily lives, such as inflated housing expenses, and a minimum wage that has been frozen at $7.25 per hour since 2009.  To conservatives, they are radical ideas which threaten the interests of big business.  Ocasio-Cortez will certainly face strong opposition to her legislation.

Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez is serving an important function in U.S. politics.  She is using the attention that the media is giving her to start important conversations over policy, and ensuring that the interests of the working class are being addressed.  With a divided Congress, it is not likely that her proposals will pass and be implemented.  But calling attention to those against whom the deck is stacked is vital if America is to be true to the value of equality before the law.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Daniel Phillips, Black Hebrew Israelites Bear Blame for Friday’s Confrontation with Catholic Students

It seems that whenever there is a clash with ethnic overtones, and some young men sporting red MAGA hats are involved, the knee jerk reaction is to blame the youth in MAGA garb. So automatic this reaction has become, that the original impression (Trump supporters are all evil, racist, violent and ignorant) lingers long after more evidence surfaces demonstrating blame belongs to numerous parties. 

Let’s take this incident that happened in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday, during the March for Life Event. With so many people gathered already for political activism, the event attracted fringe elements of society attempting to publicize their agenda. One such group was the Black Hebrew Israelites. 

The Black Hebrew Israelites stood at the base of the steps, spewing racist, offensive hate. Their goal was to spark confrontation, at which they succeeded several times. 

Eventually, the Black Hebrew Israelites began an offensive roll of insults against the Catholic Church. At this point, the group begins to attract the attention of male students from Covington Catholic High School, many of whom happen to be wearing red MAGA hats.

The Black Hebrew Israelites then spews hate and insults directly at the students. The initial reaction was for the students to leave. Over the next twenty to twenty-five minutes, as the group continues to spew hatred, little by little, the student gather on the steps in back of and to the right of the group, keeping a distance of several yards.  (Some have reported that the students were waiting for buses.)

As the speakers begin to notice the growth in students in their audience, they target the students directly for an offensive tirade. The students respond by drowning out the speakers with sports cheers and chants. As the adrenaline flows, one attention-grabbing student runs to the front of his friends, and strips his shirt off as his friends scream in support. The boy then leads the groups in what appears to be a tribal-like cheer (the Haka?) that many sports teams have adopted as a show of intimidation. The crowd howls its approval. 

The crowd continues with a more popular and recognizable sports chant. It was at this point that Daniel Phillips, an activist for indigenous people’s rights, decided to intervene. Beating a rhythmic pattern on a hand-held drum, engaging in a chant, Phillips marched directly toward and then into the crowd of students. Phillips later stated he approached the students, and not the Black Hebrew Israelites, because the group of students was much larger and mostly white. 

As Phillips approached the students, they gave no ground. Phillips walked straight towards one student, who smirked, but who did not move as Phillips banged the drum in his face. The rest of the students reacted by chanting as well, and then clapping in time with the drum. 

The chant devolved into a chant made famous by the Florida State Seminoles, and popular for other teams with Native American mascots: The Chop. This includes the Atlanta Braves, where Deion Sanders brought the chant after attending FSU.

Certainly, this is not Christian behavior, and deserves a talk from Christian Youth leaders on how to respond to such aggressive behavior by others in a way that is consistent with Christian values and beliefs. But the worst thing the students did was to use sports chants popular with teams that have Native American mascots. The students were not the aggressors. 

Daniel Phillips must shoulder some blame for being unduly aggressive. He has himself admitted that he chose to talk toward and into the group of students because they were a larger group and mostly white. Absent from his analysis was the provocations consistently made by the Black Hebrew Israelites. The group had been spewing hatred aimed at numerous ethnicities, and religious groups. Yet, in the reporting, almost any recognition of this offense behavior, let alone condemnation of the group, is absent. For the mainstream press, it is enough that there was a confrontation and white kids involved wearing MAGA hats. Obviously, the Trump supporters must be to blame. 

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

Note:  I used to consider myself a Republican until Trump won the nomination in 2016. I am no supporter of Trump, or of the Republican Party, which appears to be full of nothing but sycophants. Nonetheless, I refuse to jump on a popular band wagon when a full analysis of the facts points in a different direction. The true problem with modern American journalism, I believe, is laziness. Just report the same line you were programmed to believe over and over. I pray greater objectivity comes back to American press soon.

For Those Expecting an "Electoral College Miracle," You've been Well Played

"It's a Christmas miracle!"  If you're familiar with American TV, you've no doubt heard this phrase numerous times in your life. Typically in the plots around Christmas time, something has got the protagonist down. Maybe it is a loss of faith or hope. But by the end of the show, something unexpected and improbable happens that lifts everyone's spirits, and restores hope to the protagonist. 

Judging from my social media feeds, many of my liberal friends expected the Electoral College to deliver such a Christmas miracle. 

It started with the so-called "Hamilton Electors."  Several news articles proclaimed that there were Electors ready to cast a ballot for some reasonable candidate other than Donald Trump. I remember at least one of my friends on Facebook expressing excitement in November that this rumor was an actual thing, as an article reached the mainstream press. 

