AOC: Tax the Rich, Except For Me

In socialist countries, the political elites nobly and selflessly refrain from enjoying the fruits of the workers’ paradise they create. Instead of living in soulless apartment blocks, eating stale and unpalatable scraps, and toiling all day at state-owned factories for the sole benefit of the state itself, they luxuriate in magnificent dwellings and feast on lobster and caviar. The rules are for those who actually believe in the socialist propaganda or who have no choice but to comply.

Those who actually make the rules in the dictatorship of the proletariat don’t feel any obligation to live as if they really were proletarians. It works the same way among socialists in the U.S., as has been made abundantly clear in the congressional ethics investigation of one of the nation’s foremost spokespeople for the workers, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Swizzle Stick).

The investigation of AOC is focusing on her famed appearance at the Met Gala, which the New York Post says is “the world’s number one social event for the rich, famous and beautiful,” in Sept. 2021. The UK’s Daily Mail reported Monday that “AOC’s anti-corruption lawyer told the congresswoman’s team that she could attend the event, but only if she was listed as being a guest of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and not as a guest of event organizer Vogue magazine.” When you’re an elected representative and your “anti-corruption lawyer” tells you not to do something, you shouldn’t do it. Unless, of course, you’re AOC, and the rules are for those who aren’t favored mouthpieces of the elites.

AOC’s corruption watchdog gave her this warning because “the attorney feared that if she were listed as a guest of Vogue, she could be in violation of congressional rules which prohibit representatives from accepting gifts from companies that use lobbyists which Vogue’s parent company, Advance Media Publications, does.” In blithe disregard of this warning, however, the intrepid champion of the people “accepted a pair of $35,000 gala tickets and was listed as a guest of Vogue the night of the gala, but that the following morning staffers began pivoting to say she was a personal guest of Vogue editor Anna Wintour.” As if all that weren’t enough, AOC also “managed to pay a mere $300 for her $1,300 dress emblazoned with the phrase ‘Tax the Rich’ — along with the hours of design work, fittings, and styling — and then took months to pay back the paltry sum.” AOC’s true credo is clear: Tax the rich, except for me. 

The Office of Congressional Ethics noted, according to the New York Post, that the Met exchanged emails with AOC’s staff in efforts “to ‘thread’ the ‘needle,’ in one Met staffer’s phrasing.” The Office points out that these emails “suggest that there was some attempt to obfuscate Vogue’s role.” No kidding, really? A far-Left governing official gets special favors from a far-Left corporation and a far-Left institution in light of her position, and then they all try to cover it all up? Why, this has never, ever happened before!

And it doesn’t end there. AOC dallied for six full months before she got around to paying her makeup bill of $344.85 for that night. She only paid when the ethics investigation began and after the makeup artist had handed the bill over to a collection agency. AOC didn’t pay it for six months, only after the ethics investigation started. The intrepid socialist crusader did the same thing with her hair bill of $477.73: she also only paid it after the ethics probe started. The hairstylist’s representation had warned AOC’s staff that “it would look terrible if we had to file a complaint with the NY Dept of Labor against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” AOC likewise didn’t pay her hotel bill of $4,602.92 until eight months after the event, around the same time she paid the $406.09 bill for her boyfriend’s shoes and bow tie and $571.59 for the car service.

Before the ethics investigation began, AOC likely regarded all these unpaid bills as the price the various service providers paid for the privilege of serving her. One can imagine, in a similar vein, a grateful Soviet citizen declining payment for the privilege of repairing Comrade Stalin’s shoes. Surveying all of AOC’s questionable behavior regarding the Met Gala, the Post remarked acidly: “we now know the trick to socialism: Don’t pay for stuff…. As one AOC staffer instructed the designer before the ball, ‘she shouldn’t look “rich.”’ One way of not looking rich is not to pay your bills.” That’s it, all right. The rules are for the rubes who actually believe the socialist line AOC preaches. Not for the illustrious congresswoman herself.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/06/aoc-tax-the-rich-except-for-me-n1676001