In three short weeks in office, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shaped a national conversation on taxation, emerged as the face of a green jobs plan in Washington and elevated her initials into a worldwide brand.

But she has not yet opened an office in her own New York City district — a delay that may give a sense of her priorities early in her tenure. During an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Monday, she blamed the government shutdown.

“There’s a lot of things we can’t do as freshmen members,” she told Mr. Colbert as they ate spoonfuls of ice cream. “We can’t properly set up our district offices. We can’t get laptops delivered. We can’t start doing the work that we were elected here to do. It takes the green stuff,” she said. “And those workers are furloughed.”

But the shutdown has not had a similar effect on other first-term Congress members from New York State. Of the four who took office on Jan. 3, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is the only one who has yet to open a district office.
...
“Would you rather have a Congress member with an amazing local services office, or one that leads nationally on issues?” she queried her 1.9 million followers on Instagram — a number that is well over twice the population of her district. The results strongly favored national issues.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-district-office.html

In another incidence of white-washing white supremacy, white journalists are rushing to excuse a clearly racist incident involving white teens from Covington Catholic school in Kentucky, in part by discounting the testimony of a Native elder and former U.S. Marine.

Every single day across America, women seeking abortion and other forms of reproductive health care have to run a gauntlet of intimidation just to enter health clinics. Protesters, self-anointed street “counselors,” and religious fundamentalists bring gory signs and scream, often using high-decibel amplification equipment. They harangue and harass patients and staff, calling them “baby-killers” and promising them damnation. Clinic protesters feel righteous in their actions because they believe they are morally superior to the people seeking care, and they believe they have a right to impose their will on others. These and other tactics of intimidation are an integral part of the misogynistic, patriarchal arsenal of the “pro-life” movement, which every year in January hosts a “March for Life.” And every year, the march organizers bus students in from parochial schools across the country to ensure someone actually shows up. This year, they brought students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky.
...
In a now widely republished video, students from Covington Catholic, an all-male, virtually all-white, elite private school, taunted and mocked Nathan Phillips, a Native elder from the Omaha Nation and former U.S. Marine. Phillips was in D.C.—which like much of the United States is land from which indigenous peoples were forcibly removed—to attend the first Indigenous People’s March, a gathering of prayers, songs, dances, and speeches, calling attention to the global injustices perpetuated against indigenous peoples. While trying to intercede in what he believed to be an escalating situation between a large and increasingly rowdy group of at least 60 white teen boys and five Black men, he walked between the two groups, drumming in an effort to defuse the rising tension. Phillips then came face to face with Nick Sandmann, the young man who became an instant and iconic image of white entitlement exhibited by him and his classmates.

What happened next is telling: In short, Phillips’ testimony about an incident in which a very large group of raucous boys surrounded him and acted with extreme disrespect is being ignored in favor of an after-the-fact narrative created by white teens from a virtually all-white school with a history of blatant and public racism. The boys’ narrative also is being amplified by white journalists, further disrespecting the Native elder and discounting the accounts of eyewitnesses at the scene. This discounting of experience is familiar to many of us: the women who seek reproductive health care who are effectively told we should endure abuse, the Native elder on sacred ground being made the “aggressor” as the only adult who tries to intervene in a situation, the people of color who constantly have largely male, majority-white media telling them “there’s more to the story” of their abuse than what they say. It’s the same story, different characters that we saw played out just recently in the U.S. Supreme Court hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, who also attended an elite Catholic school and whose alleged actions many defended as an example of “boys being boys.” White boys, of course.

The entire incident reads like the script of a remake we’ve seen too many times before. The initial video showing a large group of boys being aggressive and disrespectful to Phillips exploded across the internet and drew outrage. Then, new videos purporting to show “other perspectives” (including helpful offers by #MAGA followers on Twitter to send me their “spliced videos” showing the “true picture”) were circulated. This was followed by a letter ascribed to Sandmann that effectively blamed Phillips for the entire incident, stating: “He waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I [Sandmann] did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.”

The letter was disseminated by RunSwitch, a Kentucky-based PR firm. One of the three founding partners of RunSwitch is Scott Jennings, a conservative commentator, and a former political operative who worked for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, George W. Bush, and other Republican politicians ... But all it took was the mournful letter written by a right-wing PR firm to change the situation. Almost immediately after “the other side” letter was released, the white-washing began. White journalists across the internet paused for a collective white sympathy moment, writing mea culpas at having “misread the situation.”
https://rewire.news/article/2019/01/22/white-washing-white-supremacy-media-rushes-to-excuse-covington-catholic-students/?fbclid=IwAR2u4lw2qmncdTJ0JNw96sSa7EfS2-cz7qh5cxS4OK-T8idup5HvdF7Mbd0

An Open Apology to the Covington Catholic MAGA Hat Harassment Team

Dear White Boys,

In the past few days, you have endured ridicule, scorn and public outrage over your actions at the combination of a pro-life rally and an Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC. After a “longer video” surfaced, critics of your tactics were forced to retract their previous accusations that you were a mob of angry racist teens.

Now, I too would like to offer an apology for much different reasons. Like most of the Twittersphere, I also jumped to the same conclusions and painted you as racists.

However, unlike those social media reactionaries, I now realize what was going on:

It was a historical reenactment.

I have always believed that white people would be better off if they studied more black history. After seeing the longer video, I would like to give kudos to the educational staff at Covington Catholic for their prescient lesson on the history of white boys at protests.

I must admit that I was wary at first. But you must understand the long history of white people and their immediate calls for patience and “longer videos.” While they are quick to publicly condemn black “thugs” whenever a person of Caucasian descent is involved, white America repeatedly insists that we wait for more video or “all the facts to come out,” as they did in the case of Trayvon Martin, Emantic Bradford, Philando Castille, Laquan McDonald, and even the Mueller Report.

But now that all of the facts have surfaced, it is now clear to me that you were part of a live-action, true-to-scale diorama depicting the actions of white men at most protests for justice, equality or freedom. In fact, I think you should be applauded for your patience and acting ability.

Now many observers would explain that the Native Americans may have simply been marching when you so nobly tried to block their path because, oftentimes, marching is what people do at a motherfucking Indigenous Peoples March. (It’s right there in the title!)

(More at link)
https://www.theroot.com/an-open-apology-to-the-covington-catholic-maga-hat-hara-1831957176

Are you or someone you know Impacted by the shutdown? Are you using extra utilities because you're stuck at home because Mitch McConnell refuses to #CallTheVote?

If so, join Federal/DC employees, their unions, and other organizations to "Occupy Hart" and let your voice be heard.

Bring your friends and family. Our goal is fill the entire building with people and demand that Senate Republicans call the vote and #StopTheShutdown

https://www.facebook.com/events/310768219561217/