No, AOC Didn't Make Up Her Capitol Riots Experience - The New York Times
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Feb. 4, 2021, 6:58 p.m. ETFeb. 4, 2021, 6:58 p.m. ET
By Maggie Astor
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Capitol on Thursday.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesLeer en espanol
Since Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, took to Instagram Live on Monday to describe what the Jan. 6 riot was like from inside the Capitol complex, critics have claimed that she wasn't where she said she was, or that she couldn't have experienced what she described from her location.
These claims are false.
While Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not in the main, domed Capitol building when the rioters breached it, she never said she was. She accurately described being in the Cannon House Office Building, which is part of the Capitol complex and is connected to the main building by tunnels.
In her livestream, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled hiding in a bathroom and thinking she was going to die as unknown people entered her office and shouted, "Where is she?" They turned out to be Capitol Police officers who had not clearly identified themselves, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said so on Instagram. She did not claim that they were rioters — only that, from her hiding spot, she initially thought they were.
During the riot, reporters wrote on Twitter that the Cannon building was being evacuated because of credible threats, and that Capitol Police officers were running through the hallways and entering offices just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez described.
The false claims about her statements have spread widely online, much of the backlash stemming from an article on the conservative RedState blog and a livestream from the right-wing commentator Steven Crowder. On Thursday, Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, tweeted, "I'm two doors down from @aoc and no insurrectionists stormed our hallway."
But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez never said insurrectionists had stormed that hallway, and Ms. Mace herself has described being frightened enough to barricade her own door. A spokeswoman for Ms. Mace said on Friday that the congresswoman's tweet had been intended as "an indictment of the media for reporting there were insurrectionists in our hallway when in fact there were not," and that it "was not at all directed at Ocasio-Cortez."
"As the Capitol complex was stormed and people were being killed, none of us knew in the moment what areas were compromised," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to Ms. Mace's post. (A spokeswoman for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said the lawmaker had no additional comment.)
Others have corroborated Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's account and confirmed that the Cannon building was threatened, even though the rioters did not ultimately breach it.
Ari Rabin-Havt, a deputy manager for Senator Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign, tweeted that he was in the Capitol tunnels during the attack. As Mr. Rabin-Havt moved toward the Cannon building, he wrote, members of a SWAT team yelled at him to find a hiding place.
And Representative Katie Porter, Democrat of California, said on MSNBC that after the Cannon building was evacuated, she and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez sheltered in Ms. Porter's office in another building. She said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was clearly terrified, opening closets to try to find hiding places and wishing aloud that she had worn flats instead of heels in case she had to run.
Jacob Silver contributed reporting.
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Setting the record straight as you were misinformed.
Fascist-fellow-travelers don't care about the truth.
AOC is young and smart. She could be a problematic adversary for many years. So... she must be destroyed. If that means massive lies, the fascist-fellow-travelers have no problem.
Is willful misinformation against rules? Should be!
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Allowing willful misinformation is BAD!
BAD is not a CoC violation.
On the other hand, saying "BAD is not a CoC violation"... probably is a CoC violation.
If that doesn't make sense to you... you're not alone.
I don't get it. I did see willful misinformation...
I guess I wasn't clear.
On Newstalkers, willfully spreading misinformation is not a CoC violation.
OTOH, saying that someone is willfully spreading false information is a violation, even if proof is provided.
Behavior is not controlled on NT. Speech is controlled... rather oddly, IMHO.
Thanks for the clarification.
''clarification''???
I was not misinformed.
As I posted yesterday:
Just think of all that wasted righteous indignation...
The sad bottom line of this is the simple fact that AOC is not the issue. The issue and only issue is the truth that a substantial portion of the current GOP in both houses of Congress are comfortable to look the other way.
There is a reason for this. I suspect the reason is dirty money.
How can they all be so high and mighty about lying?
Good Lord man, we've been associated, for better or worse, since 2007.
How can you even ask that?
They have been the lying 2 faced party since they accepted Newt Gingrich's "guidance" and impeachment of WJClinton
while Newt was fucking mistress Callistra while Newt's 2nd wife was in the hospital fighting cancer.
The recent Ambassador to the Vatican embodied no values which would have made her anything other than a bad American joke to the Vatican.
They are the lying party.
Follow the money. It is dirty and much of it is foreign.
They are not high and mighty. They fear the truth.
Of course, they're complicit, which is why they fear the truth.
Which also makes 'them' criminal.
AOC made it too easy for the liars to criticize her by posting an hour and a half long video on Instagram. Of course it looked like she was making too big of a deal out of what she experienced on the 6th. That doesnt mean she was, but I still say it would have been better not to make a separate video about it. She is of the "instagram" generation and there will be times that it will not go smoothly for her.
AOC is very likely to be one of the five or six progressives who will lead her generation in politics for years to come.
I expect we will see a lot of more of these sorts of "fights".
I haven't read all the attacks. Did they say she was lying? Or did they say that she was being overly dramatic given her location relative to the rioters? I thought it was the latter. It doesn't sound like that aspect of the story has changed.
There were plenty of members that said she was lying.
