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[WaPo] Fact-checking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s media blitz

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Os Trigonum, Aug 11, 2018.

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  1. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    The Washington Post scrutinizes Ocasio-Cortez's claims

    deserves its own thread

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hecking-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-media-blitz

    Fact-checking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s media blitz
    Fact-checking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s media blitz | Fact Checker
    The self-described “democratic socialist” keeps making statements that are false, misleading or incorrect.
    by Glenn Kessler August 10 Email the author

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old self-described “democratic socialist” who unexpectedly toppled a top Democratic incumbent in the primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District, is a sudden media star even though she has not been elected to Congress. (She has no real competition in the general election.)

    With celebrity comes scrutiny. Ocasio-Cortez has come under fire for dismissing concerns about the anticipated costs of her proposals and offering too-glib answers.

    For instance, in an appearance on CNN on Monday, when challenged on the costs of government-financed health care, she answered: “Why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to health care? That is part of the cost of our system.”

    Huh?

    Several readers have asked us to vet some of her claims and, because of summer vacation schedules, we’ve been a bit slower to follow up than our fact-checking colleagues. So here’s a quick roundup of some of her recent eyebrow-raising claims, though to be fair to Ocasio-Cortez, the average member of Congress might easily make many bloopers over the course of so many live interviews.

    As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios in roundups. But we will be watching Ocasio-Cortez closely as she continues her media blitz. A spokesman for her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    “Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.”
    — interview on PBS’s “Firing Line,” July 13, 2018

    This is an example of sweeping language — “everyone has two jobs” — that can get a rookie politician in trouble. She may personally know people who have two jobs, but the data is pretty clear that this statement is poppycock.

    First of all, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the percentage of people working two jobs has actually declined since the Great Recession — and been relatively steady at around 5 percent since 2010. The percentage bounced around a bit but it was as low as 4.7 percent in October 2017 and was 5.2 percent in the July jobs report, the most recent available. That hardly adds up to “everyone.”

    a report. “By the mid-2000s, the rate had declined to 5.2 percent and remained close to that level from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, the multiple job-holding rate decreased to 4.9 percent and has remained at 4.9 percent or 5.0 percent from 2010 to 2017.”

    The July data shows most of these people juggling two jobs — 58 percent — have a primary job and a part-time job. Only 6 percent have two full-time jobs, which calls into question her claim that people are working “60, 70, 80 hours a week.” Indeed, the average hours worked per week for private employees has remained steady at just under 35 hours for years.

    [​IMG]
    “ICE is the only criminal investigative agency, the only enforcement agency in the United States, that has a bed quota. So ICE is required to fill 34,000 beds with detainees every single night and that number has only been increasing since 2009.”
    — in an interview with the Intercepted podcast, May 30

    As our friends at PolitiFact documented, this is an urban legend. There is language in the 2016 appropriations bill that requires ICE to have 34,000 beds available — ICE “shall maintain a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds through September 30, 2016” — but it is not required to fill them. The main point of such language, a version of which dated to 2009, is to make sure the money is not spent on something else.

    In 2014, in an exchange with Republican lawmakers, then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified that he did not view it as a mandate to fill the beds. “That’s beds, not people,” Johnson said.

    In any case, the language was eliminated in the 2017 and 2018 appropriations bills. So it’s not even an issue anymore.

    “They [national Democrats] were campaigning most when we had more of an American middle class. This upper-middle class is probably more moderate but that upper-middle class does not exist anymore in America.”
    — interview on “Pod Save America,” Aug. 7

    Here’s some more sweeping rhetoric. In knocking the current leaders of the Democrats, stuck in “ ’90s politics,” Ocasio-Cortez said the “upper-middle class does not exist anymore.”

    But the data show that while the middle class overall may have shrunk a bit, the upper-middle class has actually grown. In a 2016 paper published by the Urban Institute, Stephen J. Rose documented that the upper-middle class has grown substantially, from 12.9 percent of the population in 1979 to 29.4 percent in 2014. His analysis showed that there was a massive shift in the center of gravity of the economy, with an increasing share of income going to the upper-middle class and rich.

