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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 15, 2022 15:20:50 GMT
Throwing this in here. I was reading about how DeSantis is now using kids, including his own, as props in photo ops. Normally it is for thing that are fun and good for kids. He uses them for anti- abortion bills, 'stop the gay' where the kids appear to be puzzled why they are there
While I was looking at this one with his kids... Look at the second one, a gif. Talk about unwanted contact and Ted Cruz.....
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 15, 2022 15:24:21 GMT
Gets better...
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Post by dizzycheermom on Apr 15, 2022 15:38:04 GMT
April 14, 2022 Heather Cox Richardson Apr 15 Comment Share Today’s stories illuminate the increasingly dangerous international struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. On the world stage, that struggle is most visible these days in the invasion of democratic Ukraine by the authoritarian president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Putin apparently believed his invasion would be a cakewalk, but we are now in day 51 of Putin’s brutal attack, and while Ukraine is badly battered, it is holding strong. Yesterday, Ukrainian Neptune missiles sank Russia’s flagship cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea. The humiliation of losing a flagship to Ukraine prompted Russian state propaganda first to claim that the ship sank from an accident and then to insist that their real enemy in the war was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an organization Russian leaders consider significant enough to struggle with, unlike “weak” Ukraine. A study out today from political scientists Ryan Grauer and Dominic Tierney reveals why democracies have an advantage over authoritarians in war. The sharing of power across officials in the legislature, judiciary, and executive branches means there is more open debate, reducing the chance of unpopular wars and, by extension, bad decisions. Observers of Russia, for example, blame the loss of the Moskva, as well as the miscalculation of Ukraine’s ability to fight, on a refusal to take accounts of Ukraine’s abilities seriously. Grauer and Tierney also note that the ability of people in a democracy to protest means leaders cannot fight unpopular wars and stay in power, and that democratic countries do not tend to go to war with other democracies. Grauer and Tierney argue that the need to gain public support for wars makes it hard for democratic leaders to fight other democracies toward which their people might have good feelings, or that can put up strong resistance. That speaks to the ability of democracies to work together, and Grauer and Tierney’s study helps to explain why Russia’s war of choice against a democratic neighbor has strengthened the alliances of those countries committed to national self-determination. Finland and Sweden, which have not previously expressed an interest in joining NATO, are now so seriously considering it that today a Russian spokesperson warned that if they did so, Russia would move nuclear weapons closer to Europe. Finnish former prime minister Alexander Stubb said his country was already “well prepared” for any Russian actions. Yesterday, in a speech at the Atlantic Council, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted the multilateral cooperation that has enabled countries across the world to isolate Russia economically. Countries have joined together, she said, not to advance any one country’s foreign policy objectives, but “in support of our principles—our opposition to aggression, to widespread violence against civilians, and in alignment with our commitment to a rules-based global order that protects peace and prosperity.” “Going forward,” the treasury secretary said, “it will be increasingly difficult to separate economic issues from broader considerations of national interest, including national security.” She warned China that it runs the risk of being shut out of this system if it refuses to stand against Russia’s invasion. Yellen promised that countries would work together to address the food shortages the war would bring to developing nations, and called for allied nations to expand their economic alliances for the twenty-first century. She called for limiting supply chains to “countries we know we can count on” and for developing trade and data exchanges with those same countries in such a way as to protect American workers. She called for building on last year’s global minimum tax deal to enable governments to tax corporations without encouraging them to move to cheaper countries, for more financial flexibility to combat financial crises, and for more investment in the developing world. She urged a global transition to cleaner energy and the strengthening of our global health systems to combat future pandemics. “Some may say that now is not the right time to think big,” Yellen said, but she noted that Treasury officials began crafting proposals for a new postwar international financial structure in 1941, even before the U.S. entered World War II. In 1944, with the war still raging, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: “It is fitting that even while the war for liberation is at its peak, [we] should gather to take counsel with one another respecting the shape of the future which we are to win.” Just like then, Yellen said, “we ought not wait for a new normal. We should begin to shape a better future today.” Democracies are at risk from authoritarianism today in large part because centralizing power in a few wealthy people permits those people to continue to pocket disproportionate shares of the national wealth. A study released yesterday by ProPublica of leaked tax documents from the Internal Revenue Service revealed how our current laws permit the very wealthy to sidestep taxes and amass greater and greater wealth. According to Forbes, the wealth of the richest 25 Americans rose more than $400 billion from 2014 to 2018, giving them a combined wealth of $1.1 trillion. It would take the wealth of 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners to get to that number. During those years, those 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes, a true tax rate of 3.4%. Those with