Why Is AOC Such A Lightning Rod For The Right's Vitriol And Death Threats?

"DOH! AOC a moron cuz she a commie and gots dumb ideas 'bout  warmin'!"

Even as Trump last night  disgorged verbal diarrhea at a Michigan rally,  in turn  "profane, insulting, delusional, and absurd" in the words of one blogger, we saw how bereft of control and sense he really is. For example, even taking aim (wittingly or otherwise) at his own base, e.g. 

Trump jokes (?) about someone in the audience named Stanley who he says needs "plenty" of prescription drugs pic.twitter.com/HIbuC2ma44

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The foul, fungal imp - and worst excuse for a human since Hitler -  also recruited his Russkie-colluding spawn Don Jr. to pound on Alexandra Ocasio -Cortez, the Dems' new rising star.  In the wake of  his verbal spatter  the gathered deplorables bawled "AOC sucks!"   Of course, as I will show in this post, the 29-year old novice House Dem Rep  has become the Right's number one "boogie girl"  as they circle the drain in AOC derangement syndrome.

Consider the cover of the recent (April 1st) TIME magazine. When I showed it to Janice she was pleased that such a bright young Dem star had achieved prominence so quickly.  When I  then showed her the opening paragraph  of the accompanying article on the assassination threats, i.e.  

 "In her first three months in congress, enough people have threatened to murder Ocasio Cortez that Capitol Police trained her staff to do risk assessments of visitors."

She was repelled and outraged.  "What the hell is wrong with these people?" Janice asked, her face red.   I  offered my opinion that most were doubtless imps incited by the crazed Right, including Limbaugh, Hannity and the other FOX assholes.  She agreed,  including  that the country has finally gone down the rabbit hole of  ultimate insanity. (Evoking the words of comedian Larry Charles on  Bill Maher's Real Time last Friday night: "The country is now in a battle between logic and madness.")

In the article, Charlotte Alter describes Ocasio-Cortez as the “Wonder Woman of the left, Wicked Witch of the right,”.  But why is she the Right's  "wicked witch" and why the need for death threats? Why the hyper-paranoid reactions across the board?  

One reason is the continuous stream of rabid  fulminations from the radical Right's media trolls, especially on FOX News.  But there are ancillary trolls and assorted knuckle -draggers dispersed throughout the Right's media axis.Take for instance this paranoid claptrap spouted in The Daily Caller:

"Both Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade and former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee have called Ocasio-Cortez’s authenticity into question suggesting that there are “forces” behind her. Huckabee said Thursday, “I know there has been some allegations that she was almost like the Manchurian candidate, recruited, prepared.”

Puh-leeze!  "Forces"?  Seriously? Where's the proof, nitwits?   Then there is this sort of twaddle from the imps at the Independent Sentinel which vented its spleen in typical fascist fashion,


"The cute communist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has made the cover of Time Magazine. According to Brian Stelter, the author, Charlette Alter describes AOC as “the second-most talked about politician in America.....Her idiotic statements, her communist policies, and her anti-capitalist and anti-amazon failures to date went unmentioned. For them, she is a humble do-gooder going after the bad guys — Republicans (hush money, Citizens United, and so on)."

BWAAAAHAAA. Cry me a river.  Poor little rightist troglodytes  can't handle being one- upped on TIME by a 29 year old Latina Socialist. .They're mostly bawling because the only images shown of their traitor hero Trump were depraved. Oh, and totally justified .e.g.




But the histrionic reactions to AOC span the pundit-political  spectrum,  not only with the death threats from Reich wing nuts, trolls, cranks and  QAnon zombies, but the assorted rabid blurtations emanating from their garden variety deplorables, errr….base, e.g.

https://wokesloth.com/trump-supporters-freaking-aoc-made-cover-time-magazine/lindseyweedston/


No, you can't make this stuff up.  These folks really do lack a life, such that they need to consume almost every waking hour to take all their sundry grievances out on AOC.  She is the hated symbol for all they lack, including: brains, confidence, moral vision, and power.

Then there are the hyperventilating pundits ensconced in the mainstream media, filling column space with gibberish castigating AOC.  Bear in mind these are supposed to be the intelligent, college-educated people who ought to know better, unlike the bozos cited above. (Recall that Harvey Mansfield - a Professor of Government at Harvard-  had referred to Trump voters as the "lower half of the IQ curve.")

