WASHINGTON – You probably heard about it even if you didn't see it with your own eyes.
Democratic House star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in concert with other progressives in Congress was proposing the unthinkable, the unimaginable, in a 10-year plan to save the Earth. It included two provisions that were blowing minds – providing incomes for all those unwilling to work and the complete banning of all air travel, according to the report posted on her official website.
- “It guarantees to everyone,” among other things, “Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work.” (Emphasis added.)
- “The Green New Deal sets a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, at the end of this 10-year plan because we aren't sure that we will be able to fully get rid of, for example, emissions from cows or air travel before then.”
But just as people sometimes disappeared in the old Soviet Union, the apparently-not-ready-for-primetime Green New Deal was erased without warning – there as late as Feb. 5, gone afterward.
So, when Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson asked Cornell University professor, green activist and Ocasio-Cortez adviser Robert Hockett about those proposals Thursday, he denied the document had ever been posted to AOC's website, suggesting, in fact, Carlson was reading a “doctored” report from elsewhere.
Tucker Carlson: “Why would we ever pay people who are unwilling to work?”
Robert Hockett: “We never would, right? And AOC has never said anything like that, right? I think you're referring to some document, I think some doctored document that somebody other than us has been circulating.”
Tucker Carlson: “Oh, I thought that came right from, that was a backgrounder from her office is my understanding?”
Robert Hockett: "No, no, she's actually tweeted it out to laugh at it. If you look at her latest tweets it seems that apparently some Republicans put it out there.”
To make matters worse, Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters blamed Carlson and “conservative media lies” – a Friday tweet picked up and recirculated by Ocasio-Cortez herself.
It turns out, despite denials her office ever posted the material, it was there Feb. 5, as the WayBackMachine shows.
Metadata even reveals who was responsible for posting it – OAC's staffer Saikat Chakrabarti.
“This is getting scary,” tweeted Tim Pool. “AOC and others are straight gaslighting people. NPR still has the faq published. CNBC reported the same.”
Meanwhile, AOC also called the original post on her own website “doctored.”
“There are multiple doctored GND resolutions and FAQs floating around,” she tweeted. “There was also a draft version that got uploaded + taken down. There's also draft versions floating out there.”