virtually unlimited money can buy the tools to spread propaganda in favor of their position. That concern is behind the fight over “free speech” that right-wing leaders have launched against social media platforms that have excluded their lies and calls for violence. It is also behind the outcry today over the proposal of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, allegedly the richest man in the world, to buy Twitter for a cash offer of $43 billion in a hostile takeover of the popular platform. (According to ProPublica, Musk paid no income tax in 2018.) Musk says he wants to own the platform himself to make it more “broadly inclusive,” because he believes that inclusion is “extremely important to the future of civilization…. I don’t care about the economics at all.” Musk’s call for “free speech” is perceived to be a sign that he would reopen the platform to former president Donald Trump and others currently banned from it because of their lies about the January 6 insurrection. Right-wing politicians lauded the potential purchase, while journalists, who use the platform intensively to keep track of breaking stories, mulled whether they could stay if it becomes a haven for the right wing. That right wing appears to be dominating the United States these days as the Republican Party has traded power for defense of democracy. Yesterday, CNN reported that a new book about the last days of the Trump presidency says that then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indulged Trump’s attempt to overturn the election in order to get Trump’s help in the Georgia runoff election for the Senate so that the Republicans could stay in power there. The Big Lie that Trump had really won the election has now become a litmus test for party members, as he is tightening his grip on the Republican Party. Today, in a clear indication that party leaders intend to hold the door open for a 2024 presidential run for Trump or someone like him, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously to withdraw from debates sponsored by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates. Trump repeatedly insisted the 2020 presidential debates, even the one hosted by Fox News Channel journalist Chris Wallace, were biased against him. Trump hates debates not least because his knowledge of political topics is weak; in an interview on Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show last night, Trump appeared not to understand the difference between NATO—a defensive alliance of 30 member states including the Baltic states and the U.S.—and the European Union, a political and economic union of 27 member states primarily located in Europe. In a discussion about NATO, he claimed to have asked then-German chancellor Angela Merkel: “How many Chevrolets are you selling this month in Munich or Berlin?” He added: “she looked at me and [said,] ‘Well, probably none.’” In the same interview, Trump refused to condemn Putin and appeared to blame NATO for the invasion. — Notes: Twitter avatar for @radiofreetom Tom Nichols @radiofreetom Also, notice how hot they are to make this about NATO. In their world, losing to NATO is losing to a peer, the real humiliation is that they’re losing to Ukraine. That’s why they need to keep losing to Ukraine. t.co/0mxPujX1cOJulia Davis @juliadavisnews Kyiv sank 'Moscow' and the Russians are furious. In response to the sinking of the warship 'Moskva,' state TV pundits and hosts propose bombing Kyiv, destroying Ukraine's railways and making it impossible for any world leaders to visit in the future. t.co/OekII2fbPeApril 15th 2022 714 Retweets2,988 Likes www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/14/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-bid/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/14/please-elon-musk-buy-twitter/www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rnc-threatens-bar-candidates-participating-official-presidential-debates-n1287427Twitter avatar for @ryangrauer Ryan Grauer @ryangrauer Have you ever wondered if democracies engage in proxy war against one another? @domtierney and I have an answer! We investigate democratic support for rebels fighting other democracies since 1945 and find strong evidence of a democratic embargo. 1/3 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13… April 14th 2022 17 Retweets83 Likes Ryan Grauer and Dominic Tierney, “The Democratic Embargo: Regime Type and Proxy War,” April 14, 2022, in European Journal of International Relations. Twitter avatar for @capt_Navy Capt(N) @capt_Navy #war I think that the main conclusion from the destruction of the cruiser Moscow by a missile strike will be the miscalculations of the 🇷🇺Russian Navy in intelligence and, as a consequence, in the assessment of the 🇺🇦oppositional forces./1 Image April 14th 2022 1,140 Retweets7,295 Likes Twitter avatar for @christopherjm Christopher Miller @christopherjm Awaiting further confirmation but Maksym Marchenko, head of Odesa Regional Military Admin, claims Ukrainian Neptun missiles earlier today hit Russian cruiser "Moskva" of the Black Sea fleet. You may recall it as the warship that Kyiv's Snake Island defenders told to "fuck off." April 14th 2022 851 Retweets5,635 Likes home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0714www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-make-decision-nato-membership-coming-weeks-2022-04-13/www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-04-14-22www.businessinsider.com/finland-nato-former-pm-says-expects-russia-retaliation-is-prepared-2022-4www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-taxwww.cnn.com/2022/04/13/politics/mitch-mcconnell-trump-tension-book-excerpt/index.htmlwww.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-bond
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 15, 2022 16:09:17 GMT
I am becoming concerned about the survival of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Many women and children will survive in other countries who are sheltering them. Too many men/boys of all ages are at sever risk.
I worry that Putin will retaliate for the sinking of 'his' flagship, by total destruction of everything standing in Ukraine, people and buildings..It will look like the surface of the moon. Before Ukraine would be able to rebuild, Russia would occupy and destroy anything left...
