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Maricopa County Must Hand Over 2020 Election Routers or Lose $700 Million in State Funding

In a major escalation in the fight over Arizona’s Maricopa County’s refusal to comply with a Senate election audit subpoena, the state attorney general’s office ordered the county to give in or lose its state funding, which provides nearly a third of the county’s budget.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said that the county, America’s fourth largest in population, is violating state law by not complying with the Senate’s request for routers in its 2020 election audit and review of former President Donald Trump’s loss.

In his ruling shared with Secrets, Brnovich said, “Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is in violation of state law for failing to comply with the Arizona Senate’s legislative subpoena related to the 2020 election audit. If MCBOS does not change course, the AGO will notify the Arizona Treasurer to withhold Maricopa County’s state-shared funds as required under the law.”

According to county and state estimates, the state provides about $700 million a year to the county, over a quarter of its $2.7 billion budget.

Brnovich’s investigation of the county’s actions began earlier this month.

In a statement, Brnovich added, “We are notifying the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors that it must fully comply with the Senate’s subpoena as required by the law. Our courts have spoken. The rule of law must be followed.”

The state, which Biden won by just 10,457 votes, has been ground zero for the national election audit effort.

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen have pressed the county and Dominion Voting Systems to produce routers, traffic logs, mail-in ballot envelopes, and other information in their investigation. The county has refused.

Brnovich, a leading GOP Senate candidate, gave the county 30 days to comply.

He and state courts have repeatedly backed the state Senate’s subpoena powers.

The memo detailed the issue this way: Today’s decision stems from a ‘SB 1487’ complaint filed by Senator Sonny Borrelli under A.R.S. § 41-194.01, which authorizes any legislator to request the Attorney General investigate a county or city alleged to be in violation of state law. On July 26, 2021, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and Senator Warren Petersen (Senators) issued a subpoena to MCBOS related to the Senate’s audit of the 2020 election. The Senators requested six categories of items for production by August 2, 2021, including routers, plunk, and network logs.

MCBOS objected to the requested information, and to date, has not provided all of the subpoenaed materials. Moreover, in its response to the AGO, MCBOS failed to explain why it is not required to comply with the legislative subpoena. Its only response was that the Arizona Senate is not currently in session, so MCBOS could not be held in contempt.

If MCBOS fails to resolve the violation within 30 days, the AGO, in accordance with state law, will notify the Arizona Treasurer to withhold state revenue from Maricopa County until MCBOS complies.

Meanwhile, Brnovich said on a related issue that he has not seen any results from the Senate’s audit of the election. “The Arizona Audit of the 2020 election is still underway. At this time, the AGO has not received any report related to the Senate’s audit, but stands ready to review the official findings and any information submitted after a final report is completed by the Senate,” said the memo.

ISIS claims responsibility for deadly blasts outside Kabul airport

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan’s capital, according to the terrorist group’s propaganda outlet.

In a statement claiming responsibility, IS allegedly accused the Taliban of working “in partnership” with the US military to protect and evacuate “spies” from Afghanistan. 

IS identified the suicide bomber that attacked Abbey Gate at the airport and left dozens wounded and dead, boasting about “penetrating” security measures set up outside the airport by the “US military and Taliban militia.”

US Marine Corps General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie Jr., currently serving as commander of the US Central Command, previously placed blame on IS for the attack at the airport, as well as another close-by bombing at the Baron hotel during a Thursday press briefing where he totaled American service members loss at 12. Another 15 were wounded in the blast, and the general admitted the bomber would have needed to get through other checkpoints before being checked by US military soldiers.

The total number of victims has yet to be confirmed, with local health officials telling reporters that at least 60 died in Thursday’s blasts, while the Taliban initially said that 13 were killed outside the airport.

Explosions outside Kabul airport kill at least 12 U.S. service members

One of the explosions was carried out by a suicide bomber outside a gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Aterror attack Thursday outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan that included two explosions and gunfire killed at least 12 U.S. service members, according to news reports.

The American service members killed included four Marines and a Navy corpsman.

The Pentagon said 52 service members were injured and over a dozen Afghans also were injured.

One of the explosions was carried out by a suicide bomber outside the Abbey gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul. The second was a detonated car bomb about 200 yards away, outside the Baron hotel, which was a staging area for evacuations from the airport. 

A U.S. official said the attack was “definitely believed” to have been carried out by the Islamic State group, whose affiliate in Afghanistan grew out of disaffected members of the Taliban, now in control of Afghanistan, who hold an even more extreme view of Islam.

