Archive for July, 2010
Tuesday Open Thread: July 20th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Tuesday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
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We’re having technical problems today, so please help pick up the slack and use this open thread to post links and commentary on the stories you think are important today. We hope to have regular postings back up and running on our end this evening, but in the meantime we need you regulars to pitch in however you can.
Monday Open Thread: July 19th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Monday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
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We’re having some computer problems here, so you might only see an Open Thread for today and tomorrow…with regular posting resuming (hopefully) tomorrow afternoon when the problem’s fixed. There was a power surge in the building yesterday and fried our computer and modem, so we’re having to muddle through until that’s resolved.
In the meantime, we need you to help pick up the slack and fill the open threads with links to articles and your take on the news until we can get back up and running.
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Updated on the Lee Roupas/Cook County GOP cover-up scandal:
We’ve been asked by a prominent Republican to give him until tomorrow to come up with some resolution for the Cook County GOP. Lee Roupas has been clearly lying about what he knew, and when, and the GOP is working to convince Roupas to resign as Cook County Chair. The problem in all of this is millionaire cougar Beth Christie, who is running serious interferance. Christie has threatened in the past to stop writing monster checks to the GOP if a certain young blond man under her personal protection ever lost his job. This is the man Roupas has been covering-up for, on orders from the state GOP because no one wants to alienate the woman many in Chicago call “The Sugar Mamma”.
So, we’ll hold off on writing about this any more until tomorrow, to give the GOP in Illinois time to figure out how to break it to Beth Christie that voters don’t care how much she enjoys her boytoys…but will sure as heck care in November that the Cook County GOP was involved in such a cover-up, which includes Roupas trying to remove Eloise Gerson from her position because she dared to call for an investigation into what is going on.
Last night, we found out Democrats here in Chicago are very much following every development in this scandal, but are holding back for now. One of these operatives told us, “This is all too good. The Republicans are shooting themselves in the face, and we are just going to let them keep doing that. We don’t know how Roupas stays on as Cook County Chair, but if he does, we can use this against them in the future. For now, we’re just passing the popcorn”.
QUESTION: As longtime Clinton loyalists assemble in two weeks for Chelsea's wedding, what do you think THEY will say about a 2012 Hillary challenge to Dr. Utopia?
Below you’ll find a very thought-provoking look at a Hillary Clinton 2012 challenge to Dr. Utopia, as reasoned by longtime poster EricP.
The one thing that’s not factored into this is something a lot of you don’t appreciate about Obama’s 2008 campaign: the race war nuclear option.
In an interview we did with Tammy Bruce a few months ago, Bruce asked one of us why Clinton didn’t take her nomination fight to the floor of the Democrats’ convention in Denver back in the summer of 2008…where Clinton could have engaged in a delegate fight to keep the nomination for herself. But, she didn’t, because the Obama campaign threatened Clinton with a full-on race war.
Meaning, Obama would call Clinton a RAAACIST, would send Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Henry Gates, John Lewis, James Clyburne, the NAACP, the Black Panthers, the CBC, and all the other race-baiters in this country to scream and yell on street corners that Clinton is a RAAACIST.
Should Clinton have secured the nomination, Obama would not have campaigned for her. Michelle Obama, we firmly believe, would have been sent out to various black organizations (because she loves doing this, just read that Princeton thesis) to not-s0-subtlely bemoan the fact the nomination was “stolen” from her husband. The Obamas would have encouraged black and Liberal voters to stay home on election day, “to teach the DNC a lesson”. The Media would have encouraged this. We all know how well this works when it’s done to conservatives, so we have no reason to doubt doing this to blacks and Liberals would have worked just as well.
Clinton would have lost the general election and would have spent the rest of her life largely despised by her party by costing them that win. She would have also had to endure the stigma Obama would have caused her by dropping that racial nuke. The toxic fallout from that would never quite entirely go away.
We believe Obama would do the exact same thing to anyone challenging him in 2012 for the nomination. ”Oh, there they go. Those RAAACISTS, trying to take this away from the black man. Oh, they are at it now!”. Wah…wah…wah…RAAACISM!
