Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in another move to make herself ubiquitous, paid a political merchandise firm a whopping $1.4 million from her campaign coffers just in the first six months of 2021 to create T-shirts and hats with leftist slogans such as “Tax the Rich” and “Abolish ICE” — much of the merchandise featuring her initials.
That sum paid to Financial Innovations, a political merchandise firm, according to campaign disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, is roughly twice as much as what she paid to the firm the previous two years, the Daily Mail noted.
Financial Innovations has also created merchandise for Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. According to Andrew Frawley, who managed the merchandise operation for Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign, the Ocasio-Cortez campaign could accrue at least a 50% profit from sales of the merchandise.
Last December, The Daily Wire reported, “At her online store at shop.ocasiocortez.com, the former bartender is selling sweatshirts that say, ‘TAX THE RICH.’ You can also buy a ‘New Green Deal’ coffee mug for $27. Then there’s the ‘Drink Water & Don’t Be Racist’ T-shirt for $27. And the ‘cancel student debt’ shirt for the same price. And the ‘ABOLISH ICE’ dad hat for $28. But the ‘SOCIAL ECONOMIC RACIAL JUSTICE’ sweatshirt will set you back $65.
“The first question in the FAQ section addresses returns: ‘We do not accept returns or exchanges,’” The Daily Wire added.
In December 2020, Ocasio-Cortez bragged that she was a hard worker while Republicans just “sit around on leather chairs all day.”
She tweeted, “The thing that these conservative Senators don’t seem to understand is that I’ve actually had a physically difficult working-class job without good healthcare most of my adult life. I bring that work ethic to Congress & to my community. They sit around on leather chairs all day.”
“Republicans like to make fun of the fact that I used to be a waitress, but we all know if they ever had to do a double they’d be the ones found crying in the walk-in fridge halfway through their first shift bc someone yelled at them for bringing seltzer when they wanted sparkling,” she added.
As far as Ocasio-Cortez via-a-vis ICE, in January 2020 former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan blasted Ocasio-Cortez after she stated, “Organizing is about tipping people off if you start to see that ICE and CBP are in communities, to try to keep people safe. … I’m here because Senator Sanders has actually committed to breaking up ICE and CBP.”
Homan responded, “It’s ridiculous, it’s extremely stupid statement made by somebody I’ve never considered real smart anyways.”
“But here’s an elected lawmaker, she’s a congresswoman standing on a stage telling people how to obstruct ICE, tipping off people ICE is looking and she needs to realize that 9-out-of-10 of everybody ICE arrested last year was a convicted criminal or pending criminal charges,” Homan continued. “Last year, 137,000 criminals, 2,000 were murderers, 12,000 sex offenses, 45,000 assaults, 62,000 drug offenses, 10,000 weapons offenses, and she wants the community to tip these people if ICE is in their neighborhood operating.”
Homan concluded, “ICE’s job is already extremely dangerous, now she’s making it more dangerous. She’s one of these Democrats who keeps saying, ‘nobody’s above the law, the president is above the law, we need to impeach the president cause he’s not about the law,’ but apparently illegal aliens are above the law because ICE isn’t allowed to arrest them, it’s ridiculous statement. It’s a dangerous statement.”