ISIS has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby early Thursday in a tweet confirmed the explosions, as the United States tries to evacuate the last of the roughly 1,000 Americans still in Afghanistan before a deadline Tuesday. 

The Taliban was providing the outer ring of security around the airport.

Reports that U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans and Afghan allies to evacuate raised question at home about sharing such information with the group.

The evacuations follow the Taliban’s recent and swift takeover the country, resulting in a chaotic effort to get Americans and Afghan allies out of the country.

U.S. and allied officials warned roughly 12 hours before the explosion that a lethal attack was imminent and to avoid the airport. 

Even as the area was hit, evacuation flights continued to take off from the airport, the wire service also reports.

Oregon Democrat Governor Kate Brown Has Long-Standing Ties To Chinese Communist Influence Groups

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has participated in events sponsored by Chinese Communist Party propaganda groups flagged by the U.S. State Department for “directly and malignly influenc[ing]” American officials, The National Pulse can reveal.

The unearthed Chinese Communist Party links follow Oregon Democrats calling for the cancellation of an upcoming event featuring The National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters due to the site’s promotion of “China-centric conspiracy theories” and “toxic beliefs.”

The Oregon Democratic Party is attempting to ban China-focused news reporters while one of the party’s most high-profile members – Governor Kate Brown – recently established links with one of the regime’s chief influence groups abroad.

Brown, in fact, has a long history of collaboration with groups tied to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

Propaganda 101.

China’s billion-dollar “United Front” effort aims to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the federal U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission. United Front groups such as the China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) have used tactics including free trips to China to garner “favorable coverage” from mainstream media outlets according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings.

Scarcely a “China-centric conspiracy theory” as the Oregon Democratic Party insist.

Brown also has deep ties to the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), dubbed the “public face” of the United Front and “avowedly an arm of the party-state.” The U.S. State Department has even described the CPAFFC as seeking to “directly and malignly influence” U.S. state and local leaders.

Brown attended the group’s 2015 China-U.S.Governors Forum, an event the State Department has singled out for its subversive influence on U.S. politics:

“CPAFFC’s actions have undermined the Governors Forum’s original well-intentioned purpose.”

As the CPAFFC recounts, Brown emphasized that “Oregon hopes to enhance cooperation with China” at the event, which counted Chinese Communist Pary leader Xi Jinping as its top speaker. Following the forum, Brown was one of six governors to ink a deal with Beijing to collaborate on “clean technology and economic development.”

US-China Governors Forum.
2015 FORUM.
BROWN SIGNING CCP AGREEMENT.

While taking a private meeting with CPAFFC Vice President Lin Yi the month following the forum, Brown reportedly described Xi’s remarks as “encouraging” while pushing to “strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China in education, science and technology, health, tourism and sports”:

Governor Brown said it was her great honor to attend the Governors’ Forum held in Seattle last month. President Xi’s remarks were encouraging and the Forum helped provide great opportunities for U.S.-China cooperation. The State of Oregon regards China as the most important international partner and has  willingness to strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China in education, science and technology, health, tourism and sports, etc. 

BROWN & CPAFFC.

Biden Can’t Blame Trump Anymore

In the early days of any administration, there is a tendency for new presidents to blame their predecessors for problems they claim to have inherited — and there is a window during which the public is willing to accept such arguments. But for President Biden, the window on blaming Donald Trump has now closed. As Americans process the tragic news of double-digit deaths of U.S. service members in twin terrorist attacks in the midst of a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, it will be hard for Biden to dodge responsibility.

When Biden took office, COVID-19 was two weeks past its winter peak, the U.S. was administering over a million vaccine doses a day, and the economy had bounced back. Biden nonetheless falsely said that he had inherited the “worst crisis since the Great Depression” and claimed that the administration was launching a vaccination campaign from scratch, and he told Americans to “mask up” for just 100 days in keeping with his campaign vow to “shut down the virus.” Yet we’re now in the midst of a COVID-19 surge, and more than a hundred days since his first hundred days, the CDC still maintains masking guidance — even for the fully vaccinated.

Biden similarly has attempted to blame Trump for the mounting fiasco in Afghanistan. And while it’s true that Trump made the initial agreement to withdraw and wind down the troop presence, it was Biden’s role as commander in chief to oversee that withdrawal. It’s true that the baseline assumption on both sides of the “stay” vs. “leave” debate was that leaving Afghanistan would be chaotic in the short term. That events have unfolded in a way that’s significantly worse than even these low baseline expectations is quite the testament to Biden’s incompetence. Biden cannot blame Trump for, say, abandoning Bagram Air Base. Leaving was never going to be smooth, but it could have been done in a way that would ensure that Americans and our allies were out before the withdrawal. And it could have been done without today’s bloody catastrophe.