We don’t believe this threat can be dismissed because it’s proved to be such an effective tool used by the Left in the past. It sure worked great back in ’08. And we think the race-baiting and Race Industry itself will still be strong enough in 2012 to keep Hillary Clinton from making a challenge to Obama.
Unless Obama himself chooses not to run, and uses something like his Parkinson’s as a medical excuse to LBJ a second term away, there won’t be a Clinton 2012 in our opinion.
But, here’s EricP’s take on it:
I’ve thought a lot about it and I’ve threshed out my opinion a little more. Thought I would share and spur a little more lively debate.
I do believe Hillary wants nothing more than to be the first female President of the United States.
There is no greater goal for her than that.
As Secretary of State, Hillary doesn’t really have any further up she can go within the Obama administration, except Vice President — a position I don’t know if Obama would offer, and I don’t know if Hillary would accept.
I believe Hillary has a senatorial position waiting for her any time she wants it in New York. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Gillibrand would resign her post just so Hillary could have it back, if she wanted. Bill and Hillary have plenty of money. They also have quite a bit of influence, with or without a position within the government.
So, in my mind, Hillary has almost nothing to lose by challenging Obama in 2012. Some pundits have said her political career would be over if she tried to split the Democratic party, but I have two responses to that.
First, I believe the November defeat of the Democratic party will be firm and fierce, and that alone will already split the Democratic party in two. Each faction will need a leader. I expect Obama to take the helm of the farther-left progressive faction, leaving the more conservative faction wide open for Hillary to take up the mantle. If this happens, she will appear as a champion of the conservative Democrats, rather than as a pariah.
Second, assume that Hillary’s political career IS over if she challenges Obama… so what? If SoS is all the higher she can ever go, when the only remaining goal she cares about is being President, then why not take the chance? I also think she could still go back and win in New York, even after “backstabbing” Obama. Especially if the Democratic party is fractured. A lot of people have also suggested that she could run in 2016. I say not a chance. Let’s assume Obama wins re-election in 2012. The odds are HEAVILY against another Democrat winning election in 2016. Bush Senior won election after Reagan, but only because Reagan was so popular. Obama, if he manages to win in 2012, will not be so popular. Anti-Democrat sentiment would be running far too high for any Democrat to follow Obama in 2016. 2020 is out of the cards. She’ll be 72 by then, 73 by the time November rolls around. Basically the same age McCain was in 2008. Age will be a factor, and Hillary knows that.
The only other scenario where Hillary might have a shot at the Presidency is if a Republican wins in 2012, and then Hillary runs in 2016. This is a viable possibility, but it’s a huge risk for Hillary for two reasons.
First, Hillary cannot predict who might ultimately win for the Republicans. A strong Republican candidate is unlikely to be unseated midstream, and Hillary knows that.
Second, there is no guarantee that a Republican will actually beat Obama in 2012, especially if it’s one of the soggy mayo sandwich Republicans. So hoping a Republican beats Obama in 2012 so that Hillary can run and win in 2016 seems like a big gamble for her.
All scenarios laid out in front of me, it seems the one in which Hillary has the most control is challenging Obama in 2012.
Now, in order to do that, two things still need to happen.
One, Republicans must score a resounding victory this fall to fracture the Democrat party.
And two, Obama must make another high-profile blunder with regards to foreign policy, which will give Hillary a great reason to publically split from Obama and blast him for it. I just happen to think that both of these things are going to happen.
And that’s going to give Hillary the perfect opportunity. I guarantee she’s already priming herself for the possibility. Her interview on that foreign news station in which she tied Obama directly to the Arizona lawsuit… Carville’s decision to not sit on the poll results which label Obama a “socialist”… Bill is supporting candidates in opposition to the White House… she is carefully placing her chess pieces and waiting for a moment to strike. A few more things working in her favor: * An endorsement by Bill Clinton holds more weight with independents than any other major politician on either side of the aisle. * Hillary’s approval rating is still in the high 50s/low 60s. * Less than one month ago, a Rasmussen survey found that more voters felt Hillary was qualified to be President than Barack Obama, and also more than Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, or Sarah Palin. Her number was 57% — fairly solid. *
As I mentioned before, over half the country now believes the word “socialist” is an accurate descriptor of Obama. That is not good for him. * 60% of Americans (and climbing) feel that Iran poses a critical threat to U.S. Interests (according to Gallup). Obama’s foreign policy approach to Iran is much different than the one Hillary describe in the primaries. I believe Iran would make a perfect reason for Hillary to resign and attack Obama.
