You have to at least give freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) credit for staying busy in her home district when Congress takes a break. She’s been getting out there and hearing from constituents, which is part of her job. On Wednesday, she ventured out of Queens to the far end of her turf, holding a meeting in the portion of the Bronx that she represents. (That area isn’t quite as deep blue as the rest of her territory.) The meeting was with a number of community leaders who had local issues they wanted to discuss. While she still had plenty of supporters present, when the subject of foreign policy came up, her remarks prompted a couple of veterans to stand up, collect their things and walk out of the meeting. (NY Post)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bashed US foreign policy during a private meeting with Bronx community leaders, prompting two military veterans to storm out.

“She knocks the country, she knocks the president. And that’s not what America is about,” said Silvio Mazzella, a Vietnam War vet and treasurer of Community Board 11.

Anthony Vitaliano — an Army veteran who worked in the NYPD for 38 years, and commanded the Bronx’s homicide detectives — was sitting between Ocasio-Cortez and a staffer for the freshman Dem.

“I just couldn’t hear her BS anymore,” the former CB11 chairman said. “I just got up, got my umbrella in my hand and walked right out.”

AOC was slamming US policy regarding the civil war in Yemen and how we’ve been providing support to Saudi Arabia in that conflict. When the subject of Israel cam up, she referred to Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “autocrats.” That led to the departure of another attendee who described themselves as being “revolted.”

Some of the local leaders complained that AOC “danced” around the local issues they came to discuss. These ranged from poor mail delivery and graffiti to the annual Columbus Day parade. She didn’t have much to say on those subjects but supposedly wrote them down for later study. And to be fair to AOC here, a lot of the items they were bringing up really aren’t federal problems, so I’m not sure what they expected her to propose.

So how did Team AOC respond to having people storm out of her meeting in disgust? Simple. They denied that it happened. Her spokesman said, “The only person that left the meeting while it was underway was someone who had to go pick up their children.”

That’s kind of a tough sell to make when there are reporters standing outside the venue interviewing the veterans who walked out. One of the two veterans responded by saying, “That’s bulls–t. Everybody that was there knows I walked out.” So all in all, I guess this meeting will be marked down as another rousing success for the AOC brand. Best of luck, congresswoman.