    “In 1979, the middle class controlled a bit more than 46 percent of all incomes, and the upper-middle class and rich controlled 30 percent,” Rose wrote. “In contrast, in 2014 the rich and upper-middle class controlled 63 percent of all incomes (52 percent for the upper-middle class and 11 percent for the rich); the middle class share had shrunk to 26 percent; and the shares of the lower-middle class, poor, and near-poor had declined by half.”

    [​IMG]
    “In a Koch brothers-funded study — if any study’s going to try to be a little bit slanted, it would be one funded by the Koch brothers — it shows that Medicare for all is actually much more, is actually much cheaper than the current system that we pay right now.”
    — interview on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” Aug. 8

    We recently gave this sort of claim Three Pinocchios. Some Democrats have seized on a reference in a study released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which receives some funding from the Koch Foundation, that a Medicare-for-all plan advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would reduce the country’s overall level of health expenditures by $2 trillion from 2022 to 2031. That’s because the Sanders plan would slash payments to providers by 40 percent.

    But the study makes clear that this is an unrealistic assumption and in fact the plan would raise government expenditures by $32.6 trillion over 10 years. Without the provider cuts, the additional federal budget cost would be nearly $40 trillion. So, no matter how you slice it, the study does not say it would be “much cheaper” than the current system.

    “The reason that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act is because they ruled that each of these monthly payments that everyday American make is a tax. And so, while it may not seem like we pay that tax on April 15th, we pay it every single month or we do pay at tax season if we don’t buy, you know, these plans off of the exchange.”
    — interview on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” Aug. 8

    This appears to be an example of not understanding policy nuances.
    ​
    more at the link
     
    #1 Os Trigonum, Aug 11, 2018
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  2. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Yep, glad they are raking any purveyor of untruths. This is not the savior liberals are looking for, I hope.
     
    #2 B-Bob, Aug 11, 2018
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  3. juicystream

    juicystream Contributing Member

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    But WaPo is fake news.

    Very fair criticism
     
    #3 juicystream, Aug 11, 2018
  4. conquistador#11

    conquistador#11 Member

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    She is still a rook. What if I told you Trump said he wanted Bigger and Better affordable healthcare for ALL? Very socialist right? he said that.
    What if Trump also said, "I want a path for citizenship for Daca." Very socialist? he said that.
    She needs to get better at compromising some of the ideas.


    I would love free college education for those that want it. But has anyone really given any thought to this? No more College football! no more March madness! The universities need that tuition money. However, what if tuition fees were more affordable circa 2000-2005.
    I was able to do 2 years at a music college in the east coast for a total of 17,000$ then transferred to a Catholic school in San Antonio for 3 years for 35,0000$, dorm included with meal card. Don't get me wrong I had to do some Trump things to stay afloat, like date three girls from Trinity, Incarnate word to eat when the meal card ran out but still very affordable.
    Out of curiosity, I checked the tuition for those schools now, 37,000$ per year, no dorm. That's crazy.

    I also wouldn't count a kid having rich parents against him, they'd be eligible for financial aid should they want it. Oh and I always hated paying 80$ for a book and getting 10$ to sell it back. Repeal and replace the book buy back system.
    $10 doesn't even cover a lap dance in Reynosa.
     
    #4 conquistador#11, Aug 11, 2018
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  5. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    First thought - Cortez continues to be viewed as a major threat to the Right. They are obsessed with someone who isn’t even elected to Congress yet. Can’t remember them spending this much time and energy on someone like her at this stage of their poltical careers in awhile. She must be doing something right.

    Second- glad Wapo is keeping her and others honest. These shared values (healthcare, economic fairness) don’t need hyperbolic puffery or falsehoods. On their face, it’s almost always a no-brainer most people agree with, but when you share dishonestly, ignorance, or laziness to not do your homework, you undercut the message.

    The progressive wing needs to do a better job of presenting the data behind these shared values better. Even the hard facts still support their message which is universally popular.
     
    #5 dobro1229, Aug 11, 2018
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  6. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    Also yes... two years of campaigning on socialist values, Trump lied consistently about his healthcare plan, social security, and Medicare. It’s laughable for a Trump fan to say a damn word about hyperbolic falsehoods.

