Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez propose a nationwide motorcycle ban? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to educate gullible Trump supporters and Republicans about the need to actually click and read links before sharing or liking them in order to avoid being embarrassed by fans of the site later. All the events described in the article are not real.
The story originated from an article published on April 6, 2019 titled "Ocasio-Cortez Proposes Nationwide Motorcycle Ban" (archived here) which opened:
Junior Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has made a lot of waves recently with her Green New Deal nonsense and child-like proposals and speeches. Well, it's no different this afternoon as the political pixie announced her intention to draft legislation banning motorcycles from use in the United States of America.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Ocasio-Cortez Proposes Nationwide Motorcycle Ban
Junior Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has made a lot of waves recently with her Green New Deal nonsense and child-like proposals and speeches. Well, it's no different this afternoon a...
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine and his partner in crime John Prager along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. Blair has been in a feud with fact checking website Snopes for some time now and has also criticized other fact checkers in the past who labeled his work "fake news" instead of satire. In reaction to this he has recently rebranded all his active websites and Facebook pages so they carry extremely visible disclaimers everywhere.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The story achieved virality after being posted to several pro-Trump Facebook groups such as Judge Jeanine Piro Fans and LARGEST GROUP EVER! We need 10000000 members to Make America Great Again! where many people were having trouble distinguishing a clearly marked satire article from reality.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up.
Blair and his operation were profiled by the Washington Post on November 17, 2018 by Eli Saslow:
If you are interested in learning more about Blair and the history of his sites, here is something to get you started:
If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.
We wrote about tatersgonnatate.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