Peggy Noonan's recent WSJ op-ed ('Dem Mean Girls Are Trump's Offspring', March 23-24, p. A13) is a case in point.  Like the extremist Right slackers, trolls and conspiracy mongers it leaves a lot to be desired.  Most especially regarding her egregious analogy of the new young female House Dems (i.e. Rep. Ilian Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex) to Trump, and calumniating them as Trump's "offspring".  

Peggy, Peggy, Trump already has offspring (Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric) with whom we can compare your claims and they don't hold up. I mean comparing the likes of goofball Eric, and dolt Don Jr. to AOC, are you mad?  Just as bad, comparing bubble- head bimbo Ivanka to AOC or Ilian Omar, i.e. as Trump "spawn"?  You've been sucking too much vape effluent - or snacking to excess on  MJ candy bars.

Noonan actually had the nerve to write:

"When Chelsea Clinton was accosted by a New York University student the student herself reminded me of Ms. Ocasio -Cortez in her certitude, self-rightouesness and chic."

Fair enough (Noonan got the 'chic' right), but  OTOH, how can anyone compare an NYU student's verbal  unloading on Chelsea to AOC's  death threats?  I mean we're talking about apples and oranges here, chalk and cheese. So how in hell can Peggy claim any remote basis for AOC being "like an angry student" - when at least that student never uttered a death threat against Chelsea the way the FOX-stoked zombies have unleashed them on AOC?

Noonan and other critics also seemed to have missed the memo that AOC is actually an intellectual voice. As noted in the same TIME article, her "2017 high school microbiology project - on the effects of anti-oxidants on roundworms - won 2nd place at the Intel Engineering and Science Fair."

Can any of the dolts and twerps who photo-shopped the insulting TIME parody cover of her (as a "Moron", in previous link) say as much? No, I doubt it. I doubt any of these goobers even took a high school science course - or if they did, passed it.

Noonan thereby made her biggest error in even remotely trying  to paint the new crop of Dem House reps as behavioral (or verbal) spinoffs of Trump.  Yes, they may be outspoken,  but at least they all possess higher order working brains and can articulate their positions, as well as criticisms - whether of Ronald Reagan or capitalism.  This as opposed to bombastic tirades or babbling incoherently like street drunks. Indeed, AOC's recent roasting of the idiot Utah GOP rep Mike Lee was classic, e.g.

https://ijr.com/ocasio-cortez-roasts-sen-mike-lee/


Then there was Neolib tool Patricia Murphy,  in one Roll Call piece from 2 months ago,  who actually had the blind temerity to compare AOC's popularity and personality projection to Anthony Weiner's,  E.g.

 “Ugh. Eye rolls. 'How long until she crashes and burns?'  'It’s not whether she’ll blow up, it’s how and when.'  And this was from the Democrats... Famous blowhard and former Rep. Anthony Weiner had already alienated most of his Democratic colleagues by yelling on the floor and showing up on MSNBC most nights well before he ended up in jail for inappropriate texts with a 15-year-old girl. It’s hard to say which came first — the gigantic egos that made these men make horrible decisions or the press attention that fueled the egos. Either way, their heat-seeking personalities won them few allies."

But AOC is not a "heat seeking personality". She is an intelligent and energetic freshman legislator not prepared to stay quiet or roll over in the face of Trumpite tyranny while most pols punt and mutate into poltroons.  One thing no one, no critic can say - in the pantheon of epithets- is that Alexandria is a poltroon. (If you don't know the meaning, look it up).  To her credit, Ms. Murphy does concede:

"The AOC challenge for Democrats is unique. On the one hand, the congresswoman is a boon — she’s an Insta-savvy bundle of energy and enthusiasm who can bring millions of voters into the Democratic fold. Hers is also an essential voice for the Democratic leadership to hear from as a young, Latina progressive like the voters they most need in the future.

But for every interview that the congresswoman does from now on, they are also finding themselves called on to respond to, explain, defend or rebut her statements as a democratic socialist. Hours after she suggested to Anderson Cooper that some amount of income over $10 million could be subject to a 70 percent tax rate in the future, presidential hopeful Julian Castro was asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if 70 percent was a realistic tax rate. Castro threw out 90 percent."

Oh, and don't forget Eisenhower, aka Ike, that good old socialist who had 90 percent to marginal tax rate in actuality!   Further, Sweden has a 70% top tax rate and consistently remains near the top of happiest nations in yearly surveys. Go figure!    Besides which, if Dem candidates are truly serious about proposals like Medicare for all, Medicare buy- ins, or even a public option (to the ACA) they will have to get serious about higher taxes to pay for them.