    But I won’t say “but Trump” about everything to play whataboutism like the right does though. Cortez obviously is doing something right, but she needs better schooling and mentorship.
     
    #6 dobro1229, Aug 11, 2018
  7. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Contributing Member

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    My first inclination is to say she has no future in politics ... until I take a look at politicians in office now and realize she has a very bright future ahead of her in politics.
     
    #7 Space Ghost, Aug 11, 2018
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  8. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Contributing Member

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    Which is why this thread exists:
    http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php...ortez-could-be-the-left’s-donald-trump.292625

    You said she is 'obviously doing something right' ... because she won her primary?

    Donald Trump won his primary. And Presidency. Is he 'obviously doing something right' too?

    No surprise you think she has a place in politics.
     
    #8 Space Ghost, Aug 11, 2018
  9. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    No.... I said she’s obviously doing something right because people like you want to spend all your time and energy arguing about every word she says, and your media echo chambers give you daily Cortez talking points.

    I said she hasn’t even been elected yet. Kinda obvious what I was getting at.

    Trump got elected and got to power by media and liberal obsession yes. He should have never been elevated to anything more than an online troll and a bad joke. Unfortunately now we have to talk about him because what he does affects our lives. Does Cortez affect your life, safety, and wellbeing? Is Cortez working as we speak to take away pre existing conditions to your health insurance? That affects my family personally. Cortez at this point does not.
     
    #9 dobro1229, Aug 11, 2018
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  10. ROXTXIA

    ROXTXIA Contributing Member

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    Well, she's a rising star. But she does have a steep learning curve. At the moment more style than substance. You get this on both sides of the aisle.

    But s lot cuter than Bernie, yes?
     
    #10 ROXTXIA, Aug 11, 2018
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  11. conquistador#11

    conquistador#11 Member

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    I swear someone more important than cortez thought healthcare cost 12$ a month.
     
    #11 conquistador#11, Aug 11, 2018
  12. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Fox went all-in on the Obama-as-Antichrist right after he gave that DNC speech and he was still pretty much nobody, but it's true: this is even earlier.

    I think it just helps their pageantry to have an attractive (?) person with melanin as a boogey-person to whip up their base. (?) But yeah, it is really really weird. I don't quite get it.

    EDIT: hey, @Os Trigonum -- you've started a couple of threads on her without much of your own commentary. Why does she interest you? She seems fairly irrelevant to me.
     
    #12 B-Bob, Aug 11, 2018
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  13. ROXTXIA

    ROXTXIA Contributing Member

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    It does.

    Add on a sh***oad of $$$ to that amount, though.
     
    #13 ROXTXIA, Aug 11, 2018
  14. JayGoogle

    JayGoogle Member

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    She's getting a ton of coverage for someone that hasn't even won her seat yet...and that's just as a rep of congress. You'd think she was the minority speaker...WaPo has spent like a week going after affordable healthcare, something that's been done all over the world, but we just can't figure it out. A lot of these are from the Cuomo interview, it's interesting the things they didn't fact check, I guess she was right about those things and wrong about these others?

    I'm not sure what's the purpose of some of the things they are fact checking, I don't know if they think it hurts her. Whether there is an upper middle class or not is irrelevant to the growing wage gap and the complete lack of social mobility in this country.

    Whether healthcare would work how she or Bernie proposed would work doesn't really matter right now because what we do have doesn't work. It works for people that can afford it, sure, but for everyone else? It's a killer. It bankrupts people or people are so scared of paying the fees that they can't get normal checkups to solve simple issues...I can tell they are trying to pick at her with just this one part of the article...at the very start...

    It's pretty damn clear what she means here. It's quite simple. If my dad did not have healthcare, he'd be dead right now. It's that simple. So, the cost of a funeral is a cost of not having that healthcare. I'm not sure why they are confused about that or why they act like she said something insane. She's saying, like many doctors concluded, that many people die BECAUSE they do not have healthcare, meaning, they had issues that healthcare could have fixed, but since they didn't it became fatal... and she's asking why the cost of the funeral is not considered.

