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

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.

 

[Wargarbl]

Whoever it was in Marketing that figured out that all corporations had to do to turn Progressives into their shock troopers was parrot a few choice words and attack non left wingers is an absolute genius.
He or she is also an absolute cunt who unleashed a monster but it undeniably worked out great for big business.

Nike is considered one of the best marketing companies in existence. The public questioned why they would give a protesting backup former QB a marketing deal. The answer is, they're well aware they have abusive labor practices and every time some supervisor beats a woman into a miscarriage while she's paid a quarter a day to work in a facility without air conditioning in a blazing hot part of the world, they can have soy QB go out and be their shield.

Since he's a greedy asshole with a room temperature IQ who doesn't understand what it means to make sacrifices and protest injustice, he gladly dances to their tune. In what was practically the only interview he ever had since he started his protest, the guy wore a fucking Che shirt and told the reporter he hates America. After that, BLM decided it was best he was held up as a symbol instead of a voice for the cause. Nike waited until the movement successfully made him a symbol, then gave him some money to be their minstrel. Notice he's never interviewed, he only speaks when there's a script and it's never live. They just give him some vaguely inspirational "be yourself no matter what the cost" message.

Nike has to be loving it. They pay a few million to an imbecile, they get endless praise from the very people that should be stomping them on social media for abusing labor, specifically female labor. I wonder what horror they inflicted on one of their workers when they started the "Kaepernick nixes the flag shoe" diversion?

 

[Wargarbl]

Steve Jobs probably kickstarted the trend way back when, when you think about it. That infamous commercial that assured you that by buying Apple, you were fighting The Man and striking a blow for individuality and free will. It was an early appeal to the kind of Unique Individual Like Everyone Else youths that the modern #Wokeness is after now. Just that then the pandering appeal was to individuality, whereas now it's usually outright telling you "Support this to be just like everyone else!"

My bad for the quick follow post, but you are talking about the famous "1984" commercial:

It's only national airing was during the Super Bowl, the most watched advertising time in existence. It's considered the pinnacle of product launch ads. It's a little bit of a stretch to say it was a precursor to SJW stuff. It was more of a precursor to the 90s "individuality" marketing trends, where ads said you were trendy and individualistic for buying products from enormous multinational companies.

 

[Jigglyjogglers]

My bad for the quick follow post, but you are talking about the famous "1984" commercial:

Yes, I am, Black Science Man, and I was talking about it in the generalities of pandering to shallow youths who think they're sociopolitical revolutionaries because of their wild new ideas that are in fact extremely popular and mainstream, not in the very specific terms of being about #Wokeness.

 

[Wargarbl]

Yes, I am, Black Science Man, and I was talking about it in the generalities of pandering to shallow youths who think they're sociopolitical revolutionaries because of their wild new ideas that are in fact extremely popular and mainstream, not in the very specific terms of being about #Wokeness.

Settle down, a little context doesn't hurt. It probably reinforces your point that the following decade+ long blitz of individualism-through-corporatism messaging was a stepping stone to people thinking that buying shoes from a prolific labor abusing company is a sign of their #wokeness.

But I guess we are getting off-topic. I saw that Kamala Harris, desperate to keep people from noticing she is Mocha Hillary Clinton, is partnering with Cortez on a GND off-shoot idea. I don't know who Harris is paying for advice, but she should fucking fire every last one of them for letting that idea go though. Hitching your wagon to an idea that literally got zero votes of approval in congress is a sped move.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Nike is considered one of the best marketing companies in existence. The public questioned why they would give a protesting backup former QB a marketing deal. The answer is, they're well aware they have abusive labor practices and every time some supervisor beats a woman into a miscarriage while she's paid a quarter a day to work in a facility without air conditioning in a blazing hot part of the world, they can have soy QB go out and be their shield.

