Reagan Biographer Attacks AOC, AOC Responds Brilliantly.

[TheBlackAdder]

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Craig Shirley
‏ @CraigSBPA
Mar 11

THREAD: There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Ronald Reagan, so she would not know Reagan favored statehood for Puerto Rico.


There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Ronald Reagan, so she would not know Reagan appointed more African Americans to government positions as governor of California than any other executive of the state.

Link to tweet

Craig Shirley
‏ @CraigSBPA

There is no evidence of @AOC ever picked up a book on President Reagan. so she would not know he was the president who signed the order creating the Dr. Martin Luther King national holiday.


There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Reagan, so she would not know he received over 43 percent of the Hispanic vote in 1980.

Link to tweet

Craig Shirley
‏ @CraigSBPA
Mar 11

There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Ronald Reagan, so she would not know the @washingtonpost and the @NYT wrote lengthy articles exposing the massive corruption of the Welfare Queen of Chicago, Linda Taylor, to whom Reagan was referring.

There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Ronald Reagan. so she would not know that Reagan’s economic policies did more for African Americans and Hispanics than any other president in US history.

Link to tweet

Craig Shirley
‏ @CraigSBPA
Mar 11

There is no evidence that @AOC ever picked up a book on President Ronald Reagan, so she would not know he created over 18 million jobs during his eight years in office and kicked off a 26 year run of economic growth.

Link to tweet

====================

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
‏Verified account @AOC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Retweeted Craig Shirley

Ok great, now talk about Reagan and:
- Iran-Contra +
- The gutting of our mental health system +
- The explosion of homelessness under his watch +
- The crack epidemic

Maybe instead of insinuating I’ve never read a book, be open to the idea that we’ve read different ones.


- HIV/AIDS crisis and demonization of LGBT+ community
- Union-busting
- Ending the Fairness Doctrine, which launched the polarized media environment we’re suffering from today

Why are we not supposed to talk about these things?

Link to tweet

====================


Bless his little heart. I guess he's got a book coming out, to fleece more MAGAts, and needs to ride AOC's coattails.

.

[Pepsidog]

1. Keep up the fight AOC.

[mitch96]

28. Loved the way she used the repukes' tacktic of "what about" ism...

Conservative name calling games go both ways shitbrain.
m

[JaneQPublic]

2. According to AOC's Wiki page...

..."She graduated cum laude from Boston University's College of Arts and Sciences in 2011, majoring in International Relations and Economics."

According to Craig Shirley's Wiki page, " Shirley earned a degree in History and Political Science from Springfield College."

Looks to me that AOC went to a harder college and read harder books than Craig did.

He needs to move past his stereotypes about a young woman of Puerto Rican descent being ignorant and get back to writing the Reagan fan fiction he passes off as history.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. The Shirley Edition.

.



.

[JaneQPublic]

19. Love it!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Surely Craig Shirley has only read hagiographies of Reagan, hence his saintly view of the turd. . nt

[kag]

44. Agreed.

I've never read a biography of Reagan (and I never will), but I did read "And the Band Played On" and learned how Reagan was content to allow AIDS to kill "all the right people" before his administration would even acknowledge that it existed.

Assholes.

[orangecrush]

4. The more I hear about AOC

The more I like her!

[lilactime]

7. So do I. She throws their shit right back at them!

[calimary]

14. Indeed. She's well-informed, and obviously has done her homework.

Clearly they did read different books. He obviously read the fantasy version with the cardboard scenery, the Busby Berkeley razzmatazz, and the Hollywood ending.

She read the factual ones.

[malaise]

5. You go girl!

They can't stand the truth

[Chipper Chat]

9. She's the Lady Gaga of politics.

Republicans are scared shitless of her.

[malaise]

10. Beautifully stated

Last edited Wed Mar 13, 2019, 11:40 AM - Edit history (1)

It is why they hate her -intelligent and popular. She also has the art of making simple what is fed by politicians and hacks as complicated.

[crazycatlady]

22. they also hate her because she does not take bullshit and calls it out

Previous generations were raised to brush aside bullshit. Hers has been served plate after plate of it, and instead of posting pics of it to Instagram, she had enough and is calling it out.

[Blue_playwright]

8. I have to show this to my elderly dad...

He HATES Reagan. Believes firmly he is burning in hell due to his treatment of the union air traffic controllers and is being held responsible for all the suicides.

[erpowers]

11. Better Response

Ronald Reagan at first opposed the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday supposedly due to the costs of the holiday. Reagan signed the bill after it passed both houses of Congress by veto proof margins.

[HughBeaumont]

12. Or that he signed the bill that led to the S&L crisis.

Or that he brought in Donald Regan to spurn that "economic growth" that has really only helped the wealthy for four decades by ginning the Tax Code to forever benefit his wealthy buddies in the finance and banking sectors.

Or that the Blue Collar job exodus accelerated under his watch thanks to corporate America busting unions and "trimming the fat" via his PATCO example (even more disgraceful was the fact that PATCO was one of the few unions that supported him).

[DeminPennswoods]

34. Ironically, the non-union ATCs hired eventually formed the

current union.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

48. Plus they all retired at about the same thing, resulting in an unexpected consequence

of Reagan's fit of picque.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread TheBlackAdder.

[CCExile]

15. Is there a way to avoid repeating the same thing 12 times in the above post?

[Mariana]

18. Which thing, exactly, is repeated 12 times in the above post?

Shirley began all this posts with the same clause, but other than that, they're all different.

[pdsimdars]

16. As Cenk would say, "Too Strong!"

[Kurt V.]

17. She's pretty good at this. she really shines when questioning ppl

brought before the house committees.

