US "The Squad" Megathread - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib Derangement Syndrome

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I honestly only know about American politics from what I read on the Internet but since we all love shitting on leftists I figured we'd get a kick out of this. Also it's trending on Twitter so you know it's important.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...irect=on&noredirect=on&utm_term=.960552c9ba53

NEW YORK — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old political novice running on a low budget and an unabashedly liberal platform, upset longtime U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley on Tuesday in the Democratic congressional primary in New York.

The surprise victory by the community organizer in a district that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens came after an energetic, grassroots campaign that mustered more than enough support in a low-turnout race that many had expected to be an easy win for Crowley, a member of the Democratic House leadership.

“The community is ready for a movement of economic and social justice. That is what we tried to deliver,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who has never held elected office and whose candidacy attracted only modest media attention.

She told The Associated Press after her victory that she didn’t have enough money to do polling in the race, but felt in her gut that her message had a chance to connect.

“I live in this community. I organized in this community. I felt the absence of the incumbent. I knew he didn’t have a strong presence,” she said.

Crowley has been in Congress since 1999 and hadn’t faced an opponent in a primary election since 2004, when Ocasio-Cortez was just a teenager. He was considered a candidate to become the next House speaker if Democrats win the majority.

“It’s not about me,” Crowley, 56, told his supporters at a campaign party following his loss. “It’s about America. I want nothing but the best for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I want her to be victorious.”

He later played guitar with a band at the election night gathering, and dedicated the first song, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” to Ocasio-Cortez.

Crowley represents New York’s 14th Congressional District, where he is also the leader of the Queens Democratic party.

Ocasio-Cortez was outspent by an 18-1 margin during her race but won the endorsement of some influential groups on the party’s far left, including MoveOn, as well as the actress Cynthia Nixon, who is running for governor. She defeated Crowley by 15 percentage points.

Born in the Bronx to a mother from Puerto Rico and a father who died in 2008, Ocasio-Cortez said she decided to challenge Crowley to push a more progressive stance on economic and other issues.

She attended Boston University, where she earned degrees in economics and international relations, and also spent time working in the office of the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy.

After graduating, she returned to the Bronx where she became a community organizer. In the 2016 presidential campaign she worked for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Among her issues is expanding the Medicare program to people of all ages and abolishing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. She recently went to Tornillo, Texas, to protest against policies that have separated parents from their children at the southern U.S. border.

Ocasio-Cortez gained some internet attention for a campaign video called “The Courage to Change,” a two-minute spot for which she wrote the script and featured footage from her own home.

Crowley is chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest ranking position in Democratic leadership in that chamber of Congress.

His loss drew the attention of President Donald Trump.

“Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!” he tweeted.

The Republican candidate for the office, Anthony Pappas, is running unopposed and had no primary. Pappas teaches economics at St. John’s University.

She was a Bernie campaigner, is supported by BLM, and wants to abolish Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Also this was in a solid-blue Congressional District so you know she's a shoo-in for next Congress.

But hey, we did get to see Trump laugh at Crowley on Twitter.
 
Any member of congress can propose anything. Their party can heavily suggest they do not propose something, but they can ignore it and go on to do it if they want. Also remember that it hasn't even been actually properly submitted for consideration, she posted it on her website and expected to get huge support, and then it got her laughed at. She predictably fell back to the ol' "well at least I'm proposing SOMETHING, I just wanted to start a conversation on environmentalism!!!"

We're not even going to get to the point of tweaking it because it was dead in the water from the start, the ~40 democrats that supported it were trying to get in on defending the rising star of the party and hadn't even seen the full thing.
 
I don't know a great deal about politics, why is a junior member of congress allowed to propose something as huge and sweeping as the New Green Deal? And are the chances better for it being completely shot down and ignored, or tweaked until it's more plausible?

Conspiratard version: They're using her to see what Americans are ready to accept. If we bite on it, they'll tweak the plan until it's that and just a little more (because they always do just a little more); if we reject it roundly, Pelosi and Co. can just sit back and cluck their tongues and blame her for being extreme and crazy.

Cynical version: They knew she was an attention whore, but they didn't realize how ambitious she actually was. Now they have to do damage control because she won't come to heel.
 
Conspiratard version: They're using her to see what Americans are ready to accept. If we bite on it, they'll tweak the plan until it's that and just a little more (because they always do just a little more); if we reject it roundly, Pelosi and Co. can just sit back and cluck their tongues and blame her for being extreme and crazy.

Cynical version: They knew she was an attention whore, but they didn't realize how ambitious she actually was. Now they have to do damage control because she won't come to heel.

I think they hoped for the first and got the second.
 
Probably not the guy you are thinking of, but how about the Co-founder of Greenpeace calling AOC out on her shit
View attachment 682226

FTFY

This is why I loathe people on the right and left who claim overpopulation isn't a problem. Conservatives claim it isn't a problem because they like the idea of an excessive population driving down labor costs. Liberals claim that saying it's a problem is "racist". Meanwhile, without fossil fuels, billions of people will die. No problem there, clearly.
 
This is why I loathe people on the right and left who claim overpopulation isn't a problem. Conservatives claim it isn't a problem because they like the idea of an excessive population driving down labor costs. Liberals claim that saying it's a problem is "racist". Meanwhile, without fossil fuels, billions of people will die. No problem there, clearly.

The problem is, in doing anything to fix it you open up a really god-awful can of worms.

I get where you're coming from though.
 
Didn't California just shut down their high-speed rail project that they spent $77bn on, that produced nothing? They wanted to create a fast train between Los Angeles and San Fransisco but...