Since he's a greedy asshole with a room temperature IQ who doesn't understand what it means to make sacrifices and protest injustice, he gladly dances to their tune. In what was practically the only interview he ever had since he started his protest, the guy wore a fucking Che shirt and told the reporter he hates America. After that, BLM decided it was best he was held up as a symbol instead of a voice for the cause. Nike waited until the movement successfully made him a symbol, then gave him some money to be their minstrel. Notice he's never interviewed, he only speaks when there's a script and it's never live. They just give him some vaguely inspirational "be yourself no matter what the cost" message.

Nike has to be loving it. They pay a few million to an imbecile, they get endless praise from the very people that should be stomping them on social media for abusing labor, specifically female labor. I wonder what horror they inflicted on one of their workers when they started the "Kaepernick nixes the flag shoe" diversion?

You are completely correct and Colin Kaepernick is a peak example of a hypocritical spokesrebel who is happy to be used as a tool to deflect criticism of actual injustice because it gets him money and social credit. Vice, Vox, HuffPo, when they write articles about Nike is it about the actual slave labor the company uses today to make shoes? No, it's about how woke they are to hire kneeling black football man as an empty gesture. Because slavery of African Americans 170 years ago is terrible but the slavery that makes shoes today isn't profitable to talk about.

Remember the Black Mirror episode about the society that spent their whole lives farming credit points on treadmills, and the guy threatened to kill himself onscreen to disrupt the corrupt system, and the leaders of that system immediately twisted his action to their advantage by making his rebellion safely digestible by people who want to vent about corrupt leadership in a nonthreatening way, and he just went along with it because it got him a bigger apartment and more perks? That's who Colin Kaepernick is. They package your social justice outrage and sell it back to you and you people eat it up because you don't really want change, you just want to show off how righteous you are because it makes you look popular. If Kaepernick thought slavery was bad he'd be opposing Nike, not getting paid by them to pretend the problem doesn't exist.

 

[Poiseon]

Huh. The 'Suicide Squad'

Seems appropriate.

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

I call AOC and her colleagues "The Gang of Four". That seems like the most fitting name for them.

 

[Positron]

I call AOC and her colleagues "The Gang of Four". That seems like the most fitting name for them.

They don't have, will never have, the power of Jiang Qing and her cohorts, and they are considerably dumber.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Islamic terror attacks tend to be much more rare, but better executed when they occur. unlike white supremacist terrorists, Islamist terrorists actually tend to be well-educated and disciplined while having access to funding, resources, and allies. Meaning they can actually mastermind complex plots that have any chance of working; again, unlike white supremacist terrorists.

Also Blacks

 

[turboNIG-3k]

>whitey is so sensitive they'll vote for genocidal maniacs when they get insulted
lmao @ yt

It is a known fact Hitler got so pissy about jews because some schlomo cucked him

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

They don't have, will never have, the power of Jiang Qing and her cohorts, and they are considerably dumber.

I call them that to proclaim that they're far left. I can admit that it's hyperbolic rhetoric, however it's another way of saying that they're far left, by invoking Communist China.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I want to see this movie now, especially knowing that Arnold is in it.

It's a good movie. Keep in mind it's somewhat parodying arnold movies, while still being an arnold movie.

He did a lot of that in the 90s actually, topped off with the last action hero. Last Action Hero is not a good arnold movie, though it's worth a watch for the spectacle (also an animated cat plays a not insignificant role in the plot).

 

[CatParty]

No, Ilhan Omar, Nancy Pelosi, and El Chapo's wife aren't conspiring in Italy

What do Ilhan Omar, El Chapo's wife, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have in common? Well, nothing, unless they are meeting in Italy together.

www.dailydot.com

Did you know that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), along with a Congressional delegation made up of members of “the Squad,” including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) used a fake trip to Ghana as cover to meet with a former Mexican official—and the wife of infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, aka “El Chapo,” who was in Venice at the exact same time?

And credible tips from multiple sources have Mrs. Chapo, Emma Aispuro Coronel, meeting with both the former official and Pelosi at a five-star Venice restaurant—discussing the nine-figure bribe Chapo gave to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto?