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 15, 2022 18:48:25 GMT
Only the best... Surely not even after being fired by former!! Oh yes and he tried to get his wife set up with. Chick-fil-a franchise. Scandal-plagued former Trump official Scott Pruitt files to run for US SenateBrad Reed April 15, 2022 During his tenure as Trump's EPA chief, however, he was best known for becoming embroiled in numerous ethics controversies, such as when he gave a massive pay raise worth more than $50,000 a year to a longtime ally whom he'd brought on to the EPA.As The Washington Post wrote at the time of his departure from the White House, Pruitt's actions raised "questions about taxpayer-funded first-class travel, a discounted condominium rental from the wife of a D.C. lobbyist and the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office."www.rawstory.com/scott-pruitt-2657162900/ |
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Post by dizzycheermom on Apr 16, 2022 16:52:17 GMT
April 15, 2022 Heather Cox Richardson Apr 16 Comment Share Early in the morning of April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln breathed his last. The night before, he and his wife had gone to see a play—a comedy. One of the last men to talk to him before he left for the theater said it seemed the cares of the previous four years were melting away. The Confederacy was all but defeated, and the nation seemed to be on its way to a prosperous, inclusive new future. The bullet that killed Lincoln had been delivered by John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor poisoned by the belief that Lincoln’s use of the federal government to end human enslavement as a central part of the nation’s economy was tyranny. Since the 1830s, southern Democratic leaders had gotten around the sticky problem of the Declaration of Independence, with its insistence that “all men are created equal,” by insisting that democracy simply meant that men could elect their leaders at the state level. If voters chose to do unpopular things—like take Indigenous lands, enslave their Black neighbors, or impose taxes on Mexicans and Chinese and not on white men—that was their prerogative. Even if the vast majority of the U.S. population opposed those state laws, there was nothing the federal government could do to change them. The only thing the national government could do was to protect property, and that power was expansive: in 1859, enslavers would demand that the government take the extraordinary step of enforcing enslavement in the western territories. But, they insisted, the government had no power to do anything else. It could do nothing that the Framers had not enumerated in the Constitution, even if the vast majority of Americans wanted it to establish colleges for poor men, for example, or lay a road across the Cumberland Gap for western migrants, or dredge the harbors where trading schooners kept commerce flowing. To men like Lincoln, the men who organized the Republican Party, this simply made no sense. By its very nature, such an argument concentrated such wealth and power in a few men that the Republicans talked constantly of “oligarchy.” The point of a democratic government, they believed, was to answer the will of the majority of voters in the whole country. During the Civil War, the Republicans used the government to provide homesteads for settlers, create public colleges, distribute seeds (no small thing in an era when seeds were handed down in families and poor men often had no access to such legacies), charter a national railroad, invent national taxation, and—finally—end systemic human enslavement. This system was wildly popular, but those determined to retain control of their states insisted it was tyranny. No longer able to manipulate the political system in their favor, they turned to violence. “Sic semper tyrannis!”— thus always to tyrants— Booth yelled from the stage at Ford’s Theater, after pulling the trigger. The old Democratic argument for state’s rights has reemerged in the present-day Republican Party, and it has taken on many of the same contours as it had in the 1850s. Adherents are operating in a false reality, believing that their vision of the nation is the only correct one, and that they must impose their will on the rest of us, no matter what we want. As Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) tweeted on October 8, 2020, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospe[r]ity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.” That fear of democracy has brought us to the edge of losing our government. In an exclusive story today by Ryan Nobles, Annie Grayer, Zachary Cohen, and Jamie Gangel, CNN published 100 text messages between Senator Lee, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, and Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The messages were obtained by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. They show elected members of our government eager to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election in which a national majority of 7 million people had chosen Democrat Joe Biden as president. On November 7, acting on the false narrative the Trump administration had established months before that the election would be marked by fraud, Lee was one of a number of right-wing lawmakers and leaders who offered to Trump their "unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans faith in our elections." On November 9, Lee told Meadows he was working to bring senators around to the idea of challenging the election. Roy wrote that they needed evidence of fraud: “We need ammo. We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend.” Gradually, though, Lee and Roy became concerned that the administration was long on accusations and short on evidence. On November 19, Trump’s public legal team—Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Jenna Ellis—gave a press conference that was full of wild accusations, all of which were false, that might well have been designed simply to whip up Trump’s base for later attacks on the counting of electoral votes. (Trump’s team lost more than 60 lawsuits over the election, and when Dominion Voting Systems sued Powell for $1.3 billion over her accusations that their software flipped votes, her legal team argued that “reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact.”) In the wake of the conference, Lee worried that “the potential defamation liability for the president is significant here. For the campaign and the president personally. Unless Powell can back up everything she said, which I kind of doubt she can.” He believed the press conference was damaging enough that the president “should probably disassociate himself and refute any claims that can't be substantiated.” On November 22, he begged Meadows: “Please tell me what I should be saying.” Roy wrote: “If we don’t get logic and reason in this before 11/30—the GOP conference will bolt (all except the most hard core Trump guys).” Lee and Roy then turned to lawyer John Eastman’s plan to have states appoint “alternative slates of electors” in place of the legitimate, certified ones. By January 3, Lee specified that those new slates must be named “pursuant to state law,” and started calling state legislators. In the end, Lee and Roy came to see that the fight to keep Trump in power was unconstitutional. On December 31, Roy wrote: “The President should call everyone off. It's the only path. If we substitute the will of states through electors with a vote by Congress every 4 years...we have destroyed the electoral college... Respectfully.” On January 1, he added: “If POTUS allows this to occur...we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic….” On January 4, Roy had abandoned the attack on the federal government, but other Republicans persisted. Roy texted: “I am truly sorry I am in a different spot then you and our brothers re: Wednesday. But I will defend all.” On January 6, during the riot, he texted: “This is a sh*tshow…. Fix this now.” “We are,” Meadows texted. Later that night, 8 senators and 139 representatives nonetheless voted to challenge certified state electoral votes electing Biden. Since January 6, the Republican Party has shifted its focus to the states to undermine the federal government. Nineteen states have changed their election laws to enable Republicans to win their states regardless of the will of the voters, sending Republican electors to put a Republican president in place. Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s “originalist” majority, which denies the ability of the federal government to protect civil rights in the states, Florida, Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas have all overridden the constitutional right to abortion, and Republican lawmakers have indicated they are gunning for birth control and interracial marriage as well. Dramatically, in the last week. Texas governor Greg Abbott has effectively shut down international trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, explicitly asserting state power over national power and thus driving prices up all across the country. One hundred and fifty-seven years ago today, Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, stood heartbroken by the bedside of the man who had asserted the power of the federal government over the states and said, “Now he belongs to the ages.” — Notes: Twitter avatar for @muellershewrote Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote Since @senmikelee is back on the news, let’s remind everyone how much he openly hates democracy. Yes, this is real. Image April 15th 2022 1,799 Retweets4,317 Likes www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.htmlwww.cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/giuliani-trump-legal-team-press-briefing-fact-check/index.htmlwww.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/rudy-giuliani-press-conference-trump-election/2020/11/19/9192f928-2a9d-11eb-92b7-6ef17b3fe3b4_story.htmlhttps://apnews.com/article/dominion-lawsuit-sidney-powell-0031ce89ba24bdeae0402861e20ede69 www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/sidney-powells-legal-team-perhaps-kraken-wasnt-real-after-all/www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.htmlwww.nytimes.com/article/abortion-laws-us.htmlwww.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/read-mark-meadows-texts-mike-lee-chip-roy/index.html
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 16, 2022 20:08:56 GMT
Got a Covid PPP fraud collector of funds.. ... Fake CPA who bought a new home using money he got through federal Covid-19 relief funding sentenced to four years By Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken, CNN Updated 10:06 AM ET, Thu April 14, 2022 At his sentencing last week, James Theodore Polzin, 48, was also ordered to pay more than $2.2 million in restitution. He pleaded guilty to federal fraud and money laundering charges last year in connection with a scheme in which he filed a litany of phony loan applications claiming fake employees and revenues for business entities he owned and operated. *** Prior to charges being filed against Polzin, CNN reported that he had obtained at least six PPP loans worth roughly $1.2 million which were intended to help companies stay afloat during the pandemic. www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/business/polzin-ppp-loan-fraud-prison/index.html |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 16, 2022 20:43:31 GMT
Chip Roy trying. CYA on texts.. being called out, seems he went to a ball game ..
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 16, 2022 20:46:12 GMT
And another.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 17, 2022 15:15:22 GMT
04/17/22
Should this make us happy?
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 17, 2022 19:41:17 GMT
Rona Romney McDaniels has decided that they will not participate in the presidential debates sponsored by the long standing bipartisan committee. What part of bipartisan does she not understand? Right, the GQP doesn't accept that concept!! *** The GOP has not made it clear what kind of alternatives it would propose. According to The Wall Street Journal, the RNC is looking to “sanction debates based on input from presidential campaigns and criteria that may include timing, frequency, format, media outlet, candidate qualifications and the ‘best interest of the Republican Party.’” That last point is disturbing — it seems to suggest that the GOP might only propose debate forums that favor it in some sense. Which undermines the fundamental purpose of the debate, which is not to deliver propaganda to voters but to share one’s views and let voters decide which political vision they prefer. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/how-trump-could-benefit-republican-national-committee-s-latest-move-n1294481 |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 17, 2022 20:22:54 GMT
DeSantis does more. . Wait until done of his groomed students try to get into out of state colleges... Didn't GWB administration something to do with implementing Common Core? Ron DeSantis transforms Florida's Education Department into his Ministry of Propaganda in stunning moveRay Hartmann Commentary April 17, 2022 It isn’t every day that a presumably non-partisan state agency issues a press release with a headline reading like this: “FLORIDA REJECTS PUBLISHERS’ ATTEMPTS TO INDOCTRINATE STUDENTS."But that was the choice of the taxpayer-funded Florida Department of Education (FDOE) late Friday. The release -- apparently translated from the original Russian -- announced that state authorities “found 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics.” But that was the choice of the taxpayer-funded Florida Department of Education (FDOE) late Friday. The release -- apparently translated from the original Russian -- announced that state authorities “found 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics.” *** "It is unfortunate that several publishers, especially at the elementary school grade levels, have ignored this clear communication and have attempted to slip rebranded instructional materials based on Common Core Standards into Florida’s classrooms, while others have included prohibited and divisive concepts such as the tenants of CRT or other unsolicited strategies of indoctrination – despite FDOE’s prior notification.” Contrary to all that, Common Core is a state-level standards program -- used in some form by the majority of states in the nation -- that contains no curriculum content for indoctrinating anyone. Here’s a simple video from an Education Week reporter explaining the current state of the debate over Common Core. Here’s a “myths vs. facts” compilation from the Common Core website www.rawstory.com/florida-education-department/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 17, 2022 20:46:50 GMT
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Post by dizzycheermom on Apr 18, 2022 15:10:11 GMT