So, there are my reasons for thinking Hillary is at least 50/50 on running in 2012, if not more. I don’t think Hillary will challenge Obama in 2012 unless she KNOWS she can win. So if she runs in the primary, I think she’ll secure the nomination. It’s also possible that Obama doesn’t even run for re-election and just hands the nomination to Hillary.
Does that mean she will win the national election? No, not necessarily, but it does depend heavily on who the GOP puts up.
I think Hillary’s numbers at present are PLENTY strong, especially after investigating for the latest figures. I think she has largely escaped the negative stigma of Obama’s decisions. I know some disagree with me on that point, but so far I don’t see that opinion reflected in the numbers. Based on the numbers I see, I think Hillary would be a solid contender against any candidate. But if the GOP puts up a weak contender — and given their history, I won’t be surprised if they do — then Hillary would win handily.
So that’s it. I see the dominoes aligning. There’s still a LOT that could happen, and a number of things that have to fall into place in order for Hillary to run and win, but it seems just as plausible to me, considering the evidence at this point in time, as any other scenario.
Would you like to report on your part of the country and what's happening there, and become a local essayist for us?
Here’s something we’d like to put out there to any takers — because we’d like to keep getting an increasingly better picture of what’s really going on across the country on the ground.
Would you like to report on what’s happening in your part of the nation, in-depth, and start writing us a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, whenever you can do it report on things you notice around town that you believe connect to what’s REALLY happening in our economy and how the political tides are REALLY turning?
Here’s how we’d suggest you do it, which is the way we do things here:
(1) Go to Staples or somewhere that has them cheap, and pick up a case of little pocket notebooks and a whole bunch of pens
(2) Start making it a habit to carry a little notebook and pen wherever you go…don’t leave home without it, just like you wouldn’t leave home without your wallet. Make it a part of you.
(3) Whenever you are walking around town, and you see something that’s interesting politically, write it in the notebook. Try to think about what larger national issues whatever you saw can connect to.
(4) When you have some free time, sit at your computer with your little notebook. Look through the things you wrote about in the last few days, then think about how you can form them into an essay about what’s going on in your particular neck of the woods.
(5) Keep it between 500-1200 words, put your personality into it, and send it to us.
Hell, send it to your local papers and national media too.
Send it to your Congresscritters.
Send it to the White House.
Send it to all your neighbors, friends, family, etc.
The more people we can activate on a national level…who will take the step from being political observers and become political activists…who will report on what the Media’s refusing to report…the more regular Americans we can mobilize against the Left and save this country.
This is one little thing you can start doing, that won’t cost you very much at all, aside from a little time and a few pens and notebooks.
You’re already a citizen journalist if you’ve been a longtime poster or reader here. You just don’t know it yet. Can we nudge you into discovering what an impact you could potentially have if you start reporting on your world around you?
QUESTION: Could what happened to the Shah be happening to AwkwardDinnerJacket in Iran right now?
Here’s an interesting article over at Forbes that talks about Iran’s merchant class.
The are called “The Bazaari”, and constitute the businessmen who run the city centers in Iran.
These people plotted against the Shah, and ultimately caused his downfall. The article describes the warrens of bazaars in Iran as being a perfect incubator for revolution. That’s what happened in 1979…and the author says that’s what’s happening in Iran now.
Though it all appears directed against AwkwdardDinnerJacket (we are officially no longer bothering to look up the correct spelling of his name every time we need to write it, and will instead pull a George W. and give him a nickname to save us all that time) and not at the Islamic regime itself. What really needs to happen is for these Bazaaris to turn against the Ayatollahs, and for regular Iranians to move en masse against the religious police and other fanatical elements keeping the Ayatollahs in power.
This is a very interesting development because according to the article Israel won’t even need to launch an attack on Iran for the government to collapse. It’s going to collapse on its own, apparently.
If the Bazaaris have anything to do with it, like they did against the Shah.
