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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 8, 2023 0:57:57 GMT
Per ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan who broke story...
2004 Thomas reported Frederick Douglas Bible reported value $19,000 gift from Crow. And another item.
After that he reported nothing...
Food & lodging in personal residence and entertainment don't need to be reported.
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Post by aj2hall on Apr 8, 2023 4:14:24 GMT
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-7-2023Thomas said that he and his wife Ginni had been dear friends of the Crows for over 25 years, but he joined the court over 30 years ago, making more than one commenter note that the friendship certainly seemed to be based on Crow’s access to the Supreme Court through Thomas. In 2011, Ian Millhiser, then of ThinkProgress, noted that Thomas sided with the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for the Community Interest, both of which were affiliated with Crow, in every case concerning them that had come before the Supreme Court.
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 8, 2023 14:49:20 GMT
So we are getting an idea how the Republicans feel. Between this and their continued protection of trump it’s clear these guys are morally bankrupt.
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 8, 2023 14:53:44 GMT
Oh wow look at this….
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 8, 2023 15:28:17 GMT
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 8, 2023 15:55:41 GMT
Those things that they reported. Wonder if there were things not reported. Remember Thomas reported TWO items in 2004... Oops, see what I just saw... The second item was private plane trips... "In 2004, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted from Crow private plane trips and expensive gifts, such as a Bible that once belonged to abolitionist Frederick Douglass and a bust of Abraham Lincoln," he wrote before adding, "Thomas refused to comment in 2004, but the Times report appears to have had an impact: Thomas stopped disclosing that he had accepted free plane trips from Crow. So it’s unclear how Thomas can say in recent years he relied on the same guidance he had received 'early in my tenure,'" which began on the Supreme Court 32 years ago. |
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,083 
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Post by pinklady on Apr 8, 2023 16:22:44 GMT
I’m just not surprised at all. The GOP and its supporters are just vile human beings. I wish nothing but pain and misery for all of them.
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Gem Girl
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 29, 2014 19:29:52 GMT
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Post by Gem Girl on Apr 8, 2023 19:41:10 GMT
Where's the clarifying list of gifts and favors that Thomas has provided to Crow? Self-respecting men don't let the scales of reciprocity tilt badly with their friends. |
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Post by elaine on Apr 8, 2023 22:56:23 GMT
Let me just say that as a member of the US Navy, my husband could not accept any “gift” - even tickets to the science museum in Pittsburgh- worth more than $25 or he would have been in danger of being severely punished by the Navy/DOD.
The rules for government employees are drilled into all.
Thomas knew he was breaching regulations and ethics. He didn’t/doesn’t care. He and his fanatic wife don’t care. Rules are for peons like you and me, but not for the likes of “superiors” like the Thomases.
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Gem Girl
Pearl Clutcher
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Posts: 2,686
Jun 29, 2014 19:29:52 GMT
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Post by Gem Girl on Apr 8, 2023 23:12:56 GMT
Let me just say that as a member of the US Navy, my husband could not accept any “gift” - even tickets to the science museum in Pittsburgh- worth more than $25 or he would have been in danger of being severely punished by the Navy/DOD. The rules for government employees are drilled into all. Thomas knew he was breaching regulations and ethics. He didn’t/doesn’t care. He and his fanatic wife don’t care. Rules are for peons like you and me, but not for the likes of “superiors” like the Thomases. Of course he doesn't. Once his treatment of Anita Hill was shrugged off, he was comfortable in his invincibility. |
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Post by mollycoddle on Apr 9, 2023 15:05:01 GMT
This seems like a perfect analogy.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 10, 2023 2:46:55 GMT