April 17, 2022 Heather Cox Richardson Apr 18 Comment Share Today, political scientist and member of the Russian legislative body Vyacheslav Nikonov said, “in reality, we embody the forces of good in the modern world because this clash is metaphysical…. We are on the side of good against the forces of absolute evil…. This is truly a holy war that we’re waging, and we have to win it and of course we will because our cause is just. We have no other choice. Our cause is not only just, our cause is righteous and victory will certainly be ours.” Nikonov was defending the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Russian troops have leveled cities, killed thousands, kidnapped children, and raped and tortured Ukrainian citizens. The intellectual leap from committing war crimes to claiming to be on the side of good might be explained by an interview published in the New Statesman at the beginning of April. Speaking with former Portuguese secretary of state for European affairs Bruno Maçães, Sergey Karaganov, a former advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin, predicted the end of the western democracies that have shaped the world since World War II. Dictators, he suggested, will take over. Democracy is failing and authoritarianism rising, Karaganov said, because of democracy’s bad moral foundations. As he put it: “Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation.” Karaganov’s statement says a lot about why white evangelicals in the U.S. are willing to toss democracy overboard in favor of a one-party state dominated by one powerful leader. They deny the premise of a system in which all people are equal before the law and have the right to have a say in their government. Putin cemented his rise to power in 2013 with antigay laws that supporters claimed defended conservative values against an assault of “genderless and fruitless so-called tolerance,” which “equals good and evil.” Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, an ally of Putin’s, has been open about his determination to replace the multiculturalism at the heart of democracy with Christian culture, stop the immigration that he believes undermines Hungarian culture, and reject “adaptable family models” for “the Christian family model.” The American right has embraced this attack on our system. In October 2021, former vice president Mike Pence spoke in Budapest at a forum denouncing immigration and urging traditional social values, where he told the audience he hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would soon outlaw abortion thanks to the three justices Trump put on the court. Next month, the American Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will be held in Budapest, Hungary; Orbán will be the keynote speaker. Increasingly, Republican lawmakers have called not for the U.S. government to leave business alone, as was their position under President Ronald Reagan, but to use government power to crack down on “woke” businesses they insist are undermining the policies they value—meaning companies that protect LGBTQ rights, racial justice, reproductive choice, and access to the ballot. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis and his supporters have threatened Disney for its mild defense of LGBTQ rights, insisting the company grooms children for sexual abuse, and Texas Republicans are considering barring local governments from doing business with any national company that provides abortion coverage for its employees. To achieve such control in a country where they are a minority, they are skewing the electoral system to install a one-party government. Just like Orbán’s government in Hungary, and Putin’s in Russia, the one-party government they envision will benefit a very small group of wealthy people: witness the Russian oligarchs whose yachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars are being impounded all over the world. And, just like those governments, it will be overseen by a strongman, who will continue to insist that his opponents are immoral. But here’s the thing: Democracy is a moral position. Defending the right of human beings to control their own lives is a moral position. Treating everyone equally before the law is a moral position. Insisting that everyone has a right to have a say in their government is a moral position. This moral position is hardly some newfangled radicalism. It is profoundly conservative. It is the fundamental principle on which our country has been based for almost 250 years. In 1776, the nation’s Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all people “are created equal…[and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….” They asserted that governments are legitimate only if those they govern consent to them. The Founders did not live these principles, of course; they preserved the racial, gender, and wealth inequality that enabled them to imagine a world in which white men of property were all equal. But after World War II, Americans tried to bring these principles to life. It is this attempt for America to realize its ideals that the radicals on the right want to overturn. After World War II, the Supreme Court began to insist that all Americans really do have a right to self-determination and that they must be treated equally before the law. Using the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that no state can “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it began to upend longstanding racial, gender, class, and religious hierarchies. It said, for example, that the promise of equality before the law meant that people of color had a right to a jury that was not made up exclusively of white people, that Black and Brown kids had a right to attend the same public schools as their white neighbors, and that white Americans could not kill or assault Black Americans without consequences. It decided that states could not privilege one race or one religion over another and that people have the right to marry whom they wish, across racial and gender lines. It decided that people themselves, not the state, had a right to plan their families. Then, to ensure that states were truly democratic, in 1965, Congress protected the right of all Americans to vote, giving them an equal say in their government and bringing to life the concept in the Declaration of Independence that governments are legitimate only when they derive their power from the consent of the governed. Americans who had seen the horrors of the Holocaust—which was, after all, the logical and ultimate outcome of a society based on hierarchies—saw their defense of equality as a moral position. It recognizes the inherent worth of individuals without privileging one race, one gender, one religion, or the wealthy. It works to bring the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to life, stopping the violence that certain white Christian men in the past visited on those they could dominate with impunity. Those radicals who are now taking away the right of self-determination, the right to equality before the law, and the right to vote because they are “questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation” are launching a fundamental attack on our nation. In his day, responding to a similar attack, Abraham Lincoln noted that accepting the idea of inequality was an act of destruction that would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” Arguments based in the idea that some people are not capable of making their own decisions “are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” Lincoln said in 1858. “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it[,] where will it stop…. If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out[.]” — Notes: Twitter avatar for @juliadavisnews Julia Davis @juliadavisnews Deputy of the State Duma Vyacheslav Nikonov (a grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov) claimed: “In the modern world, we are the embodiment of the forces of good. This is a metaphysical clash between the forces of good and evil... This is truly a holy war we're waging and we must win.” Image April 17th 2022 700 Retweets1,455 Likes www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/12/vladimir-putin-defends-russia-anti-gay-conservatismwww.reuters.com/world/us/us-conservative-conference-with-hungarys-hardline-leader-reflects-republican-2022-04-05/www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/desantis-disney-dont-say-gay-repeal-00021389www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/business/citigroup-abortion-texas-warning.htmlAbraham Lincoln, July 10,1858, at: quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:526 |
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Post by kmcginn on Apr 18, 2022 17:13:26 GMT
Just to be clear, these are MATH textbooks. Why would Math books have anything to do with CRT? The man is batsh*t crazy!