[Botany]

20. President Andrew Sheppard, "Sydney Ellen Wade (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ) is way out of your league.

Craig Shirley = Bob Rumson

I loves me some Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

[DirtEdonE]

21. reagan was the b movie version

of tv reality game show trump.

No redeeming social value in either or both of them.

[True Blue American]

38. B Movie Actor

And Host of GE Theater.
Former head of the Actors Union. Forgot his roots.

[bobbieinok]

45. IIRC vehemently turned against his union history. Remember him from Death ValleyDays

[KY_EnviroGuy]

23. I would challenge Shirley's pretzel logic...

* First, state to him that there no proof within his Tweet that he's ever read a high school English Grammar book.

* Because he has made a statement claiming knowledge of another person's shortcomings without showing any proof, the burden of proof is on his shoulders or else he should delete his Tweets. In order to have the right to say "she would not know Reagan blah, blah, blah...", then you would need to know every single thing she does know about Reagan, which is an impossible task.

* We could just as logically claim that AOC has read every book written about Raygun and he has no way to refute it. Until then, we can refute his statement by saying there's no evidence she has NOT picked up a book about Reagan.

* Shirley needs to tell us what resources he has access to that tells him what books anyone has or has not read.

Give him the full Christopher Hitchens treatment!.......

I don't do Twitter and he probably would not read anything I wrote, but it feels good to blast him on DU......

[Botany]

24. Shirley can't be that smart.

Going up against A.O.C. on social media platforms is like a high school football team
lining up against the Green Bay Packers.

[47of74]

25. The Packers?

Da Bears would be better.

[Botany]

27. Any NFL team would do or even a D-1 BCS college team

Besides the Bears should never win anything because of their ugly ass
retro fit of Soldier Field.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

31. Regarding those Tweets, one thing I would make book on is.....

that after skimming his history in politics, this guy is most certainly a liar of Trumpian class.

Further, he's making a public claim that someone he's known is not a racist. In my over 50-years as an adult, I found I've had to get to know most people on a personal level for a while for their racism to come out. It's rare these days for anyone to be publicly racist in an overt way and Reagan certainly knew better for political reasons. Almost all politicians know damn well they must hide any racist leanings (either current ones or those from their past).

I'm not convinced he was that close to Reagan and again with him being Republican, he would lie about it anyway. I believe that was one of Reagan's many sacred political commandments which said to never be critical of any Republican.

Unfortunately social media is so tribal and bubble-like, any rebuke he gets from AOC will fall on deaf ears. That's why I feel these social media exchanges are a waste of good electrons.

[Botany]

32. But always remember that Reagan and the GOP made racism part of their DNA

Reagan kicked off his national campaign for POTUS in Neshoba County, Mississippi talking
about "states rights" and that county is famous for what happened to the 3 civil rights workers
there.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

33. And who of my generation can ever forget....

Agnew's little tour of the South that made all that bullshit "normal" for far too many Americans?.......

We've still got a lot of evolving to do......

[moonseller66]

26. Less coverage on AOC from the media?

Don't be surprised if the media (all of a sudden) limits the coverage of AOC under the orders of the Right-Wing Corporate Owners.

[onit2day]

29. Forgot the massive tax cuts for the 1% and their corporations pr saying Medicare would destroy us

[True Blue American]

30. AOC is right!

Broke the Controllers Union.

My city was flooded with homeless when he closed the State Hospital.

Barr covered the Iran/ Contra mess.

Each Republican succeeding President hs been worse. Bush / Cheney are war criminals. Bush can not leave the US. He would be indicted.

[red dog 1]

36. My city was flooded with homeless after he closed several state mental hospitals, to save money

(As Governor of CA)

My city is San Francisco.

[JHB]

37. And the things they're saying about Mueller now...

...they said about Lawrence Walsh then: he's taking too long, he's wasting money, he's partisan, etc.

Walsh, of course, was a Republican, just not a Reagan partisan. Familiar territory these days.

[red dog 1]

35. K&R, thanks for posting

AOC is a breath of fresh air!

[SoCalDem]

39. Oh Shirley..Can I call you shirley?

[scarletwoman]

40. Let's not forget Reagan the racist:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html
Righting Reagan’s Wrongs?
By BOB HERBERT NOV. 13, 2007

Let’s set the record straight on Ronald Reagan’s campaign kickoff in 1980.

<snip>

...Andrew (Goodman) traveled to the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi, a vicious white-supremacist stronghold. Just days earlier, members of the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed a black church in the county and had beaten terrified worshipers.

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

<snip>

...that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

<snip>

Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

(more at link - if you have access, I strongly encourage you to read the whole piece.)

[Ferrets are Cool]

41. Damn, she is so brilliant. A BRIGHT SHINING LIGHT.

[Loki Liesmith]

42. She didn't tho

She strawmanned his quote and then deflected

[oldsoftie]

43. Wondered if someone would notice that.

[pansypoo53219]

46. SO many reasons reagan sucked.

[extvbroadcaster]

47. I've met Shirley

He's just another clown that writes fawning books on Reagan and pulls whatever money he can from Reagan's corpse. But that is just his sideline. His real business is PR, and his firm has done work for tons of despicable GOP clients. Like all those trying to pry cash from dead Reagan, he ignores all the problems with Reagan and focuses on the good. AOC is right, from Iran-Contra to AIDS to PATCO Reagan had a lot to answer for. Those things are forgotten by cheap biographers like Shirley who want to mine gold from Saint Ronnie.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Craig_Shirley

[WeekiWater]

49. And people respond.

Who is the Reagan biographer?

[Awsi Dooger]

50. Always excellent on counter

It's the stuff she initiates that sometimes make me wonder what the heck she was thinking