And some bolstered that by overtly conflated 'exaggeration' with 'lies'. Sound familiar?
Gee, it sure does. I just can't seem to place who that might have been
I don't want to make this about you. Let's just stick to the story, ok?
This story, the truth, or the lies that were told?
All of it. I know AOC can overdramatize things, or get stuff wrong, but I didn't have the sense that she was lying. And since I don't read every news story that gets published, I can't speak to whether or not some significant group of people were accusing her of lying - significant enough to warrant a defense, at any rate. That's why I asked my question.
You'd think it'd be a simple matter for someone to just provide a substantive answer. Instead, I get a bunch of trolly nonsense.
"You'd think it'd be a simple matter for someone to just provide a substantive answer. Instead, I get a bunch of trolly nonsense."
Gee, that sounds familiar . . . . .
I gave you a substantive answer. You participated in a seed that exemplifies the 'critics' that this seed cites in which members said she lied, some in reply to your comments.
It seems that you think that there needs to be a tipping point before a falsehood is challenged and refuted.
She didn't lie and and saying that she 'told a tail' implies that she did.
Saying that she 'exaggerated' implies the same.
Saying that she 'overdramatized' seems to be an attempt to minimize her experience. People deal with terror, fear and the threat of physical violence differently. All experiences deserve to be be heard and acknowledged.
A Senator said that he took off his tie and jacket and got ready to fight. He reacted to fear with fight instead of flight.
To you perhaps, but in reality, they are different words with different meanings.
Not true. Just look at the word. It has the prefix "over." That doesn't mean her experience was unworthy of comment or even some dramatization. It means she gave it more drama than was warranted. So it's not an attempt to minimize her experience, but to put it in a more realistic context.
No, not 'to me'. To all those that have a decent vocabulary.
Exaggerated: regarded or represented as larger, better, or worse than in reality.
Based on the definition, saying that someone represented something 'worse than in reality' most definitely implies that they LIED.
Actually, the prefix 'over-' means 'too much' NOT 'more'.
So YOU'VE put yourself in the position of deciding what level of drama was 'warranted' and what is a 'realistic context' even though you didn't have her experience that day or her past experiences.
Since we were talking about two words, you should have studied both definitions. To pretend that two different words mean the same thing is not honest. And anyway, I have already explained to you the difference in terms of how I am using the words. You can either converse on the things I have said, or you can try to continue to pester me with nonsense. But if you choose the latter, that will be the end of our exchange.
Not really, because this thread has always been about what other people were saying, not me. Scroll up to 6, and you will see that.
How do you know I didn't?
Well since I didn't do that, it's all good.
See that's what happens when one truncates comments to pretend they are making a point.
AGAIN:
Exaggerated: regarded or represented as larger, better, or worse than in reality.
Based on the definition, saying that someone represented something 'worse than in reality' most definitely implies that they LIED.
Nope. It isn't pestering or nonsense to converse based on the PROPER definition of words.
As 'the latter' is a fantasy you created, I choose not to choose it. What you do is on you.
What drivel. My post is in reply to what YOU said. PERIOD, full stop.
Don't really matter, man.
The Trump said he'd march with them but the darned 'bone spurs' were acting up again.
Right? What happened to that? Maybe it was one of those "in spirit" things.
You're the one who has been saying she has been overly dramatic. Something about her imagination being overly dramatic or some such bullshit?
I tend to be 'dramatic' when people are looking to kill me.
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A.O.C. will always be the go to squirrel for Trumpists, she is like some miracle disinfectant for the diarrhea M.T.G. has drenched them in.
While Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not in the main, domed Capitol building when the rioters breached it, she never said she was.
Correct. She never told us exactly where she was - that needed to be told!
She accurately described being in the Cannon House Office Building, which is part of the Capitol complex and is connected to the main building by tunnels.
Connected by tunnels, but a little distance from the Capitol building.
In her livestream, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled hiding in a bathroom and thinking she was going to die as unknown people entered her office and shouted, "Where is she?" They turned out to be Capitol Police officers who had not clearly identified themselves, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said so on Instagram. She did not claim that they were rioters — only that, from her hiding spot, she initially thought they were.
But she clearly gave people the impression that it was rioters and she gave a very negative interpretation of the officer trying to warn her.
During the riot, reporters wrote on Twitter that the Cannon building was being evacuated because of credible threats, and that Capitol Police officers were running through the hallways and entering offices just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez described.
So what? They were never at Ocasio-Cortez office.
On Thursday, Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, tweeted, "I'm two doors down from @aoc and no insurrectionists stormed our hallway."
And Ms Mace statement is still correct.
But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez never said insurrectionists had stormed that hallway
She clearly gave that impression nonetheless
Typical distortion by the New York Times, which distorts daily.
Later Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez posted another Twitter thread saying she thinks it’s “Wild that @NancyMace is discrediting herself less than 1 mo in office w/ such dishonest attacks. She *went on record* saying she barricaded in fear.”
“All I can think of w/ folks like her dishonestly claiming that survivors are exaggerating are the stories of veterans and survivors in my community who deny themselves care they need & deserve bc they internalize voices like hers saying what they went through ‘wasn’t bad enough,’” added Ocasio-Cortez, who in her Instagram livestream also revealed that she’s a survivor of sexual assault.
