Mayor London Breed's Maskless Dancing

San Francisco has, what I understand to be, one of the most strict covid masking rules in the USA.

Per the news articles, it requires masks indoors, vaccinated or not, unless the person is actively eating or drinking.

I infer there is not an exception for dancing, singing or having pictures taken with friends (the mayor is second to left in, the first image and in the middle in the second image - both images from the SF Chronicle story).

Both the Fox News report and the SF Chronicle report give a video clip of the mayor singing and dancing without a mask  (the reporter taking the pictures also seemed to not have a mask)..

 

Apparently, the Mayor's defense of her action is,

"While I'm eating and drinking I'm going to keep my mask off," Breed, a Democrat, told reporters while calling the story a "distraction," according to FOX 2 of the Bay Area. "And yes, in the time while we're drinking like everyone else there, we were all having a good time and again all vaccinated."

The mayor insisted the focus of media attention should be on live music returning to San Francisco and said that putting a mask on in between eating and drinking isn’t "realistic." 

This seems to be an admission that she knew what the rules were (in fact she was responsible for the rules) and broke them knowingly.  

That's hypocrisy.

Fox News report here.

SF Chronicle report here.

AOC's "Tax the Rich" Dress

 

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka AOC, went to a NY Metropolitan Opera charity event with a nice dress. However the dress had large letters on it, saying "Tax the Rich". AOC had a matching handbag as seen in the second image where she is accompanied by, what seems to be her date, maybe her boyfriend.

The event cost regular donors $30,000 to attend but AOC probably got in for free. AOC says that it is because, “NYC elected officials are regularly invited to and attend the Met due to our responsibilities in overseeing our city’s cultural institutions that serve the public.”  

I suspect AOC was given a ticket by a supporter or by the event organization, for profit, Conde-Nast, not the Met. This may result in an ethics investigation and may have interesting consequences tax wise, but that is not my focus.

Personally I don't think a US Representative has any municipal responsibilities, that is, AOC is incorrect about this, but that isn't germane to the issue of hypocrisy.

People have pointed out that this event is for rich people. These people take the $30k, or a large portion of it, as a charitable deduction thus reducing their tax liability.

Is this hypocrisy? 

I would say "No" because AOC never said, "People should not go to elite charitable events" at least as far as I know.

It has also been pointed out that at the event, AOC and the elite did not wear masks but the staff, serving drinks and hors d'oeuvres and taking pictures, wore masks (see 3rd image) but that is another matter and AOC is not responsible for covid related masking rules.

 

Also, the dress designer, Aurora James is, per one report, rich, owes taxes to both the US and the State of NY and has accepted public covid impact subsidy.

 

Finally and ironically, people have pointed out that AOC's dress looks like the "Chick-Fil-A" logo if you put it on its side and make it cursive.

From an article in the NY Post 

about Aurora James here

tweet showing large masked staff getting AOC ready for party is here