What a scandal.

Except you haven’t heard about it, because it’s not true. Oh yes, Pelosi and other members of Congress just finished up a trip to Italy to visit a U.S. military base, before heading to Ghana. And yes, they were photographed at a posh restaurant in Venice—sparking an outcry of conservative outrage.

But the rest? Entirely fake.

The Pelosi/Chapo conspiracy theory (if one can call it that) stems from a tweet thread by Jeffrey Peterson, one of a number of conservative conspiracy theorists, who have built a decent-sized Twitter following by pushing out stories exactly like this. Sure enough, the story got some traction, getting about 2,300 retweets in just over 12 hours.

Like most threads of this nature, the story falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. There’s no link to any actual reporting, except for one Daily Mail piece about Coronel having taken and deleted selfies in Venice on July 27. There’s no evidence she met with Pelosi, nor that Pelosi met with a “Mexican official,” whom Peterson doesn’t name, only linking to a picture of Pelosi walking with Pena Nieto to allude that it’s them in Venice when it’s actually a picture from 2016.

Fake stories like this become popular for two reasons. The first is that, like the currently circulating fake Jim Jordan quoteabout President Barack Obama cowering on Air Force One on 9/11, they play on the cognitive biases of the people who read them. Liberals think Jim Jordan is a sycophantic idiot. Conservatives think Nancy Pelosi is a depraved crook. When we read things that seem plausible that back up these notions, we believe them, and we share them with others who think the same.

The second reason is that the people who create them put in real facts that show up in a Google search as true. So when conspiracy believers “do their research,” they find a few real things that they decide prove the entire conspiracy is true. A conspiracy theory that’s entirely made up is harder to trend than one that’s just true enough to believe. (The QAnonconspiracy being a notable exception to this rule.)

So one can include pictures of Pelosi and the Squad dining in Venice, the story about Chapo trying to bribe Pena Nieto (unconfirmed, but heavily reported), and the Daily Mail story about Coronel’s trip to Venice. They’re all real, after all. Then, since conspiracy theorists constantly claim there are “no coincidences,” you tie all these things together—but also give yourself an out by declaring it all a “rumor.” Which is exactly what Peterson does.

This is the kind of conspiracy theory designed to do nothing but create instant churn online. And unfortunately, because critical thinking and social media don’t often mix, it will do just that.

By the time this story and tweet thread had circulated, Pelosi and her delegation had already moved on to Ghana, where they took pictures with local officials and military personal.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I can't wait till Pelosi croaks. She'd literally be more useful as a corpse.

You know, it's not that weird to see a person with some out there opinions on things. It's just weird the DNC made you their chief strategist.

 

[Sped Xing]

Suspiciously specific denial

 

[turboNIG-3k]

Oh, ooh, I know this one -
singling out an obviously insane nut to make any accusation/suspicion insane too by association.

You're not fooling me, brother-fuckers.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

No, seriously, what the hell is this "Squad", and why does it feel like they're being astroturfed harder than Ghostbusters '16 and Mia Khalifa combined?

 

[The Man With No Name]

Pelosi's feud with 'squad' was shitty scripted lines from both sides. Of course they're on the same team, the 'squad' will suck the party line cock and Pelosi is perfectly comfortable pushing discourse further left.

This is the problem with the Reality Era. Too much script and storylines are too predictable. Look at the debates last night, none of these people can cut a real promo anymore. They make Gore look like Stone Cold.

 

[Coleslaw]

Ever wonder why they rebut only the most batshit conspiracy theories with 3899823932 moving parts?

 

[It's HK-47]

Oh, so I was right about them all being huddled up in Italy, then. I've never heard of the El Chapo thing because that just sounds stupid, but I appreciate the confirmation on the first part. I love it when the news tries to completely discount some ass-random thing and in the process accidentally winds up verifying the part that we actually wanted verified.