Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back, Throwing Bible Reference in Face of Sarah Huckabee Sanders

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It’s been said that you can use quotes from the Bible to justify pretty much any position on an issue. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did just that on Wednesday in a response to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comments about climate change.

And it really wasn’t that hard. But it burned.

In case you missed it, on Monday Ocasio-Cortez stated that “the world is going to end in 12 years” if we don’t start addressing climate change more aggressively. While this statement has provided fodder for right-wing outlets and talking heads to discredit AOC as a loon, she was likely referring to the report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warned there are only a dozen years left to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Any higher would significantly increase the risk of floods, drought, extreme heat and potential poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

When asked about AOC’s comments in an appearance on Hannity, Sanders said this:

“I don’t think we’re going to listen to [Ocasio-Cortez] on much of anything — particularly not on matters we’re gonna leave in the hands of a much, much higher authority — and certainly, not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end.”

Cringeworthy, for sure. So apparently the White House’s position on addressing climate change is that God will fix it and we don’t need to address it. That might be the most irresponsible position on climate change I’ve ever heard. So, God is going to fix our climate problem but we need to build a wall ourselves? Why doesn’t God pop up an untraversable mountain range at our southern border if that’s really something threatening his favorite country? But I digress…

So on Wednesday, in response to Sarah Sanders’ appeal to leave climate change up to her chosen deity, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped these two Twitterbombs on SHS:

You shouldn’t need a Bible to tell you to protect our planet, but it does anyway.

(h/t to @RELEVANT mag for source excerpts that I adapted for the previous tweet)

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 23, 2019

Oh the hypocrisy, Sarah.

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Christopher Duell

Isn’t it about time that both sides quit evoking the words and ideas of a bronze-age mythology to support a cause? Religions have no place in governance. The fact that politicians have to pretend to believe in nonsense in order to get elected in America is a sad reality.
- Kevin Davis (SecularVoices)
  
  I think it was more of a dig at SHS’s hypocrisy by AOC and less of a “this is what I believe.”
- Raging Bee
  
  If it gets a decent number of otherwise-hostile voters to rethink their positions — or at least be a little less certain of them — then the Bible quotes will serve a good purpose.
- Alan Duval
  
  In a perfect world, yes. But we do not live in a perfect world, and that is particularly true with regard to the state of political discourse in the US.
  
  If you communicate to the masses on the basis of how they “should be”, you will be a lone voice in the wilderness.
  
  On the other hand, check this out:
  https://www.npr.org/2019/01/24/684435743/provoked-by-trump-the-religious-left-is-finding-its-voice
- Pennybird
  
  Invoking a god allows them not to take any action when it doesn’t serve their ends. So religion must stay.
Barros Serrano

I recall reading in that same Bible that Jesus enjoined his followers to “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you,” and I’m quite sure he didn’t mean to exploit them for every penny possible, take their children at the border, etc., etc., etc.
ephemerol

We need more democratic fighters like AOC. More democrats who fundamentalist republicans are going to say must have been sent by the devil, simply because they’re willing to go toe-to-toe, fight fire with fire, and give it as good as they get. I’m glad Pelosi knows what she’s doing.
The Jack of Sandwich

Yeah, but that was Old Testament. In Jesus’s NEW covenant with his people, the world is going to end Real Soon Now, so Christians can feel free to pillage the land with impunity.
- Kevin K
  
  Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, firmly believed that Jesus would return when the last tree was felled.
  
  The Department of the Interior is in charge of the nation’s forests.
- E.A. Blair
  
  Jesus supposedly said that the end times would come within the lifetimes of the people to whom he was speaking. Either he lied or was wrong.

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Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back, Throwing Bible Reference in Face of Sarah Huckabee Sanders