What we need is for all the Dem candidates  who are championing these new Medicare programs to do is to come clean about the need for new, higher taxes. I suspect at least increased to the 35 % marginal rate. Oh, and no more tax cuts!  Do that, be honest and you won't have to "respond to, explain, rebut or apologize"   for AOC's remarks.  You will instead develop a coherent narrative as to why we NEED higher taxes to secure the benefits that our citizens (who are not among the one percent) need, especially health care.  See e.g.

• Oprah got perfect response from Danish woman on their social welfare state 

Note: Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez will be on MSNBC 'All In' tonight, talking about the Green New Deal and related issues.

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Cody Fenwick

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The Problem With 3D Printable Guns

The most recent issue associated with a general breakdown of reason and common sense has to do with 3D printable guns.  As the name implies, these can be run off as plastic replicas of actual weapons (e.g. the AR-15) but also capable of firing rounds.   The most recent brouhaha erupted when Cody Wilson- the one man owner of   "Defense Distributed"-   asserted three days ago he wanted to publish blueprints for the weapons online. Wilson actually had the temerity - more or less applicable to a Young Turk on MJ candy - to claim it was "free speech" to be able to do so. And hence when a federal judge in Washington state issued a restraining order, he was interfering with Wilson's speech.

Hardly!  Let's get it clear here that publishing bluprints for a lethal weapon that can easily be programmed to materialize on the nearest computer with a 3D printer, is no more "free speech" than dispatching analogous bomb -making blueprints.   Free speech, meanwhile, would be the freedom to publish books on the history of explosives, or the history of 3D printers and how they came to be capable of producing assorted diverse objects, including medical devices and guns.  There is a difference, believe it or not.

Even as Dotard himself was "looking into plastic guns being sold to the public", Hogan  Gidley - a WH spokesman, went on record asserting "plastic guns were banned by federal law".   (WSJ, Aug. 1st, p A7)

The publication of 3D gun blueprints controverts the 2nd amendment as well as the first. For example, there is no inherent "right" - none at all - to download or own a totally untraceable weapon. Nor is there a right to publish blueprints for such weapons online. By their very nature these artifacts bear no serial number as they are run off from 3D printers, nor is any remote registration practical.  Hence, most of those who'd be interested in getting hold of the blueprints would likely be criminals or terrorists. Why would an ordinary citizen wish to own an untraceable weapon?  It defies logic unless the person was contemplating a future crime, say like holding up a gas station or convenience store.

In addition, the dismissal of the 3D printed weapons as "useless" is a non sequitur.  Thus the claim (ibid.) by Rick Vasquez (a firearms consultant and former ATF official) that:

"You can print a 3D pistol that will fire a few rounds but afterwards will just break"

is no help it all.  Here Vasquez is missing the larger point that it only takes one round fired from such a plastic gun to kill someone - whether a gas station owner during  robbery attempt, or a toddler accidentally shot by an older brother.

But it appears such aspects have little or no sway with the GOP gun nuts. Thus on Tuesday, when Dem Senators attempted to introduce legislation that would prohibit publishing a digital file to program a 3D printer to manufacture a firearm, the measure was blocked by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Lee, like Wilson, advanced the specious argument that such legislation "violated constitutional free speech protections."

Well, if he'd make that pathetically lamo case, I suppose he'd defend the publishing of Isis kettle bomb blueprints as "constitutional free speech"  too.

It is true, of course, that in the scheme of things, the professional criminal or terrorist would choose a far more reliable gun on the black market for his misdeeds, or build one from sturdier parts. No argument on that score. But what about the bullied loner, sitting alone and stewing in grievance in his mother's basement? Say after the latest incident of being stuffed in his locker - and looking for retribution?  Unable to obtain or afford a gun any other way he spots a blueprint online and uses his 3D printer to assemble it. Next day he fires enough rounds to kill all his chief oppressors in the school cafeteria.

A demented fantasy? Hardly! Because the individuals most likely to want to gain access to such weapons are precisely those who can't access standard weapons.   As Bob Ferguson, the Washington state attorney put it (ibid.):

"These downloadable guns...would be difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and would be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history."

Let us hope enough judges remain - as they are amongst the few to push back against the Trumpites - to sustain orders to keep these guns off the streets.  Wilson is correct that there is likely no way to control the individual production of these 3D guns, but that doesn't mean there is lawful license to go on doing it. At some point, respect for law must emerge on this score, else we could as well conduct a dumpster fire for this country right now.