Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, said Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. But he could never have anticipated the narcissism of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Who else manages to radiate such beauty while signaling so much virtue? And why shouldn’t she wear a fabulous little red number to match her lips as she visits the so-called ‘concentration camps’ on the Mexican border? She’s empowering women; she has to look good. And when she is isn’t sharing skincare tips, AOC is on the front line of social justice, fighting tyranny one tweet at a time. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s make-believe.

In case you’ve missed it, AOC has been in Texas, with her Latinx congress-sisters, visiting a detention facility for holding illegal immigrants. She was, you’ll be amazed to learn, horrified at the ‘systemic’ or ‘systematic’ – these words are interchangeable for AOC – cruelty of the place.

‘Now I’ve seen the inside of these facilities,’ she tweeted. ‘It’s not just the kids. It’s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress.’





Laughing? In front of members of Congress? These Border Patrol underlings ought to know their place.

A rather confected row has now erupted over AOC’s claim that guards are forcing detainees to drink water from the toilet. Border patrol agents have denied the allegation. ‘No one is drinking toilet water,’ an official said. ‘They’re drinking potable water from the sink attached to the toilet. It’s what you would find in every municipal jail in the United States.’

After a Daily Mail journalist tweeted a picture of the type of toilet in question, the congresswoman clarified she was referring to one where the ‘sink was not functioning.’

This was in fact the type of toilet we saw in the cell. Except there was just one, and the sink portion was not functioning – @AyannaPressley smartly tried to open the faucet, and nothing came out. So the women were told they could drink out of the bowl. https://t.co/rcu9Rt6B2x — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2019

Why let the truth get in the way of AOC’s thirst for justice on social media, though? AOC was eager to see horrifying scenes, and clearly frustrated that she didn’t. Even worse, officials wouldn’t let her take her cameraphone into the facility. That system, again. Clearly desperate, and always interested in cosmetics, she ended up seeing brutality in the smallness of shampoo sachets.

CBP made us check our phones. But one woman slipped me this packet to take with me. It says “shampoo,” but she told me that this is all they give women to wash their entire body. Nothing else. Some women’s hair was falling out. Others had gone 15 days without taking a shower. pic.twitter.com/OsaKS0YD9a — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2019

They make them wash their bodies with shampoo: the horror! Cockburn doesn’t want to make light of the suffering of illegal migrants, but AOC seems determined to turn the whole crisis into her show. She’s very good at make-up, remember.