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AOC moves to defund military recruiters in schools

The New York Rep. called the practice predatory towards low-income students.

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A week ago, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act worth $740 billion that will go towards the U.S.’s defense budget.

While coming from the majority-Republican Senate, the bill was a rare case of bipartisanship and passed by an 86 to 14 vote. 

However, President Donald Trump has vowed to veto it because of certain provisions, such as the renaming of any military base with a Confederate name.

On the other side, the funding is $2 billion more than a year ago and will go towards a 3% pay raise for soldiers and reauthorizes 30 types of bonus and special pay.

But on Monday, another pair of amendments were proposed to the bill by way of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that would ban funding for military recruiters in middle and high schools and on digital streaming platforms.

In a statement to the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez argued that children in low-income communities are “persistently targeted” for enlistment without any other viable paths available to them through other school resources.

“In many public high schools where military recruiters have a daily presence, there is not even a counselor,” she said.

Compound the lack of trade school options and other higher education opportunities, and the military “stops feeling like a ‘choice’ and starts feeling like the only option for many young, low-income Americans,” Ocasio-Cortez continued.

The second resolution would also cut funding for the military’s recruiting efforts on digital streaming platforms like Twitch.

Until recently, the U.S. Army maintained its own Twitch channel where soldiers would stream themselves playing many first-person shooters.

The channel is now on pause after coming under fire for allegedly censoring viewers that posted comments about the U.S. Army’s various war crimes.

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