It’s called “Going Galt”, and it looks like it could really shake things up in Tehran.
Here’s hoping.
The Washington Post claims it is "too busy" to write about the Obama Administration's racist application of voting rights laws
Seriously.
The Washington Post is really claiming it was “too busy” to write about the Obama Administration’s racist approach to voting rights in this country.
Too busy.
Couldn’t they get an intern or something to follow the story of the Black Panthers, working to elect Obama “the historic and unprecedented first black president” no matter what it took to get him into office, using illegal intimidation and patented Chicago thug tactics at polling places in Philadelphia (and all across the country in the bigger picture). After Obama took office, an edict came down from the White House, through the racist Holder Justice Department, that no Obama supporters should be prosecuted for voting-related crimes. This blanket amnesty for all Obama operatives should be investigated thoroughly by the incoming Republican-controlled Congress in 2011. Someone should go to jail for this — and Eric Holder should be removed from office, kicking and screaming and wailing “RAAAACISM!” if need be.
When black people do bad, illegal things, they should not get away with them just because they are black. The race cards all expired at 12 noon on January 20th, 2009. It’s ridiculous to claim, as Eric Holder’s Justice Department does, that black people should not be prosecuted for crimes because hundreds of years ago some of their ancestors were slaves. Well, what about all of the indentured white servants brought to America, all the prisoners shipped off to the colonies against their will, and all others who suffered hardships through the years. Do all of their descendents get a free pass from the Holder Justice Department, or just the black ones?
There REALLY wasn’t ANYONE at the Washington Post who could cover this story?
Not even a part-time janitor who’d have volunteered on his days off to maybe write a paragraph or two about this at the local library and then email it to the editor so there’d be SOME coverage of it?
The lengths the Left goes to in protecting this “president” and his corrupt, dangerous, Constitution-be-damned Administration are sickening.
Ultimately, the Media’s going to destroy itself by carrying all this dirty water for Obama. Regular people are going to keep waking up, and will one day rise up against the Left for lying to them by omission in cases like this. For too long a large swath of the public has deliberately tried to ignore how unbalanced the news is in this country. Though they know the people at papers like The Post are shameless Leftists, they try to believe these people remain professionals…and will not DELIBERATELY try to squash important stories just because it makes their boyfriend in the White House look bad.
Well, The Post is proving that the Media we have today is nothing but the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, which is now controlled 100% by the Left.
We don’t know what that’s going to mean for the Media in the future, but once it has completely lost the public’s trust, there will just be no going back.
QUESTION: What would you do if you received a complaint like this?
Here in Chicago, the Cook County GOP is spending this weekend grappling with a lot of uncomfortable questions regarding the cover-up of a sex scandal involving the Chicago Young Republicans politically-flavored social networking organization.
The cover-up involves Lee Roupas, the Cook County GOP Chair, and his decision to hire a young man to work for the Cook County GOP after Roupas received a complaint about the man attempting to force himself sexually upon a young female member of the CYRs.
Roupas received his complaint verbally in July/August 2009 (and there’s an affidavit from a local Chicago attorney that confirms this), but never conducted an investigation into the charges made against this man, nicknamed in Chicago political circles as “The Prophet” (because of his delusions of grandeur and cultish hold over at least one very wealthy Chicago millionairess). In December 2009, Roupas hired “The Prophet” to a high-paying position as his second in command in the Cook County GOP…despite having received this complaint about him in July/August 2009.
Is this something a reasonable person would do?
Roupas claims he never conducted an investigation into the complaint, but hired “The Prophet” to this important position anyway. Shouldn’t that telephone call have come up in the job interview, at the very least?
Roupas has also been lying about when he “received” the complaint, claiming he didn’t “receive” it until it was attached to a letter sent to him on June 11th, 2010. But, checking with several lawyers here in Chicago, we’ve learned the legal definition of “received” includes being told the contents of the complaint in a telephone call in July/August 2009. ”Receiving” information over the telephone qualifies as “receiving” that complaint for all legal intents and purposes. No matter how much Roupas tries to obfuscate that.
We wonder if it’s reasonable for someone in Roupas’ position to hire “The Prophet” without having first conducted an investigation into the complaint Roupas received about him several months before he was hired.