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 18, 2022 17:22:59 GMT
Just to be clear, these are MATH textbooks. Why would Math books have anything to do with CRT? The man is batsh*t crazy! That seems to be what they are saying, but.... They may also have provided the higher number for all textbooks to make it look worse. I doubt that there are any problems with that many books at all. It is all in their otherwise empty heads/brains.CNN has just been discussing it being the MATH books... |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 18, 2022 20:14:00 GMT
JD Vance former endorsed candidate for US Senate seat. Posted by his Vance's law school roommate.
You will have to click on the tweet to see the full quoted piece in the tweet. Calling former "America's Hitler"
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 18, 2022 21:33:00 GMT
So... Jen Psaki was asked about McCarthy saying Biden should have given more to Ukraine...
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 18, 2022 21:37:42 GMT
Laughter could be heard...
On Monday, Doocy asked about the mask mandates on planes and the recent ruling by a conservative judge to eliminate the mask mandate while traveling.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 18, 2022 23:14:38 GMT
Conspiracy claims birds are really drones.. ok, sure wish the drones would stop pooping on my car, particularly the windows!!! 'Birds Aren’t Real': How a mock conspiracy theory caught on with the far rightAlex Henderson, AlterNet April 18, 2022 When Arkansas native turned Memphis resident Peter McIndoe invented the Birds Aren’t Real conspiracy theory in January 2017 — the month of former President Donald Trump’s inauguration — he was making fun of far-right conspiracy theorists. It was an exercise in political satire; McIndoe, now 23, was mocking the type of MAGA Republicans who listen to listen to Alex Jones’ “Infowars” and embrace Pizzagate and other ludicrous conspiracy theories. But Birds Aren’t Real caught on, and according to The Guardian’s Zoe Williams, some conspiracy theorists on the far right actually take it seriously. Birds Aren’t Real claims that the “Deep State” killed off all of the real birds in the United States and replaced them with drones that are made to look like birds — and the drones are being used to spy on Americans. McIndoe never really believed that, but he found that some far-right conspiracy theorists took him seriously and believed that all the birds flying around were drones. McIndoe, Williams notes, unveiled his Birds Aren’t Real claims at a rally in Memphis in January 2017. “Someone was filming him and put it on Facebook,” Williams explains. “It went viral, and Memphis is still .... *** The audience for far-right conspiracy theories only grew during Trump’s four years in the White House, from QAnon to the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. And according to Williams, Birds Aren’t Real is “the most perfect, playful distillation of where we are in relation to the media landscape we’ve built but can’t control, and which only half of us can find our way around.” *** www.rawstory.com/birds-arent-real-how-a-mock-conspiracy-theory-caught-on-with-the-far-right/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 16:36:23 GMT
Recently retired Admiral Ronny Jackson allegedly had protection by insurrectionists during Jan 6th.. why has he not been recalled for possible Court Martial? www.rawstory.com/ronny-jackson-jan-6/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 17:03:29 GMT
Couldn't happen to a 'better' person!!! A federal judge is allowing a constitutional challenge to U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's ability to serve in Congress, and the Republican lawmaker from Georgia is outraged. Times Monday reported that "Greene’s critics have said that she frequently referred to efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results as 'our 1776 moment' in public comments that led up to the riot at the Capitol. They contend that the phrase was a code used to incite violence, and point to the third section of the 14th Amendment in their argument to drop her from the ballot." In her ruling Monday Judge Amy Totenberg wrote: “This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import.” “The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case — especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track — has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here particularly demanding.” www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-furious-she-will-actually-be-questioned-after-judge-allows-a-constitutional-challenge-to-her-candidacy/ |
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Post by dizzycheermom on Apr 19, 2022 17:14:22 GMT
April 18, 2022 Heather Cox Richardson Apr 19 Comment Share Today is tax day, since public workers in Washington, D.C., got April 15, our usual tax day, off to celebrate Emancipation Day. That holiday honors April 16, the day that President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 signed the law emancipating enslaved Black Americans in the nation’s capital. The Biden administration used the occasion of tax day to highlight the difference between its tax policies and those of the current Republican Party. Biden is calling for making “billionaires and large corporations pay their fair share” and “ensur[ing] no one making under $400,000 a year pays a penny more in taxes.” The Republicans have offered only Florida senator Rick Scott’s “11-Point Plan to Rescue America,” which calls for imposing taxes on the 57% of Americans who made too little during the pandemic to pay income taxes, as well as getting rid of all legislation after five years, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that Scott’s tax policy would increase taxes on the nation’s poorest 40% by more than $1000 on average. The states hit hardest are in the South: Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Florida. Since the American Civil War, deciding who pays taxes—and for what—has been shorthand for who belongs in our nation and what we care about. Curiously, Biden’s policies echo those of the early Republican Party. The Republicans invented our national income taxes during the Civil War. As costs for uniforms, guns, food, mules, wagons, bounties, and burials rose to as much as $2 million a day, Congress recognized the need to raise money to cover the debts the United States was incurring. Ordinary