At this point, Americans are unlikely to accept “blame Trump” excuses. Per CNBC:

A recent NBC News poll found that approval of Biden’s Covid handling fell from 69% in April to 53% in August, a 13-point drop.

Meanwhile, just 25% of voters said they approved of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

“The promise of April has led to the peril of August,” Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the NBC News poll, told the network.

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll released today found that more than two-thirds of Americans, and even 55 percent of Democrats, agree that the Afghanistan withdrawal has been handled “badly.” And he is underwater in his overall approval rating.

Keep in mind, all these polls were taken before today’s terrorist attacks.

Biden owes his political success entirely to the fact that he has had Trump as a foil. It’s why Democrats were willing to nominate an elderly, shaky, and twice-defeated presidential candidate. It’s the reason he was elected. And the contrast with Trump was the reason why he enjoyed generally positive approval ratings during his first six months in office. But now, Biden is on his own. Because he can no longer use Trump as an excuse for his own failures.

Verizon pushes leftist, anti-American agenda in social justice training for employees: Report

Multinational telecommunications conglomerate Verizon has internal programs that train employees on anti-American sentiments and “anti-racism” agendas, according to a new report.

Following the death of George Floyd in late May 2020, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg delivered a speech where he announced that the company would commit $10 million to “aid organizations dedicated to equality and social justice.”

Verizon launched a new “Race & Social Justice Action Toolkit” in June 2020, with “employee-generated resources to jumpstart your education” and “support partners who are on the frontlines of battling racial injustice.”

Verizon then presented a “Race & Social Justice” initiative last year for employee training, which “has created an extensive race reeducation program based on the core tenets of critical race theory, including ‘systemic racism,’ ‘white fragility,’ and ‘intersectionality,'” according to City Journal.

Journalist Christopher F. Rufo claims to have received internal Verizon documents from a whistleblower, which show corporate curriculum and speeches that spread a leftist agenda.

In the “Conscious Inclusion & Anti-Racism” training module, Rufo reports that Verizon diversity trainers educate employees about topics such as “institutional racism,” “privilege,” “microaggressions,” “microinequity,” “allyship,” and “intersectionality.” Employees are instructed to list their “race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, education, profession, and sexual orientation.”

Verizon’s then-Global Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer Ramcess Jean-Louis, who now works at Pfizer, allegedly gave a presentation claiming that “weaponized White privilege” is a “danger” to black Americans, who are seen as “inferior.” To prove his point, Jean-Louis included video of the Central Park dog walker incident involving Amy Cooper from May 2020.

Verizon Vice President David Hubbard interviewed Khalil Muhammad, who reportedly “argued that America is fundamentally racist and needs a ‘new origin story,’ replacing the narrative of ‘American exceptionalism’ with the narrative that America was founded on ‘systems of racism’ that remain at the root of our society.”

Adrian Burrell, a social justice activist, allegedly told Verizon employees that police budgets are “aimed towards hiring [police officers] with racist biases.”

Burrell purportedly said governments “need to be aimed at bringing more resources to the community at a root level, and then you just won’t need so many police. If you want to call that ‘abolishing the police,’ or if you want to call that ‘defunding the police,’ so be it.”

TheBlaze reached out to Verizon for comment, but there was no response at the time of publication.

Every Republican signs petition demanding Pelosi allow vote to stop infanticide

Dems refusing to support vote on bill that would save born-alive babies

(Life News) Every single Republican member of the House of Representatives has now signed a petition demanding that Nancy Pelosi allow a vote on a pro-life bill to stop infanticide.

Congressman Jake Ellzey was just elected in a special election in Texas and the lawmaker added his name to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act discharge petition today. In so doing, he raised to 213 the number of House Members who have joined forces to attempt to bring this anti-infanticide measure to the House floor for a vote.

And his signature means every Republican, including the moderate Republicans who have irked conservatives on other issues, have signed. But Democrats are refusing to support a vote on a bill that would merely make sure babies who survive abortions received appropriate medical care and treatment.

As one pro-life advocate tells LifeNews, if just 5 brave Democrats would stand up and take on Pelosi, the petition would reach its goal of 218 signatures and the Born Alive bill would get a vote on the House floor.

