It was yet another gaffe-packed week from freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I don’t think any of them were April fools jokes.
The Croissant’s Case for the $15 Minimum Wage
Despite the infamous FAQ for her Green New Trainwreck indicating that a complete phase-out of air travel would eventually be necessary, AOC found herself at an airport on Monday, which led her to make a case for the $15 minimum wage based off of a croissant she saw.
Because an overpriced croissant at LaGuardia costs $7, apparently this means the entirety of our nation’s employers can afford a $15 minimum wage. There are a whole host of reasons that airport goods cost more, mainly because people are less sensitive to higher prices when they have no alternative outlet to purchase from. Airport retail space is also expensive.
Croissants at LaGuardia are going for SEVEN DOLLARS A PIECE 😱
Yet some people think getting a whole hour of personal, dedicated human labor for $15 is too expensive??
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 1, 2019
Cortez replied to criticism by basically telling us that we’re taking her too seriously (trust me, I don’t). “It’s not an argument against the price of a croissant – it’s about the value of human worth,” she wrote.
GOP taking every tweet so earnestly, making my point for me. It’s not an argument against the price of a croissant – it’s about the value of human worth.
But I guess that idea is foreign to them since their policies treat people as disposable anyway 🤷🏽♀️
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 1, 2019
It’s long been debated whether or not a dollar value could be placed on human life, but Mrs. Cortez has finally cracked that puzzle, and the answer is $15 an hour. Sounds a bit cheap, don’t you think?
On a more serious note, the minimum wage at LaGuardia will be $15 an hour in September (it is currently $13.60) and rise to $19 by 2023. That’s probably part of the reason the croissants cost so much too.
A Constitutional Comedy of Errors
According to AOC, Congress amended the Constitution to prevent FDR from being re-elected:
"They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt dd not get reelected."
(Reminder, FDR died in office in 1945; the 22nd Amendment came in 1947) pic.twitter.com/DImHj0caVy
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 31, 2019
Speaking to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Cortez claimed “They (Republicans) had to amend the constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt (FDR) did not get reelected. There were so many extraordinary things that were happening at that time that were uniting working people.” Conservatives (and anyone with a knowledge of history) immediately pointed out that was unlikely, because FDR died in 1945, and the 22nd Amendment wasn’t approved by Congress until 1947 (and wasn’t ratified until 1951).
For whatever reason, Newsweek decided to come up with a scenario in which Cortez’s claims could technically be true, because some anonymous social media accounts said so. “Some eagle-eyed social media commenters pointed out that the original architects of the 22nd Amendment were inspired by Roosevelt’s monopoly on the White House and began campaigning long before his death,” wrote columnist Callum Paton.
Hey Rep. Cheney,
I see from your dead people comment that you get your news from Facebook memes, but the National Constitution Center + Newsweek are just two of many places where you can clarify your misunderstanding of the history of the 22nd Amendment: https://t.co/Je6mHFJ687 https://t.co/np1XtgLpm1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 1, 2019
More to the point, Paton writes “FDR did die in office in 1945 and the 22nd amendment did come in 1947 but Congress did start the legislative process in 1944 prior to his death so that he would not be reelected.” Her source for the claim is a twitter account, truly showing the lack of depth in research Paton put into her column.
While that random guy from twitter.com she sourced is correct, the 22nd Amendment exempted whoever was President during the ratification process, so it couldn’t have possibly applied to FDR, even if it were passed while he was alive.
Name-Callers Against Name-Calling
After being called a moron by Tucker Carlson, Cortez tweeted that she’d never resort to such name-calling. “You know we’re winning when the GOP resort to vapid, personal insults,” she wrote.
When someone called a fmr Republican Congressman a “moron” at our televised town hall, I shut it down immediately – bc I believe our policies can win on merit, & can be improved w/ productive discourse.
You know we’re winning when the GOP resort to vapid, personal insults ⬇️ https://t.co/2go7rRAzZI
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 2, 2019
It’s ironic because Carlson only called Cortez a “moron” because she was engaging in the kind of name calling she’s now denouncing. Carlson was reacting to Cortez’s ridiculous comment that “The grounding of the tea party was xenophobia (and) the underpinnings of white supremacy.”
Bonus Comments
Within a 24 hour period, Cortez blasted the Trump administration’s allegedly lax attitude towards security clearance, and then defended the artist formerly known as Bradley Manning, who leaked nearly 750,000 documents to Wikileaks.
In a marathon Instagram Live session, she used her age to eschew criticisms of her which she categorized as minor “one-off” mistakes. “And guess what? I’m 29! I’m the youngest woman to ever be elected to the United States Congress! I have plenty of time to learn! And I’m not afraid to make mistakes and iterate in public, either!” she said. “And frankly,” she continued, “if the mistakes that I’m making are just a one-off, like, rhetorical thing, you correct it, acknowledge it, and move on.”
She then proceeded to accuse border patrol of caging children and injecting them with drugs.
