Acasio Speech

• In a speech on the House floor, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, addressed the remarks made by Representative Ted Yoho, Republican of Florida. In front of reporters.
• On the C-SPAN Networks: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has 82 videos in the C-SPAN Video Library; the first appearance was a 2017 Forum as a Founder for the Brook Avenue Press. The year with the most.
• 'But also - Acasio maintains - for the businesses that are done within your organization every day. Therefore, part of the motivational speech is to encourage them to project themselves into the future and become leaders, in order to guarantee income for life from the work done today.'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (00:00)
Speaker, I seek recognition for a question of personal privilege.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a progressive firebrand and vocal supporter of labor, said New Yorkers deserve “dignified jobs” in the aftermath of a scrapped deal to build a second. Ocasio-Cortez was on her way to vote, walking up the steps of the U.S. Capitol when the pair of Republican congressmen angrily confronted her. According to AOC, Yoho was angrily wagging his finger.

Speaker 2: (00:04)
The chair has been made aware of the valid base for the gentlewoman’s point of personal privilege. The gentlewoman from New York is recognized for one hour.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (00:14)
Thank you Madam Speaker, and I would also like to thank many of my colleagues for the opportunity to not only speak today but for the many members from both sides of the aisle who have reached out to me in support following an incident earlier this week. About two days ago, I was walking up the steps of the Capitol when Representative Yoho suddenly turned a corner and he was accompanied by Representative Roger Williams, and accosted me on the steps right here in front of our nation’s Capitol. I was minding my own business, walking up the steps and Representative Yoho put his finger in my face, he called me disgusting, he called me crazy, he called me out of my mind, and he called me dangerous. Then he took a few more steps and after I had recognized his comments as rude, he walked away and said I’m rude, you’re calling me rude. I took a few steps ahead and I walked inside and cast my vote. Because my constituents send me here each and every day to fight for them and to make sure that they are able to keep a roof over their head, that they’re able to feed their families and that they’re able to carry their lives with dignity.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (01:43)
I walked back out and there were reporters in the front of the Capitol and in front of reporters Representative Yoho called me, and I quote, “a f***ing b****.” These were the words that Representative Yoho levied against a congresswoman. The congresswoman that not only represents New York’s 14th Congressional District, but every congresswoman and every woman in this country. Because all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape, at some point in our lives. I want to be clear that Representative Yoho’s comments were not deeply hurtful or piercing to me, because I have worked a working class job. I have waited tables in restaurants. I have ridden the subway. I have walked the streets in New York City, and this kind of language is not new. I have encountered words uttered by Mr. Yoho and men uttering the same words as Mr. Yoho while I was being harassed in restaurants. I have tossed men out of bars that have used language like Mr. Yoho’s and I have encountered this type of harassment riding the subway in New York City.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (03:11)
This is not new, and that is the problem. Mr. Yoho was not alone. He was walking shoulder to shoulder with Representative Roger Williams, and that’s when we start to see that this issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power that supports that. Because not only have I been spoken to disrespectfully, particularly by members of the Republican Party and elected officials in the Republican Party, not just here, but the President of the United States last year told me to go home to another country, with the implication that I don’t even belong in America. The governor of Florida, Governor DeSantis, before I even was sworn in, called me a whatever that is. Dehumanizing language is not new, and what we are seeing is that incidents like these are happening in a pattern. This is a pattern of an attitude towards women and dehumanization of others.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (04:35)
So while I was not deeply hurt or offended by little comments that are made, when I was reflecting on this, I honestly thought that I was just going to pack it up and go home. It’s just another day, right? But then yesterday, Representative Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and make excuses for his behavior, and that I could not let go. I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that excuse and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand which is why I am rising today to raise this point of personal privilege.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (05:49)
I do not need Representative Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not and I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women and using abusive language towards women, but what I do have issue with is using women, our wives and daughters, as shields and excuses for poor behavior. Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I am two years younger than Mr. Yoho’s youngest daughter. I am someone’s daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr. Yoho’s disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television and I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (07:12)
Now what I am here to say is that this harm that Mr. Yoho levied, it tried to levy against me, was not just an incident directed at me, but when you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters. In using that language in front of the press, he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community, and I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable. I do not care what your views are. It does not matter how much I disagree or how much it incenses me or how much I feel that people are dehumanizing others. I will not do that myself. I will not allow people to change and create hatred in our hearts.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (08:18)
And so what I believe is that having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man, and when a decent man messes up as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize. Not to save face, not to win a vote, he apologizes genuinely to repair and acknowledge the harm done so that we can all move on.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (09:06)
Lastly, what I want to express to Mr. Yoho is gratitude. I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women. You can take photos and project an image to the world of being a family man and accost women without remorse and with a sense of impunity. It happens every day in this country. It happened here on the steps of our nation’s Capitol. It happens when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit, admit to hurting women and using this language against all of us. Once again, I thank my colleagues for joining us today. I will reserve the hour of my time and I will yield to my colleague, Representative Jayapal of Washington. Thank you.

