11 of the Cutest Pets That ​Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Lied About

In the ongoing effort by conservatives to downplay January's violent attempt to overturn America's democratic process, they have set their sights back on one of their favorite targets — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York's 14th district.

As an intelligent, charismatic, and progressive young woman of color from a working class background, who is very open and engaged with the public, she represents a significant threat to the core conservative ideal of convincing voters that the Democrats are evil. They therefore work tirelessly to undermine all of these positive attributes that make her such a promising symbol for the future of politics.

That's why they paint her as a dumb waitress who isn't qualified, who grew up rich, who has an weird face, who isn't even "really" Puerto Rican (they love to make a big deal out of the fact that some friends used to call her "Sandy," as if that makes her white), and who is generally deceitful. That last one is particularly important in their effort to undermine the disturbing account she recently shared detailing her experience of January 6th attack on the Capitol.

The event should not to be confused with the time she was adorably attacked by a constituent's dog. Rather, the attack on the Capitol was the horrifying attack that the whole country watched on the news and recognized as awful. But now that it's become clear that most of the GOP's base still wants Donald Trump to be defended against impeachment, there's been a concerted effort to recast the insurrectionist crowd as roughly the equivalent of an overeager bulldog, so we can all move on.

Ocasio-Cortez has a different perspective.

She described feeling that her life was under threat due to the close proximity of an aggressive mob, some of whom were equipped for violence and actively seeking out legislators and politicians whom they had been encouraged to (falsely) believe were stealing the election. If Mike Pence elicited chants of "Hang Mike Pence!" simply by endorsing the standard electoral process — after Donald Trump said, "If he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much" — what would this crowd have done to the Right-wing's perennial boogeyman of socialism?

The answer is, of course, that they would have killed her. A plot to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer had been busted less than three months earlier. By that afternoon, Molotov cocktails and other homemade explosive devices had been found in the vicinity. So what reason could her political opponents offer to dismiss Representative Ocasio-Cortez's justified fear that she was at risk of dying — that an unseen man banging on the door of her office and shouting "where is she?" might not be friendly?

How could they dismiss the concern she expressed that she might not live to ever be a mother? Or the ways in which the experience exposed past trauma of her experience of sexual assault. They've dismissed it by pointing out the fact that she wasn't even in the Capitol building.

That's the "damning" information that has been spreading on Right-wing social media with the hashtags #AOCLied and "AlexandriaOcasioSmollett" — comparing her to Empire actor Jussie Smollett who (allegedly) hired two men to stage a homophobic attack for the sake of his career. Their logic seems to be: If she lied about experiencing the attack on the Capitol, maybe she was lying about being a survivor of sexual assault. as well.

They actually do seem to have a compelling point regarding her account of the day...until you take two seconds to look at a map. When you do take those two seconds, you realize that Representative Ocasio-Cortez was never more than a stone's throw from the mob. And if they had taken realized that, they would have been throwing those stones...

While it's true that the crowd didn't try to break into a building where she was located, the Congressional office buildings where she sheltered are connected to the Capitol building via underground tunnels, and the locations of her office — a short distance from the crowd erecting a gallows and calling for death — is public information.

The fact that she survived the day can be attributed to the fact that the most violent members of the crowd — some of whom had taken measures to be illegally carrying firearms — didn't bother to check Google. They had the means, and the likes of Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, and Ted Cruz had fed them plenty of misinformation to provide motive. All they lacked was an opportunity — which Ocasio-Cortez was keen to avoid, hiding behind bathroom doors and donning a stranger's running shoes.

There is no legitimate reason to doubt the traumatic experience she described. So it was a pleasure to see the hashtags attacking her being hijacked by K-Pop stans, Paris Hilton aficionados, and by people focusing on real grievances — the lies AOC told to/about their adorable pets.

So without further ado, here are 11 of the cutest #AOCLied tweets:

With all these lies about pets, how can we trust her? Does she even have a French Bulldog named Deco?!

If you've know of any more pets that AOC has lied about, be sure to hit us up on Facebook or on Twitter with the hashtag #AOCLied.