Meanwhile, Mace continued her misleading Twitter attacks on Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter ..... and then went on Fox News for a softball interview where she was allowed to mischaracterize Ocasio-Cortez’s words with impunity.
“I’m not going to discount [Ocasio-Cortez’s] trauma,” Mace claimed at one point, even though the whole purpose of the interview was to discount Ocasio-Cortez’s trauma.
Foxworld is downplaying the insurrection ahead of Trump’s impeachment trial
Mace’s attack on Ocasio-Cortez comes while the Democrat’s Instagram livestream has been a major topic of conversation on Fox News. Ocasio-Cortez is being accused multiple times a day of embellishing her account of how harrowing things were around the Capitol on January 6.
Boebert’s interview with Laura Ingraham came two hours after Tucker Carlson used his Fox News show to downplay the insurrection. Carlson mocked Ocasio-Cortez for fearing for her life, calling her account “crap,” and went as far as to deny that she was ever in danger.
“Trump voters weren’t trying to kill her,” Carlson claimed, even though videos of the mob make it quite clear any member of Congress who wasn’t doing Trump’s bidding was a target .
I n reality, given the chaotic scenes of rioting and violence that unfolded in and around the Capitol on January 6, it’s surprising only five people died (not including two officers who were on the scene that day and have since died by suicide). But now that the country is almost a month and a presidential transition of power removed from that day, Republicans are trying to absolve themselves and their colleagues of any responsibility by minimizing what happened.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy for someone like Mace who wasn’t a target of the Trump mob to say that Democratic elected officials really had nothing to fear. But that she’s doing so while misleading people about what Ocasio-Cortez said suggests she’s Trumpier than she initially may have appeared.
Why would you need to add anything to the Times piece? Can it stand on it's own?
I guess my post really tore their semantic argument to shreds.
No, it can't.
No, it didn't.
Gee Vic. It seems to me that you are well versed in posting what you believe are ancillary links to seeds/threads here on NT. Why do you have an issue when others do so?
You guess wrong.
Delusions of grandeur.
How do you justify the gop lying and cheating?
Because it furthers the QAnon cause. The US Constitution and the rule of law be damned.
What do you expect from those that support the killing of cops and their being beaten with the American Flag?
I did not get that impression. What I heard from her was that as a survivor of sexual assault she was traumatized and fearing for her life hiding behind a bathroom door as someone shouted "Where is she? Where is she?" not identifying themselves as capital police attempting to evacuate her. She had no way of knowing they were not right wing Trump supporting insurrectionists determined to find her and kill her. Her comments were coming from her perspective as an assault survivor which she made clear.
The only ones distorting the facts were the slimy dishonest right wing media and those who believed their lies claiming she was another Jussie Smollett making up her experiences just to claim victimhood which could not be further from the truth. I saw several conservative members here on NT self-righteously calling her Ocasio-Smollett which was sad and disgusting but not unexpected.
You went deeper than I.
The only ones distorting the facts were the slimy dishonest right wing media and those who believed their lies claiming she was another Jussie Smollett making up her experiences just to claim victimhood
I don't know if it was specifically to claim victimhood, though the left loves it. I think it had more to do with smearing & cancelling half the country. I'll leave her motivation for others to debate.
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I just watched her testimony as she talked about being a survivor of assault and how this incident brought all those same fears back in the same way others with PTSD can hear a car backfire and be right back in Kandahar feeling the shockwave of a roadside IED. What she expressed was real, those dismissing it likely didn't even spend the time to listen to her because they simply don't give a fuck about truth, they're just desperate to grasp at anything that makes those they deem "the other side" look bad.
What's truly hilarious is just as you claim it's the "left" that loves to claim victimhood, you immediately claim victimhood.
"Waaah! We're being canceled! We matter too! You're smearing millions of conservatives with the few thousand that attacked the capital! It's not fair! It's a war on Christians! It's a war on Christmas! It's an attack on conservative freedom of speech because you guys are ignoring us and not letting us use your soapbox to stand on and spout our conspiracy theories!". Talk about those who love to claim victimhood.
Yet Ms Mace barricaded her door with furniture...
ironic...
"I saw several conservative members here on NT self-righteously calling her Ocasio-Smollett which was sad and disgusting but not unexpected."
Yes indeed, me too.
Denial or backpedaling in 3, 2, 1 . . . . . .
AOC claimed Ted Cruz tried to have her murdered.
That's a lie. She's a liar. Deal with it.
She was hyperbolic which you are also guilty of...
I still want to know who ripped out the panic buttons in certain offices. This was not a hoax and the officers who were killed, injured, maimed and attacked would certainly confirm the actual events that terrorized our elected officials. Regardless of which political party is elected, the fact that each state voted for their chosen representative. Whether you like that person or not they should not fear going to work or fear one group of people making threats. Republicans and Democrats were targeted in this horrific event. So if you want to talk "both sides" these terror attacks were targeting both parties so if there was ever a time for actual "unity" this is it. Convict everyone responsible.