Then there was the call for intelligence briefings for Electors in the wake of accusations of hacking by the Russians from the CIA.  Electors have a right to know if a foreign power influenced our electoral system, was the rallying cry. Again, many of my liberal friends in social media expressed real hope that the Electoral College would "do the right thing."

And then December 19th, the day appointed for the Electors to meet in their respective state capitals, came and Trump received enough votes to be elected President of the United States. Indeed, while those wishing for an "Electoral College miracle" needed more than thirty Electors pledged to Trump to defect, only two actually did. 

And thus, many of my liberal friends took to social media and expressed disappointment; some using the harshest of profanity over the result. 

The fact is that they, along with anyone else who expected a more dramatic result, were played. They were played by a propaganda gambit from their very own party, the Democrats, assisted by willing accomplices in the press. 

The fact is that stories of possible Electoral College defectors were drummed up by Democratic political operatives. The press then reported the stories in a way that hid the political leanings of the perpetrators as well their true intentions. 

Let's first consider the so-called "Hamilton Electors."  These were Electors supposedly ready to vote for any reasonable candidate other than Trump. News stories trumpeted the fact that there had been "faithless Electors" in the past; Electors who voted for someone other than the candidate who vote the popular vote in their particular state. There were some news stories that announced that numerous Electors were taking advantage of legal advice offered for free from a certain law firm concerning the legal consequences of breaking a pledge to vote for the winner of their state's popular vote. Surely these were all indications of a potential Electoral College revolt. 

The problem was that the press failed to report that these potential faithless Electors were all Democrats pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton. 

In the end, there were a total of seven faithless Electors; the most of any presidential election. They voted for candidates like Collin Powell, John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders and even Faith Spotted Eagle, an American Indian tribal leader opposed to the Dakota Pipeline. But only two of these Electors were Republicans pledged to vote for Trump. Five were Democrats pledged to vote for Clinton.  This means that the so-called "Hamilton Electors" of  which the press trumpeted were very likely Democrats pledged to vote for Clinton all along. There never was any pending revolt of Republican Electors ready to "dump Trump."

Concerning the demand for an intelligence briefing over the alleged Russian hacking, media reporting was misleading in several respects. First, the press did its best to bury the fact that the push came from Democratic Electors, not Republicans. It would take a savvy reader some effort to discover that the originator of this demand was Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter. Indeed, of the fifty five Electors demanding the briefing, only one was a Republican.  Hiding the affiliation of the Electors demanding the briefing gave the impression that Electors were ready to bolt from voting Trump. In reality, there was never really any danger in that happening. 

Second, the press willingly reported the so-called Russian hacking scandal in such a way as to exaggerate what the factual allegations were. The press used descriptions such as "hacking," a "foreign power" attempting to "influence the election," and the "integrity" of the "electoral system."

In fact, there has never been any allegation that the Russians ever attempted to hack into any of the state electoral boards and alter any vote count. But, by using such vague but inflammatory descriptors, the press was more than willing to have the general public conclude that the alleged hacking put the vote count in jeopardy. 

What has been alleged is that the Russians hacked into the email systems of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees to steal emails. It is alleged that the Russians leaked embarrassing emails about Clinton and her staff through Wikileaks. 

Thus the so-called influence was nothing more than an attempt to have an effect on the opinion of voters. Given the myriad of factors involved in the presidential campaign, it is highly doubtful that the release of embarrassing email communications had much of an effect on changing voters' minds. Quite frankly, the news emanating from the Wikileaks releases during the campaign was that there was nothing really ground-breaking from the emails. In the end, the email leaks were more hype than substance. 

Surely the news of the hacking should result in an effort to bring those responsible to justice for violating criminal laws. But, it is hardly a reason to overturn a presidential election. 

In fact, the news of how easily the Russians hacked into both the DNC and RNC email systems should emphasize why it was such a scandal that a sitting Secretary of State used an unsecured private server to communicate classified information. It placed such information at a high risk of being intercepted by foreign governments. 

So what was the purpose of these stories which dominated the news prior to the Electoral College vote?  First, there was a hope that more than thirty Republican Electors would be influenced to switch their votes and deny Trump an Electoral College victory. But that hope was misplaced. The parties choose the slate of Electors. They are chosen because of their strong loyalty to the political party. They are not chosen because they tend to be independent thinkers. 

Even if the campaign to influence the Electors succeeded, the race would simply be thrown to the House of Representatives, voting by state delegations, to decide. With Republicans in control of the House, the end result would likely have still been a Trump victory. 

The more important reason for the campaign to influence the Electoral College was to create a sense of illegitimacy of a Trump presidency. Trump didn't win the popular vote. He only won because of the disproportionate power given to small states by the Electoral College. Now the Electoral College failed to receive intelligence briefings of Russian interference and influence. And a record number of Electors were faithless Electors. Therefore, the stage is set to rationalize aggressive residence by the Democrats of the Trump agenda. 

What is comes down to is the fact that the public was played. They were played by the Democrats eager to paint the Trump presidency as illegitimate. They were played by a press, already biased against Trump, and willing to carry the torch for the Democratic Party. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.