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My RedState colleague Nick Arama wrote Sunday about an absurd claim made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) about New York City’s rising violent crime rate, a claim made right as Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) prepares to “shift” $1 billion in funding away from the NYPD.

“Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent and so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money so … they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry,” the freshman Congresswoman, who is also an adviser to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, said during a virtual town hall meeting last Thursday.

Ocasio-Cortez responded to conservative mockery of her argument by playing the absolute moral authority card. “Republicans are all upset that I’m connecting the dots between poverty and crime. I know most of them haven’t experienced or seen these issues first hand, but I have,” she stated.

Conservative radio talk show host Dana Loesch pushed back, dropping some inconvenient facts on AOC about the real reasons for the crime spike in NYC, and challenging her to a discussion about growing up in poverty:

Crime is up because you and others pushed for a reduction in both policing and penalities. Also, whenever you want to talk about poverty, I’m happy to tell you about how hard it was for my single mom and me when I was growing up — and it wasn’t in tony *Westchester.* https://t.co/HUJdpQbbop

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

AOC tweeted back in her usual childishly condescending tone, pretending she understood better how defunding things and analyzing crime stats worked than “pundits” like Loesch, while also taking some predictable cheap shots:

None of these policing reductions have even *happened yet.*

So a spike is happening WITH a $6 billion dollar NYPD budget.

You either know this & are intentionally lying, or you‘re a bad spokeswoman & haven’t verified your claims.

Given your work with @NRA it’s probably both. https://t.co/vHtq04ei86

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 13, 2020

It’s not as though a vote happens and the full sum of money disappears the next day. That not how it works.

People who study crime know that (despite how many pundits pretend otherwise), *causes of crime are complex* and there are few neat and tidy causal relationships.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 13, 2020

If she thought she’d gotten the better of Loesch, she was very, very wrong:

So … there is an increase in crime before you cut the budget and you still supporting cutting the budget? Great logic there, Ms. Westchester.

Also, before you reach for a weak reed of ergo decedo, I'm not a spokeswoman for anyone but myself. https://t.co/rMvM3S5KwO

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

Additionally @AOC , your response overlooks the main points: policing (morale) and penalty reduction fueling recidivism. Why have NYPD retirement filings exploded by 41%? That’s already happening. https://t.co/5xacDUdFtb

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

I’m also fascinated by the casual acceptance of her absolutely classist argument on poverty being inextricably linked to crime. Easy for a limousine liberal to make such a ridiculous argument as a deflection for her and her party’s bad policy, but not as easy to prove it.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

Also fascinating: the political poverty chic portrayed by so many well-heeled progressive activists.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

By that point, though, the freshman Congresswoman had long since run away from the argument, which was probably for the best for her sake since she was again exposed for the epically foolish and dangerously irresponsible lawmaker that she is.

Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson also took AOC to the woodshed this week over her push to defund the police, pointing out that even if every single dime is stripped from the police, that “defund the police” proponents like her will still be protected by their taxpayer-funded security detail, unlike average citizens who have to hope nothing happens and pray their 2nd amendment rights won’t be taken from them.

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