“We commend Representative Jake Ellzey (TX-06) for swiftly adding his name to the petition demanding a vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, long-overdue legislation that simply ensures vulnerable babies born alive after failed abortions receive the medical care they deserve,” said SBA List Communications Associate Prudence Robertson.

“Pro-abortion Democrats led by Speaker Pelosi refuse to support these urgently-needed protections – and in the years they’ve spent blocking the bill, dozens of babies across the handful of states that report such data have been born alive, with little or no indication of whether they received care or were left to die,” she said. ” If just five courageous Democrats would buck their party’s extremism and back a vote, it would be a significant step toward humanizing our laws and stopping infanticide in America.”

Why is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act even needed? Pro-abortion Democrats insist the 2002 Born-Alive Infant Protection Act suffices. But it doesn’t. There is no enforcement provision, which means there is no federal law criminalizing the actions of abortionists who deny care to babies who survive abortions.

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats blocked a vote on a bill to stop infanticide 77 times and she still refuses to allow a vote. A discharge petition is a petition any member of Congress can sign to allow legislation to move out of committee and to the House floor when the party controlling Congress refuses to allow a vote on it.

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise said this should be the easiest bill for Congress to approve.

“This a bill that many wonder why is it even necessary that we need a law to say that if a baby is born alive outside of the womb we need to give it the full protections under law? Many people ask why is it that they aren’t already protected?” Scalise said.

“If a baby is born alive, it should have the full protections of anybody else. Yet as we see in states like New York and other states around the country they allow in those states the baby, even after it’s born alive, to be killed. To me that’s murder,” he added.

A recent report by Tessa Longbons, a research associate at Charlotte Lozier Institute, SBA List’s research arm, shows that protections for babies who survive abortions are inconsistent across the United States, with fewer than half of states maintaining sufficient protections.

The blocking of a vote on a bill to stop infanticide comes even as national polling shows Americans — including people who are “pro-choice” on abortion — oppose abortion up to birth and infanticide. And doctors indicate abortions are never needed to protect a woman’s health and women admit having abortions on healthy babies.

And a new poll finds a massive 17 percent shift in the pro-life direction after Democrats have pushed abortions up to birth and infanticide nationally.

Investors Borrow Less to Buy Stocks for First Time Since Pandemic Began, an Ominous Sign

U.S. investors cut their use of leverage in July, marking the first month since the onset of the pandemic that saw a reduction in the use of margin debt to buy securities like stocks, potentially a warning sign for markets buoyed by heavy use of borrowed money.

Data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on the use of margin debt, which is money investors borrow from brokers to buy securities, shows $844 billion borrowed against portfolios in July. That’s the first month the metric has dipped since embarking on a steady month-over-month climb in March 2020, when it stood at $479 billion. In June 2021, margin loans hit a record high of $882 billion, according to FINRA figures.

A separate data point from Interactive Brokers, which serves around 1.5 million clients, showed margin debt among its customers fell 2 percent from June to July, according to the Financial Times.

Some see the reduction in borrowing as an ominous sign for markets, coming as some analysts believe the stunning bull run in U.S. equities is due for a correction.

Stephen Suttmeier, technical research strategist at Bank of America, wrote in a recent note cited by Fortune that “rising leverage tends to confirm U.S. equity rallies” and that it’s not new record highs for margin loans that are cause for worry, but “we get concerned when margin debt stops rising to suggest that investors have begun to reduce leverage.”

Nick Reece, portfolio manager at Merk Investments, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the build-up in margin debt since the end of 2019 has matched the rise in the market and “that’s nothing to be concerned about.”

In his view, “what would be concerning is to see a major build-up in margin debt relative to the market,” which ties into the idea that if asset prices continue to rise, then a commensurate rise in borrowing is nothing to worry about, particularly when—as now—borrowing costs are low.

At the same time, Reece believes the feverish bull run for the benchmark S&P 500, which has continued to push to new all-time highs, is ripe for a pullback.

“I continue to think the market is due for a short-term correction or sideways consolidation,” he said. “The market is trading at the top end of the bull market trend channel. And there hasn’t been a 10 percent correction since the March 2020 lows—it’s always worth being mentally prepared for one.”

“Of course, a 10 percent correction might only start 10 percent higher from here, so trying to time it is a fool’s errand in my view,” he added, noting that a positive medium-term market outlook for equities continues to be supported by a number of data points, including the business cycle expansion and the so-called TINA effect, an acronym for “there is no alternative,” which is the notion that frothy markets will keep rising despite showing signs of weaker fundamentals because there are no other options for yield-seeking investors.

