Democrats Help People While Republicans Ignore Their Suffering

 

The photo above is very telling. It shows Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz joining Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Sylvia Garcia in filling boxes at a Food Bank in Houston. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez had flown to Houston after raising $4 million dollars to help Texans survive the winter disaster. That money went to local food assistance organizations in Texas.

That's what Democrats do. They help people who are struggling to survive. 

Meanwhile, Texas most prominent politician, Senator Ted Cruz, raised nothing for less fortunate Texans and flew to Cancun with his family to escape the winter disaster. He returned only after being roasted by the media.

But while Cruz's blunder may have been more public, the truth is that he just did what Republicans always do -- ignore the suffering of their fellow Americans while taking care of themselves and their rich friends.

John Pavlovitz probably says it best in this searing post on his own website:

You’ll never go broke betting on Republicans to do the wrong thing.

Of course, Ted Cruz jetted off to Cancun in middle of a monstrous winter storm along with his family, leaving millions in his home state without power; in frozen, flooding homes they could not escape; in mile-long lines in frigid temperatures waiting for a few grocery items to sustain their families—literally dying from events that people who care about humanity don’t try to escape from and the kinds of urgent moments true public servants thrive in.

It was so on brand that we shouldn’t be the least surprised.

Ted Cruz represents the heart and soul of the Republican Party: that’s why he left people in pain, that’s why he fled a crisis, that’s why he will be defended by his callous Republican counterparts—and why so many GOP voters will vote for him again, should they survive their cruelty.

He is not an aberration, he is what they are.

Ted Cruz is the defective moral compass of those who’ve spent the past twelve months doing everything they could to be a deadly pandemic’s greatest allies and causing nearly half a million Americans to die; after four months of stoking fake election fraud conspiracies that incited a murderous assault on our nation’s Capitol, one they exonerated their inexplicable 2024 Presidential hopeful of, despite his clear desire for and work to create; after weeks of being so enamored with defending their disgraced cult leader’s non-existent honor, they’ve been useless in creating a stimulus plan to rescue those millions whose lives have be upended by a historic health crisis he did nothing to combat.

There is no sense of right and wrong here with these people, only what they believe they will get away with: which, according to the steadfast sycophantic adoration of their base, seems to be anything up to and including murder.

Ted Cruz finally wore a mask, not to protect anyone else but to conceal his malfeasance: to try and escape Texas unrecognized, so he could bask in the warm glow of his privilege while the people he daily manipulates to support him have their lives decimated.

While he attempted a brazen and stunningly tone-deaf dereliction of duty, people like Beto O-Rourke (the empathetic leader Texas could have had) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the convenient target’s of Cruz’ stratospheric social media snark rushed to fill the gap in leadership left by Cruz and his cohorts. They are embodying the best of America while Americans face their worst. Again, this is not surprising.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy of the events in Texas isn’t the brutality of the weather or the loss of life or the destruction of property or Ted Cruz’ disgraceful selfishness—or Matt Gaetz and Ben Shapiro’s abjectly ridiculous defense of him.

The greatest tragedy is that Red voters don’t seem to care that Republican politicians don’t give a damn about them; that they are inconsequential, disregarded, useless pawns—and they’re seemingly completely fine with that as long as they can take elections and feel like they’re winning.

Dying in the cold to own the Libs.

AOC Raised $1 Million To Help Texas As Cruz Flies To Cancun

The politician that Texas Republicans love to hate in New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They blame her for everything that's gone wrong in the country.

But when the crisis hit Texas this past week, she stepped up to help. The Texas GOP's favorite senator, Ted Cruz, did just the opposite -- flying to Cancun with his family (and only returning after being roasted in the media for it).

From Newsweek:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that she plans to visit Texas at the weekend, as Senator Ted Cruz is embroiled in a scandal for flying to Cancun while locals battle power outages and a winter freeze.

Posting on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said she would make a trip to Houston with Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) to highlight the problems faced by thousands of Texans who have no power to heat their homes in sub-zero temperatures.

The New York Democrat unveiled the plan after her team raised $1 million in donations for five Texan non-profits. The funds will go to food aid, homelessness assistance, elder care and other direct relief. . . .

"Totally blown away. $1m raised in direct relief for Texans in less than a day," AOC tweeted. "As a thank you to everyone who contributed & amplified, I'll be going to Texas this weekend to visit w/ [Rep. Garcia] in Houston & highlight what's happening on the ground."

Trump LIED! Ocasio-Cortez Did Not Call U.S. "Garbage"

Donald Trump continues to attack the four congresswomen (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayana Pressley, Ilhan Omar). He has told repeated lies about all four of them.

I think it typifies his racism, but I also believe he is doing it to try and distract from all the negative things coming out about him -- especially the testimony before Congress by Robert Mueller. The lies and attacks are just Trump's way of dealing with his problems.

One of the biggest lies he's told is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the United States and its people "garbage". It's a lie that he has now repeated several times. It may work with his base, since they seem willing to believe any lie he tells, but hopefully the rest of America knows better. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has never said that, and never would.

If you're interested, here (from PolitiFact) is what she actually said:

“I'll never forget this one older woman who came to me and said, ‘You know, I always voted Democrat because growing up my dad told me that Democrats are the people that fight for the working man.’ ” 

“And we stopped. And the working man and woman and people is the majority of this country, and so what I think we saw was both parties frankly abdicated their responsibility. 

“No one was fighting for working people who were struggling, and so, as a result, it almost created this opportunity. And you can take all of this anger and direct it to a negative and destructive end that allows a small group of people to benefit a great amount. 