    What Ocasio is offering is alternatives to things that simply do not work in this country. It seems the only alternative people want to have in this country is to leave it alone, those people are doing fine and completely ignorant of the people that lost someone because of their lack of healthcare, or have gone bankrupt trying to save someone, or people who have crushing debt from college. These people need change and I think these people will vote for people willing to offer that change.

    You are right, at the end of the day she's just one congresswoman, I think the hype that her opposers are bringing her has forced her into the spotlight but I don't think she's shying away from it at all.

    But, the Democrats won't win elections just bashing Trump and being GOP-lite. They have to actually offer something, something tangible that people can reach for. Ocasio, Bernie, the progressives energize the base, the DNC would do well to embrace them fully, take their ideas that can work and queit the more out there ideas. Personally, I think this country can do it if they try instead of always making excuses that there isn't money for it while there is always money for war and tax cuts to the rich walls...and Space Force.
     
    #14 JayGoogle, Aug 11, 2018
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  15. glynch

    glynch Contributing Member

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    Of course when considering the Washington Post owned by the world's richest man, you cannot exactly expect them to be objective with respect to a democratic socialist who, God forbid, is advocating increasing Jeff Bezo's taxes to pay for education or Medicare for All..

    Sort of reminds me of when Bezos sanctioned 16 negative stories n the WaPo against Bernie Sanders in 16 hours when Bernie Sanders was most in contention-- per FAIR an accuracy in media outfit
    https://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/

    Obviously it is not good when someone makes factual errors. Experienced pols of all stripes make them all the time. Ocasio Cortez is obviously inexperienced and her overall knowledge of political issues is growing daily, yet already impressive.. The errors the WaPo has sited are largely unimportant or debatable. The authors claim wrt to the r savings of Medicare for All. as found in the Koch Funded story, are very debatable and it is understandable that Ocasio- Cortez would repeat what sources such as ABC reported wrt to the study.
    Medicare-for-All' program could cost $32 trillion but may also save $2 ...
    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/32-trillion-price-tag-sanders-medicare...koch/story?id...
    .

    B-Bob, assuming you want a savior (and no one person will be the savior) it will not come from the wing of the Party of the Clintons, Obamas and the cautious and largely comfortable incrementalists who lost 1000 state legislative seats and governorships.
     
    #15 glynch, Aug 11, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2018
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  16. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    You are correct that I do not want "a savior," but many do. Americans always want the simplest answer. Take a pill, find a new politician, change the channel.

    Anyway, b/c the WaPo is owned by Bezos, her incorrect and misleading statements are suddenly correct and truthful? She should do her homework. Just b/c I like her ideas more than 45's, I'm not going to hold her to a lower standard. That's largely how we've sunk to where we've sunk. Cheers.
     
    #16 B-Bob, Aug 11, 2018
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  17. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    Obsessed.
     
    #17 CometsWin, Aug 11, 2018
  18. Bobbythegreat

    Bobbythegreat Member
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    No, not really, she's not viewed as a threat, she's viewed as a clown that is easy to beat up on. It forces those on the left to either admit she's an idiot, or for them to embarrass themselves trying to make excuses for her. That's the reason why she gets talked about so much.....well that and she's a literal socialist, not many of those in America.
     
    #18 Bobbythegreat, Aug 11, 2018
  19. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    I’m just going to come out and ask it then. You think it’s possible they really think she’s a 2020 candidate? Or the biggest threat to them in 2020? Because it’s what it seems which is weird.

    I think Kamala Harris is a far better candidate with a great resume, but crickets from the right about her... at the time.

    I just can’t wrap my head around the obsession which tells me she must be a better talent than I’m giving her credit for.
     
    #19 dobro1229, Aug 12, 2018
  20. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Been thinking about it and here's my take:
    She, her youth, and her "radical ideas" further the FOX agenda of showing geriatric white Americans that liberals are too young, too starry eyed and too non-white to ever allow near power. They make her the standard-bearer, and get their base out to vote in November, because hyphenated foreign sounding name and socialisms!
     
    #20 B-Bob, Aug 12, 2018
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