Ocasio-Cortez Called Out Over MAJOR Public Screw Up
Journalists are calling out Ocasio-Cortez for a major campaign screw up. At two events Cortez BANNED the press outright from attending, a move not even Donald Trump has been bold enough to pull off. The left routinely calls out Trump for his bad rhetoric on the press, Trump has even banned SOME press form his events, but not all. Its bad enough that Trump has banned some journalists but for Cortez to ban the press outright is a step far beyond Trump. So do you think the left is outraged over this? Or do you think they justified it?
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If you're a politician or a political candidate, you have to allow a free and open press to come and document what is being said and what you're doing.
However, this is exactly what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done on at least two occasions.
So this story came out in Thursday.
It was from the Queen's Chronicle, and they reported that Cortez banned the press from two events.
The initial reporting was that it was because she was mobbed by reporters at a previous event, and thus it led to a banning of the media.
Unsurprisingly, her supporters are saying, well, she needed to protect marginalized voices and illegal immigrants.
And the right is saying, oh my god, she was protecting illegal immigrants.
Now, Cortez never said illegal immigrants, but the left and the right, for the most part, agree she was talking about illegal immigrants, with many people on the right questioning why a politician would be courting favor from those who are not citizens of this country.
Cortez has been plagued by a series of gaffes since she rose to national prominence.
She's said a bunch of silly things, she's been criticized for her mistakes.
Her campaign is literally on fire.
But it's on fire in both ways.
To her supporters, it's on fire in the good way when someone's like, oh man, you're on fire!
Meaning she's doing really well, she's growing rapidly, she's gaining followers, and she's building a massive national profile.
But to the right, her campaign is on fire in the bad way, meaning it's burning to the ground.
So let's take a look at exactly what happened with her banning the press from a public event, and let's take a look at what the left and the right are saying about it, and whether or not banning the press in any circumstance is justified.
Because I gotta say, Trump has never outright banned all press from his events, though he has been pretty bad in terms of his rhetoric, and he has banned some press.
But Ocasio-Cortez has just stepped up and stepped in front of Trump in terms of being bad on media.
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The story from the Queen's Chronicle, initially published on Thursday, says Ocasio-Cortez bans press from Town Hall.
Media was barred after reporters, quote, mobbed her at an earlier event.
The story starts by saying that Cortez tweeted out Monday that the stops on her listening tour throughout the district, like the one held a day earlier in Corona, are intended for lively, compassionate discourse with a diversity of viewpoints.
But unless you were in the room on Sunday, you won't know what specific community problems were mentioned or how Ocasio-Cortez planned to address them once she is sworn in.
That's because her campaign banned members of the media from attending the event, which was otherwise open to the public.
When Ocasio-Cortez returned to the district for a Bronx community meeting with prominent healthcare activist Aidy Barkin last Tuesday, her campaign manager, Viggie Ramos Rios, later told the Chronicle she was mobbed by reporters, even though we said no QA and no one-on-one interviews.
According to Ramos Rios and campaign spokesman Corbyn Trent, that unwanted attention led to a press ban, both for last Wednesday's listening tour stop in the Bronx and Sundays in Corona.
That was the initial reporting.
Now, the campaign is trying to claim that they were protecting marginalized voices.
But I have to say, if the story that initially went viral was kind of saying that Cortez was annoyed with the press and was mobbed by them, thus they banned the press, it seems more like she doesn't want to deal with them unless that she wants to protect people.
But they did make that statement.
We wanted to help create a space where community members felt comfortable and open to express themselves without the distraction of cameras and press.
These were the first set of events where the press has been excluded, Trent said.
This is an outlier and will not be the norm.
We're still adjusting our logistics to fit Alexandria's national profile.
How many people in opposition to Cortez attended her meeting?
Probably none, if any at all.
I really don't think anyone would show up who didn't like her because it was a public town hall and mostly people who support her or were interested in what she was saying.
And this is why you cannot ban the press.
People were there and were able to tweet.
But they probably supported her.