“Or you have to take a really bold stance to bring it the other way and direct it to the possibility of what we can accomplish together. 

“And I think the thing that is really hard for people to sometimes see, is that when we are on this path of a slow erosion and a slow move away from what we've always been, we'll be a hundred miles — you won't even realize that you've drifted a hundred miles. So when someone's talking about our core it's like, ‘Oh, this is radical.’ ” 

“But this isn't radical. This is what we've always been. 

“It's just that now we've strayed so far away from what has really made us powerful and just and good and equitable and productive. And so I think all of these things sound radical compared to where we are, but where we are is not a good thing. And this idea of like 10% better from garbage shouldn't be what we settle for.” 

Ocasio-Cortez Impresses With Her Questioning Of Cohen

(The image of Cohen testifying is by Richard Codor, and the caricature of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is by DonkeyHotey.)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is serving her first term in the House Of Representatives. Republicans have tried to demonize her -- probably because a smart and strong woman scares the hell out of them.

And that's exactly what she is -- smart and strong. She has hit the ground running, and is performing exceptionally well for a freshman legislator.

An excellent example of this was displayed during her questioning of Michael Cohen when he appeared before a House committee. Instead of trying to grandstand, like too many other representatives did, she asked pertinent questions and got answers that will help in the investigation of the corrupt Trump family.

Here is her five minutes of questioning:

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you, Mr. Chair.

"Mr. Cohen, I would like to quickly pick up on some previous lines of questioning before getting into my own. So I may go a little quickly to get it all in five minutes. First, my colleague from Vermont had you asked several questions about AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer. And in that you mentioned a treasure trove -- a treasure trove of documents in David Pecker's office relating the information assembled from all of these 'catch and kill' operations against people who potentially had damaging information on the president.

"You also mentioned that the president was very concerned about the whereabouts of these documents and who possessed them. Does that treasure trove of documents still exist?"

Cohen: "I don't know. I had asked David Pecker for them."

Ocasio-Cortez: "So you would say the person who knows the whereabouts of these documents would be David Pecker."

Cohen: "David Pecker, Barry Levine, or Dylan Howard." (Editor’s note: Pecker is chairman of AMI; Levine is the National Enquirer’s former executive editor; Howard is AMI’s vice president.)

Ocasio-Cortez: "Okay. Thank you. Secondly, I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?"

Cohen: "Yes."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Who else knows that the president did this?"

Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Calamari." (Editor’s note: Weisselberg is the Trump Organization’s CFO, Lieberman and Calamari are executives at the Trump Organization.)

Ocasio-Cortez: "And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?"

Cohen: "Yes. And you would find it at the Trump Org."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. The last thing here. The Trump Golf organization currently has a golf course in my home borough of the Bronx, Trump Links. I drive past it every day going between the Bronx and Queens. In fact, The Washington Post reported on the Trump Links Bronx course in an article entitled 'Taxpayers Built this New York Golf Course and Trump Reaps the Rewards.'

"That article is where many New Yorkers and people in the country learned that taxpayers spent $127 million to build Trump Links in a 'generous deal allowing President Trump to keep almost every dollar that flows in on a golf course built with public funds.'

"And this doesn't seem to be the only time the president has benefited at the expense of the public. Mr. Cohen, I want to ask you about your assertion that the president may improperly devalued his assets to avoid paying taxes. According to an August 24th -- August 21st 2016 report by The Washington Post: 'While the president claimed in financial disclosure forms that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, was worth more than 50 million, he had reported otherwise to local tax authorities that the course was worth 'no more than 5 million'.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether this specific report is accurate?"

Cohen: "It is identical to what he did at Trump National Golf Club at Briarcliff Manor."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Do you know -- to your knowledge, was the president interested in reducing his local real estate bills, tax bills?"

Cohen: "Yes."

Ocasio-Cortez: "And how do you do that?"

Cohen: "What you do is you deflate the value of the asset and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you. Now on October 2018, the New York Times revealed that 'President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.' It further stated for Mr. Trump: 'He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents' real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing his tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.' Mr. Cohen, do you know whether that specific report is accurate?"

Cohen: "I don't. I wasn't there in the 1990s."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Who would know the answer to those questions?"

Cohen: "Allen Weisselberg."

Ocasio-Cortez: "And would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his company to address that discrepancy?"

Cohen: "I believe so."

Ocasio-Cortez: "Thank you very much. I yield the rest of my time to the chair."

What Does The Public Think Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is new to Congress. The 29 year old is serving her first term. But neither her newness nor her youth has prevented her from making a big splash on the national scene. She has not been intimidated, and has been quick to make her views known.

That has made her a hero to progressives and a demon to right-wingers. But what does the general public think of her? An Axios / SurveyMonkey Poll tried to answer that question. They surveyed 2,277 adults between January 16th and 18th (and their survey has a margin of error of 3.5 points).

It turns out that 40% of adults have a favorable view of her, while 49% have a negative view. Young people, Blacks, Hispanics, and Democrats have a higher favorable view. Older people, Whites, Independents, and Republicans tend to have an unfavorable view.

That doesn't tell the whole story though. The public still tends to have a negative view of all politicians, and when you compare Ocasio-Cortez to the leaders of both political parties (see charts below) she actually comes out looking pretty good.

Her net approval (figured by subtracting unfavorable % from favorable %) is a negative 9 points. That's better than Pelosi (negative 14), Schumer (negative 19), McConnell (negative 26) and Trump (negative 16). And none of them have a higher favorable rating than Ocasio-Cortez.

I think she's off to a good start. And I think she'll be fighting for progressive causes in Congress for a long time.