Suttmeier argued in his note that the dial-back in leverage sends an ominous signal.

“Although peaks in margin debt don’t always coincide with highs for the [S&P 500], they tend to be bearish for equities,” he said.

Trump Blasts House 6 Jan. Probe as ‘Partisan Sham’ to ‘Distract’ Americans From Biden’s ‘Failures’

The House of Representatives’ Select Committee investigating the 6 January Capitol violence began its first hearing on 27 July in the wake of Republicans lawmakers’ refusal of a bill to create a formal, bipartisan 9/11 Commission-style investigation into the Capitol unrest.

As the Democratic-controlled House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol is seeking a trove of documents and communications of Donald Trump and officials in his administration related to the attack, the ex-President blasted the probe as a “partisan sham”. According to Trump, the committee is being manipulated to “distract Americans” from the “failures” of President Joe Biden and his administration.

“The Leftist ‘select committee’ has further exposed itself as a partisan sham and waste of taxpayer dollars with a request that’s timed to distract Americans from historic and global catastrophes brought on by the failures of Joe Biden and the Democrats,” said Trump in his statement, issued through his Save America PAC on Wednesday.

The former president vowed that executive privilege will be defended, “not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation”.

Trump added:

“These Democrats only have one tired trick—political theatre—and their latest request only reinforces that pathetic reality.”

‘Flurry of Requests’

Trump’s response came as the House select committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), issued a raft of requests to federal agencies and the White House for records related to the events at the Capitol, when Congress met to certify Biden’s win, as well as its run-up.

One segment of the request is looking into records “related to the mental stability of Donald Trump or his fitness for office”, according to Politico.

The flurry of requests pertains to records “from Election Day to Inauguration Day” on “communications within and among the White House and Executive Branch agencies”.

The panel is also seeking “all documents and communications relating to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution”, which allows the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to remove a president they deem unfit for office. As the Article of Impeachment was introduced in the House in the wake of the Capitol events, blaming Trump for purported incitement to insurrection for his remarks at a rally on 6 January before his supporters, Pence had been urged to invoke the amendment. Pence responded at the time in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by saying he did not believe “such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation”.

As part of the select committee probe, agencies are also to relay any conversations about whether Trump planned to enact martial law to overturn the November 2020 election amid claims presidential race had been rigged to favour his rival, Democrat Joe Biden.

A letter to the Pentagon seeks records about “the potential use of military power to impede or ensure the peaceful transfer of power” between the election and the inauguration and any “possible attempts by President Donald Trump to remain in office after 20 January 2021.”

The Defense Department is requested to turn over “all documents and communications relating to the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, including but not limited to documents and communications concerning that possibility with respect to preparation for the events of January 6, 2021, or responding to the January 6, 2021, attack.”

While martial law would effectively have placed the military in control of a spate of government functions, the Insurrection Act of 1807 allows a president to “call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection.”

In 1992 ex-President George H.W. Bush invoked it to quell riots prompted by the incident of police brutality towards African-American man Rodney King. Trump himself had floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act amid protests triggered by the death of black man George Floyd at the hands of police.

“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” the then-POTUS said in June 2020.

Former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller testified in May that he was “cognisant of the fears promulgated by many about the prior use of the military in the June 2020 response to protests near the White House and fears that the president would invoke the Insurrection Act to politicise the military in an anti-democratic manner.”

Miller had been criticized by members of Congress for the time it purportedly took to get approval from the Pentagon to send in the DC National Guard to the Capitol on January 6. Furthermore, there are indications the committee is searching for any communications from the Trump administration “relating to defying orders from the president,” who was pushing his unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election rigging. In connection with the latter, the DOJ is to provide communications with Trump’s last acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.

Rosen said at a closed-door testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in August that the then-president was persistent in pressuring him to discredit the election, the New York Times previously reported.
Another DOJ official in the crosshairs is Jeffrey Clark, who, according to Rosen, was “willing” to push Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

The House panel’s request to the National Archives seeks “documents and communications related to efforts, plans, or proposals to contest the 2020 Presidential election results.”

As part of its investigation, the House select committee has sent requests to the National Archives and Records Administration, the Justice Department, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The agencies are given a two-week deadline to respond.

On 6 January, a group of supporters of former President Donald Trump entered the US Capitol in a bid to protest the lawmakers officially certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the November presidential elections, which Trump said were fraudulent.