Ocasio-Cortez, at SXSW, blasts FDR, Reagan and capitalism

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at SXSW blasted FDR, Ronald Reagan and capitalism.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed political moderates at the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas, calling their views “misplaced” as she defended her progressive politics in a room full of supporters.

“Moderate is not a stance. It's just an attitude towards life of, like, ‘meh,’” the New York Democrat said Saturday during an interview with Briahna Gray, senior politics editor for the Intercept. “We’ve become so cynical, that we view ‘meh,’ or ‘eh’ — we view cynicism as an intellectually superior attitude, and we view ambition as youthful naivete when ... the greatest things we have ever accomplished as a society have been ambitious acts of visions, and the ‘meh’ is just worshipped now, for what?”

Ocasio Cortez Speech Youtube

The self-declared Democratic socialist also criticized the treatment of minorities throughout American history, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, which she claimed was racist, to Ronald Reagan's policies, which she said 'pitted' white working class people against minorities in order 'to screw over all working-class Americans,” particularly African-Americans and Hispanics.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, right, D-N.Y., speaks with Briahna Gray, a senior politics editor at the Intercept, during South by Southwest on Saturday, March 9, 2019, in Austin, Texas. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Ocasio Cortez Speech

'So you think about this image of welfare queens and what he was really trying to talk about was ... this like really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing, that were 'sucks' on our country,' she said.

'So you think about this image of welfare queens and what [Reagan] was really trying to talk about was ... this like really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing, that were 'sucks' on our country.'

'And it's this whole tragedy of the commons type of thinking where it's like because ... this one specific group of people, that you are already kind of subconsciously primed to resent, you give them a different reason that's not explicit racism but still rooted in a racist caricature,' Ocasio-Cortez continued. 'It gives people a logical reason, a 'logical' reason to say, 'Oh yeah, no, toss out the whole social safety net.'

Other topics Ocasio-Cortez discussed included the Green New Deal and capitalism, which she said could not be redeemed because it puts profit “above everything else.”

Ocasio Speech

“The most important thing is the concentration of capital, and it means that we prioritize profit and the accumulation of money above all else, and we seek it at any human and environmental cost… But when we talk about ideas like democratic socialism, it means putting democracy and society first, instead of capital first; it doesn’t mean that the actual concept of capitalistic society should be abolished,” she said.

'When we talk about ideas like democratic socialism, it means putting democracy and society first, instead of capital first; it doesn’t mean that the actual concept of capitalistic society should be abolished.'

Ocasio Cortez Speech Today

During a Q&A session with the audience, television host and author Bill Nye the Science Guy stepped up to the microphone.

“I’m a white guy,” Nye said. “I think the problem on both sides is fear. People of my ancestry are afraid to pay for everything as immigrants come into this country. People who work at the diner in Alabama are afraid to ask for what is reasonable. So do you have a plan to work with people in Congress that are afraid? That’s what’s going on with many conservatives especially when it comes to climate change. People are afraid of what happens when we try to make these big changes.”

“One of the keys to dismantling fear is dismantling a zero-sum mentality,” Ocasio-Cortez replied. “It means the rejection outright of the logic that says someone else’s gain necessitates my loss and that my gain must necessitate someone’s loss. We can give without a take. We’re viewing progress as a loss instead of as an investment. When we choose to invest in our system, we are choosing to create wealth. When we all invest in them, then the wealth is for all of us too.”

'When we choose to invest in our system, we are choosing to create wealth. When we all invest ... then the wealth is for all of us.'

The nine-day music and media festival has attracted many political figures this year. Several 2020 presidential candidates made appearances Saturday, including Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is also considering a presidential bid, also made the pilgrimage.

Ohio's former Republican Gov. John Kasich -- a potential GOP challenger to President Trump -- also spoke at the festival Saturday.