Maybe the real mistake was not giving them $7.7 trillion to lay that track, maybe the projected construction time would have shrunk from ~20 years to 2 months as well. Makes you think doesn't it?
Technically, they'd only spent about $5.4 billion. The problem was that the estimates to get that high speed rail built kept spiraling upwards, approaching $100 billion before Gavin Newsom (in a remarkable display of common sense from a leftie) pulled the plug.
 
The problem is, in doing anything to fix it you open up a really god-awful can of worms.

I get where you're coming from though.
In the west, you don't really "need" to fix it because most populations had stabilized. Until the EU and democrats did a 180 and claimed that the aging population needed to be replaced for western countries to remain economically viable and the solution was importing a bunch of brown people that are already having kids at worrying rates back in their own countries. So now we're back to the population going up across the globe.

Technically, they'd only spent about $5.4 billion. The problem was that the estimates to get that high speed rail built kept spiraling upwards, approaching $100 billion before Gavin Newsom (in a remarkable display of common sense from a leftie) pulled the plug.
"Only" 5.4 billion.:stress:
 
I have a really hard time buying that she is genuine. The connection to Clinton, the fakeness and the obviously unrealistic goals are all red flags.
 
Technically, they'd only spent about $5.4 billion. The problem was that the estimates to get that high speed rail built kept spiraling upwards, approaching $100 billion before Gavin Newsom (in a remarkable display of common sense from a leftie) pulled the plug.

If only the same can be said about the rail project in Hawai'i, the whole saga about that has been a mess from the start.
 
In the west, you don't really "need" to fix it because most populations had stabilized. Until the EU and democrats did a 180 and claimed that the aging population needed to be replaced for western countries to remain economically viable and the solution was importing a bunch of brown people that are already having kids at worrying rates back in their own countries. So now we're back to the population going up across the globe.


"Only" 5.4 billion.:stress:
BUILD THE WALL!
 
Conspiratard version: They're using her to see what Americans are ready to accept. If we bite on it, they'll tweak the plan until it's that and just a little more (because they always do just a little more); if we reject it roundly, Pelosi and Co. can just sit back and cluck their tongues and blame her for being extreme and crazy.

Cynical version: They knew she was an attention whore, but they didn't realize how ambitious she actually was. Now they have to do damage control because she won't come to heel.

The mistake to make is to think of AOC as a democrat. She's not, she is in her own definitions a democratic socialist. Her loyalty to the Democratic party will only go as far as is required to advance her own political agenda.

She's already been threatening to start using the same primary election tactics she used to get elected (standing in a democrat safe district and beating the incumbent) on middle ground democrats in order to swing the party further left.

I think it's a case where the existing political class of democrats didn't think that AOC would be a threat to the party solidity. Her stupidity and inexperience were probably disarming, and the Green New Deal could have been a part of that attempt to discredit her.
 
I think it's a case where the existing political class of democrats didn't think that AOC would be a threat to the party solidity. Her stupidity and inexperience were probably disarming, and the Green New Deal could have been a part of that attempt to discredit her.

I think they were basing their expectations for her on Bernie Sanders, who despite all his talk of bucking the system and being a maverick and wanting to be openly socialist, is a good little party soldier who can be reliably counted on to do what he's told, sit down and shut up, and only come out when they need to use him as the canary in the coal mine to judge how acceptable socialism is becoming. They expected that like him, she'd talk a big game about taking on her own party and bucking the system and being further left, but when the election was over would be a good little party line voter. They didn't think she actually meant all the shit she said, because none of them do, they only ever tell the truth on accident.

Basically they thought that during her campaign she was being a politician when she was actually being exactly the Millennial tumbltard she appeared to be.
 
The problem is, in doing anything to fix [overpopulation] you open up a really god-awful can of worms.
I have often speculated that China will be the first to do anything about overpopulation by unleashing a bio-engineered plague that makes the Black Death look like amateur hour and only vaccinating people with a high enough social credit score. Then the Middle Kingdom will have the whole world to spread across.
 
I have often speculated that China will be the first to do anything about overpopulation by unleashing a bio-engineered plague that makes the Black Death look like amateur hour and only vaccinating people with a high enough social credit score. Then the Middle Kingdom will have the whole world to spread across.

They already did: the One-Child Policy. It was an unmitigated atrocity that will result in 30 million more adult men than women in their country next year. Things are about to get real interesting over there.
 
I have often speculated that China will be the first to do anything about overpopulation by unleashing a bio-engineered plague that makes the Black Death look like amateur hour and only vaccinating people with a high enough social credit score. Then the Middle Kingdom will have the whole world to spread across.

I think things would have to become a lot more desperate than they are now for them; although the chinese dollar is ridiculously unstable, in general China is doing fairly well as more of the country moves into first-world status. If things continue going well and the majority of chinese citizens (including non-megacity people) end up in first-world status, an economic destabilization could lead to massive protests/riots that would then give the government an excuse to try something like that. Otherwise they'd probably test first with the Uyghurs since they're nothing but a drain on the nation and china is one of the few places in the world that so openly defies islamism.
 
They already did: the One-Child Policy. It was an unmitigated atrocity that will result in 30 million more adult men than women in their country next year. Things are about to get real interesting over there.
If the 30 million statistical incels they created have bad social credit scores then it sounds like I've hit upon the perfect and even more amoral solution.
 
I have often speculated that China will be the first to do anything about overpopulation by unleashing a bio-engineered plague that makes the Black Death look like amateur hour and only vaccinating people with a high enough social credit score. Then the Middle Kingdom will have the whole world to spread across.
Sounds like something ol' Alex Jones used to talk about, how certain peoples can have a certain combination of dna in their system and you could create some sort of bacteria that would fatal to those with it and harmless to those without.
 
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