Donald Trump had insisted the Democrats were trying to cheat him out of a second term using rigged voting machines and mail-in vote dumps – claims that his opponents dismissed. Subsequently, state courts refused to hear lawsuits filed by Trump’s campaign. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died in the wake of the 6 January violence. Democratic lawmakers used the incident to try to permanently ban Trump from politics by impeaching him a second time. The impeachment trial failed in the Senate in February, when Trump was already out of office.

AOC Demands Biden Resettle and Give Visas to at Least 200,000 Afghan Refugees

Like most leftists, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an expert at spending OPM (Other People’s Money).

In her latest harebrained scheme, the self-described democratic socialist is demanding that the Biden administration issue at least 200,000 special immigrant visas to refugees fleeing Afghanistan.

“I believe we need to move and the administration needs to move as quickly as possible and as expansively as possible, ensuring that we are raising the amount of refugee visas to whatever amount is necessary,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.

“I would say the rock bottom is 200,000, but I think it should be whatever is necessary,” she added. “And that needs to be expedited as soon as possible.”

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, it costs American taxpayers $60,000 to $133,000 to resettle a refugee in the U.S. over the course of a lifetime.

Using this calculus, AOC is demanding $12 billion to $26 billion to relocate, feed and house Afghan refugees, while the U.S. has already wasted $2 trillion over the past 20 years intervening in Afghanistan.

That’s not including the billions of dollars worth of military equipment we left behind for the Taliban thanks to President Joe Biden’s incompetent withdrawal.

To be clear, some Afghan refugees earned special visas because they helped U.S. forces. It’s also understandable why people are fleeing the Taliban-controlled country.

But the U.S. is not obligated to help everyone who needs it. Do you feed your own child first, or is feeding all your neighbors’ children your top priority?

The U.S. gives out billions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

In June, we gave $266 million to the people of Afghanistan — bringing our total humanitarian assistance to nearly $4 billion since 2002.

In April, AOC demanded that American taxpayers give “reparations” to illegal migrant families because they’re not given luxury accommodations in federal holding centers after they break U.S. laws to sneak across our border.

When it comes to throwing our tax dollars out the window, AOC is a champ — as long as it benefits anyone but Americans.

The U.S. currently has 34,500 visas allocated for Afghans after the number was expanded by 8,000 last month, but both Democrats and Republicans are urging Biden to increase that amount.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that the U.S. has evacuated 82,300 people from Kabul since Aug. 14.

The same day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that at least 70,000 Afghans have been evacuated.

That’s great news for the refugees, but what about the thousands of Americans still trapped in Afghanistan?

Why is the Biden administration seemingly prioritizing foreign nationals over American citizens? This disturbing “America Last” policy is a recurring theme of this administration and the agenda of Democrats such as AOC.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson echoed the sentiments of millions of Americans when he slammed Biden for prioritizing foreigners over Americans — you know, the people who have paid his salary for the past five decades.

“The Biden administration told us that American citizens would not be given priority in the evacuation from Kabul,” he said in a scathing monologue on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Aug. 16.

“So our government’s official position is that American lives are not more valuable than the lives of foreigners, but you already knew that because you’ve seen our southern border.”

Carlson said the Democratic agenda is to flood the U.S. with unvetted illegal aliens and refugees, regardless of the resulting financial burden and social turmoil.

“The people who made the Afghan occupation possible would like to see a lot more of our southern border, much more unrestrained immigration to the U.S.,” he said.

“‘Bring in the refugees!’ they’re screaming tonight. That’s the only lesson they’re taking from this debacle. Quote: ‘America must not stand idly by,’ Mitt Romney tweeted today. ‘The president must urgently rush to defend, rescue, and give and expand asylum. There is no time to spare.’”

Carlson noted that while politicians obsequiously cater to the needs of foreigners, Americans here are suffering and dying.

And no one in Washington seems to care.

“There’s lots of time to spare as Americans die of fentanyl ODs and millions of foreign nationals whose identities we can’t confirm move here, but when it comes to bringing Afghans to our country, ‘there’s no time to spare,’” Carlson said.

“And Liz Cheney firmly agrees with that. So does her friend Bill Kristol and Nancy Pelosi and Victoria Nuland at the State Department, and so many more — so many more — just like them,” he said.

Carlson said that at the rate things are going, America as we know it will be destroyed — but that was the plan all along for our clueless, anti-American leaders.

“These are the architects of the disaster we are watching unfold on television,” Carlson said. “They should be groveling for our forgiveness, but they’re not. Why? Because contrition requires decency. There’s no chance.”  

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