Would you have hired a man to an important job (without conducting an investigation into a complaint you received about him) if you were told he did the following to a young woman in June of 2009:
* plied her with drinks to get her back to his apartment
* at her apartment, tried to get more drinks into her
* made it clear he intended to have sex with her, despite the fact she told him that’s not what she wanted
* when she said she wanted to leave, and asked for help getting a cab to take her home at night, refused to get her a cab
* when she pulled out her phone to call for a cab, he took her phone away so she could not call for help
* when she tried to get up to leave, he pushed her back on the couch and sat on top of her so she could not leave
If someone called you on the phone and told you a person you knew did these things, would you have hired that man without investigating this complaint against him?
Would you have done what Lee Roupas did?
How would you (and the definition of a reasonable person) have handled this situation?
Sunday Open Thread: July 18th, 2010 (With Special Prayer Request)
What’s on your minds this Sunday?
What are people in your part of the country talking about?
What are you doing today to help the Resistance to the Left?
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We have a special request for you today — and that is, if you would, to please pray for PUMApac founder Darragh Murphy and her family, as she lost her father to cancer yesterday. Murphy is one of the most stand-up, bravest, and take-n0-prisoners Americans we know. Her father had to have had a hand in making her the woman she is today…and today we ask you to send some prayers out for the soul of a man who raised a mighty impressive daughter who’s had a big hand in nudging the Resistance to the Left and Obama’s personal brand of socialism.
Please pray for America too, while you are at it — especially that more Americans wake up and find the courage to do the unprecedented in their lives, just like Darragh Murphy herself did in 2008. Stand up, fight back, Resist the Left at every turn, get the truth about this administration out, no matter how much the Left tries to stop you.
RESEARCH HELP: We need the names and contact information for the 168 RNC members and all Illinois GOP Committeemen
Yesterday, Cook County GOP Chairman Lee Roupas dispatched an email in which he lied about the date he learned of a complaint filed against a current Cook County GOP employee. Roupas stated that he did not “receive” this complaint until after June 11th, 2010 because Roupas hired the man named in this complaint (nicknamed in Chicago circles as “The Prophet”) as his subordinate in the Cook County GOP (and Roupas needed to say that to be able to justify that hire, of his personal friend and drinking buddy, without launching an investigation into the complaint to determine whether this man did the horrific things the complaint describes). The email Roupas dispatched on 7/16/10 was sent to all Cook County GOP Committeemen, quelling the growing fears in their ranks that Roupas and the other “Romney Guys” surrounding him were driving the GOP’s chances off a cliff for November with a fumbling, bumbling cover-up of this complaint.
Last night, we secured an affidavit from a prominent Chicago Republican of unimpeachable authority in which this attorney, no less, will swear under oath that he telephoned Lee Roupas in July/August 2009 to inform him of the complaint made against ‘The Prophet”. Roupas received the complaint verbally from this Chicago attorney at that time, a full year before he misrepresented the facts in his email of 7/16/10.
As acting Cook County GOP Chair, Lee Roupas deliberately structured his email around the word “received” — as in, he’s very lawyerly using the word “received” to somehow, outrageously, imply he had no knowledge of the complaint and didn’t know, word for word, what was in it because he didn’t “physically receive” the complaint until some time after June 11th, 2010.
A casual reader of Roupas’ email would come away with the belief that he had no idea what was going on; in reality, Roupas verbally received the complaint a full year before he is owning up to in that email yesterday. He is trying to obscure the fact that he hired “The Prophet” to a high-paid position in the GOP after verbally receiving the complaint against him, but never launching an investigation into the matter and determining whether or not this person was who should be representing the GOP to voters in Cook County.
We need the names and contact information for all 168 RNC members nationwide, and all GOP Committeemen in the state of Illinois.
We are preparing a timeline of events surrounding the complaint filed against “The Prophet”, and the steps Lee Roupas took to protect this personal friend and drinking buddy. Roupas initiated a cover-up of this complaint that included a declaration of open war upon truthteller Eloise Gerson, the Chicago GOP Chair who received the complaint against “The Prophet” on June 11th, 2010 — and immediately demanded a full and thorough investigation into what “The Prophet” was doing to young women in the politically-flavored social networking club known as the Chicago Young Republicans.