Americans, who were terrified of the inflation that had come with the “rag paper” money of the American Revolution, told the government that there was “not the slightest objection raised in any loyal quarter to as much taxation as may be necessary.” So Congress turned to manufacturing taxes, which essentially turned into sales taxes, of 3% on all manufactured goods. Those taxes would not be enough to stabilize the economy, and members of Congress knew the taxes could not be raised higher without unduly burdening farmers and workers. So, to make sure that tax burdens would “be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” they invented the U.S. income tax to be collected by a national agency—the precursor to the Internal Revenue Service. By the end of the war, Congress had imposed 5% taxes on manufactured goods, and income taxes of 5% for incomes between $600 and $5,000, 7.5% for incomes from $5,000 to $10,000, and 10% for incomes of more than $10,000. These taxes were enormously popular, in part because they demonstrated the health of the national treasury and the ability of ordinary Americans to support their government, but also in part because Congress recognized that if it was going to levy tax money from ordinary people, it needed to make sure ordinary people had the money to pay those taxes. Shortly after imposing taxes, Congress stopped selling the “public lands”—Indigenous lands in the West—to land speculators to raise money and instead gave them away to poor men to farm. “Every smoke rising from a new opening in the wilderness marks the foundation of a new feeder to Commerce and the Revenue,” wrote newspaper editor Horace Greeley. In 1862, Congress also created the Department of Agriculture to spread knowledge about modern farming practices and provide seeds to poor men. In exchange for “seed money,” Senate Finance Committee chairman William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) said, the country would be “richly paid over and over again in absolute increase of wealth. There is no doubt of that.” It then turned to public colleges, which were “demanded by the wisest economy” because they would help men to work more efficiently, which would enable them to accumulate wealth, which would, in turn, enable them to buy from others, creating prosperity for the whole economy. On the same day that Lincoln signed the Land-Grant College Act, he signed a bill creating the Union Pacific Railroad, claiming for the government the power to develop the country’s economy. The early Republicans believed that a democratic government should guarantee education and equality of opportunity to all men, rather than turning the country over to an oligarchy that made its fortunes in a hierarchical economic system based on human enslavement. Today, the White House echoed this worldview when it released a fact sheet titled “This Tax Day, the President Is Fighting to Reward Work, Not Wealth, While Republicans Want to Increase Taxes on the Middle Class.” It pointed out that the 2017 Trump tax cuts gave a $1.5 trillion tax cut to the very wealthy, and now Republicans are turning to working Americans to make up the budget shortfalls. “Republicans complain that middle-class Americans don’t have ‘skin in the game’ and don’t pay enough in taxes,” the White House said. “But the truth is that middle-class Americans are the back bone of our economy, pay plenty in federal, state, and local taxes, and in many cases pay a higher rate than the super-wealthy.” Biden’s emphasis on public investment in individuals illustrates his view of the U.S. economy. He has been pushing for federal procurement to nurture American business, requiring that “made in America” for federal procurement will mean 60% of component parts are made in the U.S.; that number will rise to 65% in 2024 and 75% in 2029. When he took office, products qualified as “made in America” if 55% of their components were made in the U.S. Today, the White House issued guidance requiring that after May 14, all of the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used for any project funded by the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill must be made in the U.S. That rule can be waived if it hurts the public interest, if the supplies are not available in the U.S., or if it will increase costs more than 25%. The administration hopes to create jobs, ease shortages, and limit our reliance on countries whose national interests are not in line with ours, like China. Since manufacturing is above the historical average at 78.7% capacity, the rule will probably require more factories. The Biden administration has also used money as leverage over Russia, of course, and the sanctions there are biting. On April 13, Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company, left the country. Losing Maersk, along with a number of other shippers, will strangle the movement of goods. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin insists that the sanctions have failed, but today the head of Russia’s central bank said that consumer prices are up 16.7% from last year and that since “practically every product” in Russia depends on imported parts, when factories run through their inventories, prices will skyrocket. Meanwhile, Russian workers are losing jobs as foreign businesses leave the country. For his part, Putin insists that the global alliance against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will collapse. But tonight CNN reports that the U.S. State Department is considering naming Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation that would place Russia with North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Cuba and further choke Russian trade. MSNBC commentator and national security expert Malcolm Nance has thrown his lot in with those fighting against Russia. Tonight, speaking in uniform from Ukraine, he told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “The more I saw of the war going on, the more I thought I’m done talking… It’s time to take action here. So about a month ago I joined the international legion here in Ukraine….” — Notes: www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/15/dc-emancipation-day-april-16-holidays/9490304002/www.irs.gov/newsroom/2022-tax-filing-season-begins-jan-24-irs-outlines-refund-timing-and-what-to-expect-in-advance-of-april-18-tax-deadlinewww.