An aide to the mayor in a mostly democratic town, city, is going to just tweet the nice things she says and not criticize her or call her out for gaffes or lying.
In my personal opinion, the reason she banned the press was because she has been plagued by gaffe after gaffe.
And she's probably going to misstep time and time again.
But when you're surrounded by supporters, they're going to prop you up and ignore the mistakes you make, and that is a huge problem.
Because if no one is there to criticize her or call her out, people will just believe everything she's saying is true, and that is not good for any politician.
I can speak the same for Donald Trump when he calls the press the enemy of the people.
Obviously, activists working in media are a huge problem.
And it's the same problem that's going to affect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
There are companies like Huffington Post and Daily Beast who routinely lie and slant information or misrepresent the truth in order to lead you to the wrong conclusion.
These are the kind of people that would show up to an event and just prop up Cortez because they have a political agenda.
They have a political agenda.
But there are a lot of journalists who do a good job, and she banned all of them.
Donald Trump has banned members of the press.
He is wrong for doing so.
But he never outright banned all of the press from his events, and Cortez has already done this twice.
Cortez claims to be a democratic socialist.
In democratic socialism, the workers control the means of production, but the people have a right to vote on how things are handled.
But if the people don't know what's going on, you can't have democracy, and that's why the press is so damn important.
For Cortez to ban the press from a public event would mean that she is going to restrict democracy.
It's not my opinion that democracy dies in darkness.
It's the slogan of the Washington Post and a well-known adage.
If people don't know what is happening in their country, how can they effectively vote for what will work?
If no one points out that a politician is an authoritarian despot because there's no press access, people might think they're a good person and vote for them.
And that's why we need critical views from all sides.
It's great when people criticize Donald Trump because he's the president.
It's extremely important they do so.
Naturally, he's going to be angry about it.
And yes, many of these journalists write hyperbolic and nonsensical stories because they want to get what they call the Trump bump.
But there's still no excuse for banning the press outright like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did.
What's scary to me is that in following this viral news story, the narrative has become about protecting marginalized communities and less so about how she was mobbed by the press.
Less about her comfortability and more about the needs of the people.
In fact, according to the New York Times, another campaign spokesman, Saikat Chakrabarti, said in an email on Friday night that the town hall meetings to which the news media were not invited were wildly successful in creating an inviting atmosphere to the community.
We've heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from the hundreds of attendees since the event.
And so we believe we succeeded in doing what we set out to do, Mr. Chakrabarty said, adding, They're actually calling it a wild success.
Well, of course, when you bottle yourself up in an echo chamber, people can circle jerk each other all day and night and feel good about what they're doing.
But it doesn't mean what Ocasio-Cortez is saying is true.
And it doesn't mean she's right.
All it means is that you're locking yourself in your little happy chamber where no one can criticize you.
And this is why we need a free press.
Because sometimes the truth hurts.
And sometimes politicians make mistakes.
And we need to know the mistakes they're making.
Unfortunately for Cortez, her campaign is rife with gaffes.
Simply do a Google search of Ocasio-Cortez gaffes and you will see article after article
from the left and the right.
In fact, Slate.com, which is the left, has an article right at the top about Cortez's
gaffe on unemployment.
CBS News has even called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Sarah Palin of the left, listing out various
gaffes she has made.
Sung Min Kim, a White House reporter for The Washington Post, said,
Ocasio-2018 is in for a rough time on Capitol Hill, where reporters roam freely at all hours
of the day and night if this is her attitude toward the press.
She said, the campaign says, quote, We wanted to help create a space where community members
felt comfortable and open to express themselves without the distraction of cameras and press.
Then make it a private event, don't make it a public event, and then ban the press.
Cortez responded directly.
Our community is 50% immigrant.
Folks are victims of domestic violence trafficking, plus have personal medical issues.
This town hall was designed for residents to feel safe discussing sensitive issues in a threatening political time.
We indicated previously that it would be closed to press.
There's a reason why the founding fathers of this country enshrined the First Amendment, which I believe protects five different rights.