Roupas schemed with others in the GOP sausagefest to oust Gerson from her Chair in Chicago for daring to call for an investigation.
He has been caught in a clumsy and bold-faced lie, and the RNC members and the Illinois Committee members need to know all the facts…and each one of them needs to go on record and tell the public whether or not they believe Lee Roupas should remain the Cook County GOP Chair if he lies so blatantly in direct messages to his own Committeemen.
Roupas, “The Prophet”, and other “Romney Guys” surrounding him have circled the wagons to protect one of their own — and are jerking Committeemen around in their denials of wrongdoing, giving an incredibly bad name to Illinois Republicans in an election year.
This needs to be dealt with immediately.
We do not see a plausible scenario where Lee Roupas should be allowed to continue as Cook County GOP Chair after he lied in that email yesterday. His frat party in Chicago has been busted wide open…and the grownups of the GOP nationally need to swoop in, and sweep out the trash to clean things up before November if any of them have any hope at all of Bill Brady and Mark Kirk winning their statewide elections.
Please help us get the names and contact info for the people who need to know the whole story of what is going on here in Chicago. If we can get all of this before 5pm or so today, we’d still have enough time to get FedExes out to all of these people with the material we are working on, so they’ll have hard copies of everything in addition to any emails we’d be able to send them and links to the articles we’ve already run on the Chicago Young Republican sex scandal and Cook County GOP cover-up.
Republicans have to stop play the Lee Roupas lie-and-deny game. They need to man-up, deal with their mess, and show voters in Illinois what they think is acceptable behavior in a GOP county chair.
We have a very limited window of opportunity for the GOP to get in front of this scandal and make things right before Democrats play catchup and use all of this against Republicans to save the flailing Pat Quinn and Alexi Giannoulias campaigns.
Since all the men involved in this cover-up in Chicago are “Romney Guys”, maybe someone with connections to Mitt Romney himself can make sure he personally knows what Lee Roupas, “The Prophet”, and others have been up to in Illinois…since these are the men who would have presumably headed-up a Romney 2012 office in Chicago in the future. We doubt Romney would stand for such lying on the part of a county chair, and would not allow someone like ‘The Prophet” to remain on his staff.
So, if even Romney himself would not abide by any of this, then why is the GOP at large?
We need to ask that question of all 168 RNC members and all the Illinois Committeemen today…and we need your help to get all of their names and contact information to do it. With your help, we hopefully can get this entire scandal contained and remedied by the middle of next week.
The sooner the better for GOP prospects in Illinois in the fall.
Saturday Open Thread: July 17th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Saturday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
What’s something you are going to do today to pressure the GOP to take ownership of the sex scandal and cover-up ongoing in Chicago, come clean about everything that’s happened, remove those involved from office, and prove to Illinois voters that while Republicans might not be perfect and do royally screw up with unforced errors, at least they have the decency and ethics to purge bad apples and set a new, better, less frat boy “Romney Guy” course.
If Republicans keep doing the same things over and over again, but expecting different results, they will never turn Illinois from blue to red.
If Republicans learn to clean house, like Governor Sarah Palin did in Alaska and Governors Chris Christie and Jan Brewer are doing in New Jersey and Arizona, respectively, then conservatives, independents, and even moderate Democrats will have a fresh, viable, EXCITING new alternative to vote for in a state riddled with cronyism, abuse of power, scandals, cover-ups, and “Romney Guys”.
The choice is clear…but we need you to help us send the message to Republicans nationally that all eyes need to be on Chicago and the Cook County GOP until Lee Roupas is forced to resign for covering-up a sex scandal to help his drinking buddy and save some face. The cover-up in all of this is the real issue, even more so than the attempted assault on a young woman forever turned off political involvement because of the bad experience she had with a protected Cook County GOP employee.
Calling Michael Steele…if you are at all capable of cracking some skulls, you need to get yourself on a plane lickety-split and come down to Chicago with a mop, broom, and some disinfectant because we can no longer tell Republicans from Democrats in how those representing the GOP in Obama’s hometown behave.
If that’s not the very worst thing ever said about the Republican Party, we don’t know what is.
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