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/M-22-11.pdfTwitter avatar for @acyn Acyn @acyn Nance: The more I saw of the war going on, the more I thought I’m done talking… So about a month ago I joined the international legion here in Ukraine… Image April 18th 2022 9,635 Retweets42,695 Likes Twitter avatar for @malcolmnance Malcolm Nance @malcolmnance I’m DONE talking. #JoinTheLegion #StopRussia #SlavaUkraini Image April 19th 2022 12,553 Retweets82,778 Likes www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/new-tax-law-is-fundamentally-flawed-and-will-require-basic-restructuringwww.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/18/fact-sheet-this-tax-day-the-president-is-fighting-to-reward-work-not-wealth-while-republicans-want-to-increase-taxes-on-the-middle-class/www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/18/fact-sheet-this-tax-day-the-president-is-fighting-to-reward-work-not-wealth-while-republicans-want-to-increase-taxes-on-the-middle-class/www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/15/zelensky-biden-russia-terrorism/Twitter avatar for @paulachertok 🇺🇦Paula Chertok🗽🇺🇦 @paulachertok 💥NEWS: Biden State Dept Is Considering Labeling Russia A State Sponsor of Terrorism "A designation until now reserved only for North Korea, Iran, Cuba & Syria. It would be a significant development & a sea change in relations between 2 superpowers," @jimsciutto reports for @cnn Image April 19th 2022 214 Retweets668 Likes www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/world/europe/russian-economy-bleak-assessments.htmlwww.cbsnews.com/news/infrastructure-biden-us-made-steel-iron/www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/dc-emancipation-actwww.govexec.com/management/2022/03/biden-made-in-america-new-rule/362765/itep.org/state-by-state-estimates-of-sen-rick-scotts-skin-in-the-game-proposal/Twitter avatar for @mbk_center Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) @mbk_center World’s largest shipping company has left Russia.The move represents a full departure from the sanctions-hit country. Maersk has stopped accepting new bookings on all of its services to and from 🇷🇺 and will sell all of its assets in 🇷🇺 following its annual meeting of shareholders Image April 13th 2022 6,133 Retweets25,294 Likes Twitter avatar for @markhertling Mark Hertling @markhertling .@jimsciutto reports on @cnn that @statedept considering naming Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Given Russia’s actions in Ukraine, seems more than appropriate. April 19th 2022 946 Retweets5,165 Likes
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 17:31:47 GMT
Georgia is moving forward... Fulton DA clarifies timeline for witness testimony in Trump probe Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution during an interview in her office on April 18, 2022. RYON HORNE / RHORNE@AJC.COM Caption GEORGIA NEWS By Tamar Hallerman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 7 hours ago Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will wait until after the May 24 primaries to call in witnesses to testify about whether former President Donald Trump tried to illegally overturn election results in Georgia in 2020. Selection of a special grand jury will begin on May 2, but the group won’t hear from witnesses until June 1, Willis said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. *** Several of the people Willis is likely to seek an interview with — most notably Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump called on Jan. 2, 2021, requesting that he “find” enough votes to reverse his Georgia defeat — are on the primary ballot this spring. That includes Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr. They also received Trump calls following the November 2020 elections and now face Republican challengers. *** She said that at least 50 people have voluntarily testified before prosecutors and that she plans to seek subpoenas for at least 30 others who had previously declined to be interviewed. She added that there are another 60 or so people her team is hoping to talk to in the weeks ahead. www.ajc.com/news/georgia-news/fulton-da-clarifies-timeline-for-witness-testimony-in-trump-probe/QPKS7EJWYZHDRDXYH5NOR3KXGE/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 20:03:01 GMT
Civility has left us.... Haven't been there in years, but I know exactly where this happened. youtu.be/5-1vl649K78A GoFundMe campaign for the victim has raised more than $85,000. "Morgan miraculously survived her terrible ordeal; however, she has three fractured bones in her neck," the page states. "A broken femur, a lacerated liver, broken ribs, severe back injuries, deep gashes over 60 percent of her body, and severe injuries road rashes. The 23-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition. Prosecutors charged the 56-year-old Jean with attempted murder, aggravated assault and other offenses. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 22:02:46 GMT
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 22:13:13 GMT
Gov Polis is offering Disney a new home in Colorado... On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) called on the week's special session of the legislature to consider abolishing all special taxing districts created prior to 1968 — a direct shot at Disney, which has used a special district in Reedy Creek to run its Walt Disney World resort complex for decades. *** Desantis is going to bat for Musk against Twitter too www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-disney/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 22:22:15 GMT
So so true
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Deleted
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Nov 22, 2024 9:20:43 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2022 22:24:59 GMT
Throwing this in here. I was reading about how DeSantis is now using kids, including his own, as props in photo ops. Normally it is for thing that are fun and good for kids. He uses them for anti- abortion bills, 'stop the gay' where the kids appear to be puzzled why they are there While I was looking at this one with his kids... Look at the second one, a gif. Talk about unwanted contact and Ted Cruz..... The way DeSatan was yanking those tiny, tiny arms of those 2 toddlers made me sick!!! I imagine he's a wonderful dad to his own children. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 19, 2022 22:28:25 GMT
The two in the bright pink dresses, are his.
@bergdorfblonde
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