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September 25, 2023

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The ridiculous specter of a socialist explaining a socialist hellhole

By Monica Showalter

The border is in crisis, with a record-setting 304,162 migrants from more than 100 countries crossing into the U.S. in August alone. Experts are somewhat baffled as to why the surge is suddenly so strong now.

But not Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has her answer to why it's happening: U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.

She spoke to Face the Nation's Margaret Brennan yesterday, and on the transcript, you can see she started out kind of Kamala Harris-ish, repeating herself and stating the obvious (emphasis added):

MARGARET BRENNAN: ...I want to ask you, though, about migration as well, you were quoted in the New York Times in August as saying "immigration is arguably this administration's weakest issue." What did you mean?

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, you know, I think the politics around immigration in the United States is, to no surprise to many people, one of the most contentious issues. We saw this dramatically inflamed under President Trump, but it remains to be a very controversial and contentious issue. And that makes, I believe, that makes enacting- enacting some of the policy changes necessary much more complicated and difficult. Now, this week, after perhaps almost a year of pushing from both the Hispanic- the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to the New York delegation in Congress, we push to make sure that the Biden administration extended Temporary Protective Status, otherwise known as TPS, for Venezuelans, which will allow and open the pathway for Venezuelan migrants to actually begin working and supporting themselves, which will reduce the strain on our public systems, particularly New York shelter system and more–

MARGARET BRENNAN: That's- 500,000 Venezuelans, but only if they came here before July.

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yes.

Then she got even dumber:

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I definitely think that we need to have comprehensive immigration reform so that we aren't constantly doing this patchwork of policy extensions–

MARGARET BRENNAN: That hasn't happened for decades.

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: That has not happened for decades. But additionally, I think we also need to examine the root of this problem, because if we are constantly engaging in foreign policy that drives people to our southern border in this specific instance, U.S. sanctions that were originally authored by Marco Rubio began and precipitated certainly took a large part in the driving of populations to our southern border shortly after those sanctions, those broad based sanctions–

MARGARET BRENNAN: You're talking about in Venezuela?

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yes, shortly after those broad based sanctions were enacted, we started seeing dramatic increases in these populations that were coming to our southern border. And so we have to address the root of these population movements and the migration crisis. And we have to also have to address the domestic U.S. policy issues when it comes to immigration reform.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you know, the Maduro government has also been responsible for large parts of that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you saying that you want to- you want the Biden administration to pull back pressure on him?

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think we need to reexamine the nature of these sanctions. There are sanctions that are very specific, for example, the Magnitsky Act sanctions that do actually focus on the decision makers and people who may be violating norms, practices, civil rights, but broad based sanctions that punish the overall economy and harm everyday working people that are driving them into the economic and political destitution that force millions of people, both not just to the United States, but even to our regional partners. Colombia alone has absorbed a population of two to three million Venezuelan migrants. We have to really address the destabilization issue so that we're not constantly dealing with this with- with the issues of overwhelming displacement and the magnitude that we see them.

There also was this lagniappe:

REP. OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think what's driving migration is the economic destitution and the political destabilization that we are seeing in Latin America. Someone being able to get a job in New York City is not what is driving millions of people to leave Venezuela. It is the- it is the economic destabilization and the political destabilization that people are experiencing there.

 

 

It was drivel straight from the Chavista propaganda playbook, whose priority is keeping the Maduro dictatorship and all its cronies billionaires.

Of course the Maduro regime doesn't like sanctions. They've got arms to trade and cocaine to deal and cronies to enrich.

And not surprisingly, she was scored for it on Twitter -- by authentic Venezuelans such as journalist Germania Poleo, and long-established blogger Daniel Duquenal:

 

 

 

 

(Based on news and emigre reports I'm aware of, you can get killed inside your house, too.)

Germania's on a tear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

These scorings, from younger Venezuelan journalists, are deadly, too:

 

 

Ocasio-Cortez correctly says that economic destitution is one reason why we have tens of thousands of migrants at our border now, but her claim of 'sanctions' as the reason for the migration is totally ridiculous. In reality, socialism caused the economic destitution, the destruction of Venezuela's economy, from the state expropriations of the electricity firm, the oil firms, the malls, the water, and pretty much any firm of consequence; to the squatter break-ins on private properties; to the state-encouraged mass looting events at shops in the name of ending "hunger;" to the hyperinflation and currency devaluation brought on by state overspending; to the starvation of public hospitals of state funds in the name of funding Cuban health kiosks instead; to the state control of the food supply, which left boxcars full of imported food rotting on the docks. And so many other nightmarish things, too, all of them socialist acts. 

Socialism. That's the very socialism AOC advocates for this country, which surely put her in some kind of embarrassing bind.

Meanwhile, her sanctions claim is ridiculous. As the last journalist in the tweet notes, sanctions started with Barack Obama in 2015, based on human rights violations, and eventually were extended other reasons during the Trump administration. These included fraudulent elections, money laundering, and drug dealing by top socialist officials. He notes that contrary to what Ocasio-Cortez claimed, they were indeed sanctions targeted at individual bad actors, and not the broad economy. And most devastating of all, he noted that the shortages, electricity outages, water contamination, ration cards, and other nightmares of socialism began around 2010, five years before any sanctions were declared by the U.S.

So it wasn't exactly sanctions that triggered the migrant wave, which in any case, involves more than a hundred countries. Did the Venezuelan sanctions force those migrants to enter the U.S. illegally, too?

It was socialism, the very socialism Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to foist on the U.S. and the results speak for themselves.

Maybe some of the migrants can enlighten her on what caused the mass migration, but don't hold your breath. If anything caused this migrant wave particularly on the Venezuelan side of things, it's the nightmare of socialism she champions. It's good the Venezuelans at least, have noticed.

Image: Screen shot from Face the Nation video, via Twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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