The right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of religion, the right to a free press, to assembly, and to a redress of grievances.
It's not just about any one of those things, but all of them.
Because they knew that the press needs to be able to share information with the people to prevent tyranny.
Any politician who would use any excuse to restrict the flow of information is not democratic.
People have a right to know.
The power of the government is derived from the will of the people, not politicians who think they have a right to close the doors because they want to protect a specific community.
People who live in her district have a right to know what those immigrants and those people are talking about.
It may be hard for those who are victims.
Many of these people may not want to speak out and that is unfortunate because these people do have a right to be heard.
But we also have a right to know what is going on behind closed doors.
And many on the left have criticized the people calling out Cortez saying, what about the private donors?
What about when Republicans hold big buck meetings where the only way to come in and actually talk to the politician is to spend tens of thousands of dollars?
Guess what?
Those are wrong too.
It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat.
It doesn't matter who's doing it.
I personally don't agree with people like, you know, Mitt Romney having these private dinners and he got called out because someone secretly recorded them.
And they say things we don't like.
Like a leaked message from Hillary Clinton where she talks about her public and private positions.
I don't want to know about what you're saying to the public when you lie.
I want to know what you're actually planning on doing.
And we've come to a point in our country where politicians just lie.
I tweeted the other day, I really, really hate politicians because everything out of their mouths is a lie.
But it's not just politicians.
It's the media.
When CNN was reporting on Alex Jones, I sent a request for comment to Oliver Darcy, and he said, hey, take it up with the spokesperson from CNN, who never responded to me.
So we don't know what the hell is going on.
And now, look, it's one thing when they give you the runaround.
At least they're willing to give you some kind of canned response that you can say, okay, maybe I can try and figure out what they're actually doing, but at least they will engage with you.
But Cortez has taken it one step further by banning the press outright.
I don't like private meetings with politicians and their donors, and I don't like politicians banning the press from the public.
One is obviously worse than another.
People are allowed to have private events, I get that.
But you're not allowed to hold a public event, let people in, and then kick the press out and claim you're trying to protect people, because all you're really doing is protecting those you actually want to court favor from.
The left and the right seems to genuinely believe she is courting favor from illegal immigrants.
It's true that if there are people who live in a district, they want to know what she's going to do, whether they can vote for her or not.
But if they are illegal immigrants, this means that Ocasio-Cortez is putting the concerns of non-citizens on par with those who are citizens.
We can't do that.
There's a reason we protect citizens against non-citizens.
There's a reason why we're upset with Russia for election meddling.
We don't want foreign citizens meddling in our elections.
So you can't be mad that Russia is running influence campaigns but then have non-citizens of the U.S.
go into meetings with politicians and express their desires and have those politicians actually seek to defend them.
Personally, I get it.
There's a difference between Russia trying to manipulate the U.S.
and an illegal immigrant who lives here.
Non-citizens trying to influence our government in any way is not a good thing.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I have to imagine that if the Democrats keep propping this behavior up, moderate Americans are going to say, is this what the left has become?
And they're going to continue to fracture.
We've already seen that according to certain polls, many millennials are leaving the Democratic Party and not all of them are going to the Republican Party.
In fact, only a small amount are.
I'd imagine that those leaving the Democratic Party are going to third parties, and this is bad news for the Democrats.
Because they are mixed between social liberals, moderate liberals, but now they're being pulled from the far left, and that's going to fracture their base, and it's going to help the right win.
If they can't see this, if they can't see what Cortez is doing is bad, they're probably going to lose a ton of support, and I have to imagine they might lose a lot come November.
But, I'm not a psychic.
I have no idea what's going to happen, and I only have my opinions.
So, I don't know exactly what the majority of America thinks, but we'll see what happens come November.
For the time being, you can let me know what you think by commenting below.
We'll keep the conversation going in the comments.
How do you feel about what Cortez is doing?
How do you feel about her campaign?
And how do you feel about her banning the press?
Comment below and let me know what you think.
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