If George Soros had a house full of Nazi memorabilia would Fox give him a pass: Mehdi Hasan asks Sarah K. Burris April 09, 2023 MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that for the past few weeks, Fox hosts and conservative pundits have collected around the false conspiracy theory that Jewish funder George Soros was behind the prosecution. "The long-standing smear against him, one of the big attack lines from the right is to suggest Soros was a Nazi sympathizer and collaborated during the war," Hasan said. "It's nonsense. It's been repeatedly debunked. Soros, who is Jewish, was two years old when Hitler came to power and was a teenager during World War II. But here is where things get interesting, ironic, bizarre, in fact. The Republican Party has its own billionaire donor, who was accused of meddling in the judicial system. Conservative real estate mogul Harlan Crow, who, this week, we learned, thanks to ProPublica, has been taking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on undeclared, luxury trips for years, for free, on his yacht, to an all-male retreat." *** It made Hasan wonder if it's time to start calling Thomas a Crow-backed Justice the way the right calls someone Soros-backed. His defenders on the right say that this is all unfair, absurd! That Crow is just commemorating the horrors of the 20th century," said Hasan. "I mean, Crow self says that he's just preserving history. Now to be clear, I'm not saying Harlan Crow is or is not a Nazi sympathizer. What I am saying is that when you have Nazi linens in your house and a copy of Mein Kompf autographed by the Führer himself, I don't think you can chalk that down to preserving history. And for those saying this isn't a story, this isn't fair to Harlan Crow. Again, remember the double standard is in play. If George Soros had a home full of Hitler memorabilia and a garden full of dictator statues, would Fox in the GOP give him a pass? Or would they be losing their minds and screaming, Nazi at him? And yet we have Harlan Crow, and Harlan Crow's home." He closed by repeating something he's echoed for many years: every accusation from a Republican or a conservative is actually a confession. www.rawstory.com/harlan-crow-clarence-thomas/
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Post by hop2 on Apr 10, 2023 14:55:00 GMT
Let me just say that as a member of the US Navy, my husband could not accept any “gift” - even tickets to the science museum in Pittsburgh- worth more than $25 or he would have been in danger of being severely punished by the Navy/DOD. The rules for government employees are drilled into all. Thomas knew he was breaching regulations and ethics. He didn’t/doesn’t care. He and his fanatic wife don’t care. Rules are for peons like you and me, but not for the likes of “superiors” like the Thomases. But governors can accept gifts of tickets to the Super Bowl Rules for thee but not for me… |
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 11, 2023 15:32:25 GMT
Clarence Thomas driving an RV across country and stopping at Walmart? Really? I’m finding that hard to believe.
From the article…
“For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Thomas has done this while presenting as a humble Man of the People who likes to drive across country in his RV, stopping at the occasional Walmart parking lot to rub elbows with the hoi polloi. In other words, he has deliberately, actively concealed the fact that he is sucking off the teat of an heir to a multi-billion-dollar real estate fortune.”
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 11, 2023 16:01:00 GMT
Ah ..
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 11, 2023 16:03:32 GMT
onelasttimeThinking not, but keep in mind that Walmart has offered the use of their parking lots for overnight parking for safety. Just how cheap the Thomas' are....
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 11, 2023 16:08:21 GMT
Very. Interesting read, worth reading the whole thing of the who's who ... The Paid Pundits Defending Clarence Thomas And His Billionaire Benefactor Apr 11, 2023 • Andrew Perez Right-wing pundits rushed to defend Harlan Crow’s gifts to Clarence Thomas and his Nazi memorabilia collection — without disclosing their ties to the mega-donor. After ProPublica reported that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose two decades worth of luxury trips provided by billionaire conservative mega-donor Harlan Crow, right-wing pundits and think-tank staffers raced to defend Thomas and his benefactor — without mentioning what they all had in common: their own financial ties to Crow. The episode is a reminder of how many conservative pundits and scholars owe their sinecures to the same billionaires who fund Republican election campaigns and efforts to influence the judiciary. Hours after ProPublica dropped its report on Thomas, Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the right-wing think tank Manhattan Institute, tweeted, “Unless Harlan Crow has some business before the Court, the @propublica report about Justice Thomas is a big breathless nothingburger.” Unmentioned: The Manhattan Institute, where Shapiro leads an amicus brief filing program lobbying the Supreme Court to rule certain ways on issues like student debt cancellation and corporate taxation, boasts Crows’ wife Kathy on its board of trustees and has been called “wonderful” by Crow himself. www.levernews.com/the-paid-pundits-defending-clarence-thomas-and-his-billionaire-benefactor/ |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 13, 2023 18:59:43 GMT
My my my .... In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives. The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse. The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints. A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.
The disclosure form Thomas filed for that year also had a space to report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction, such as a real estate deal. That space is blank.“He needed to report his interest in the sale,” said Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer now at the watchdog group CREW. “Given the role Crow has played in subsidizing the lifestyle of Thomas and his wife, you have to wonder if this was an effort to put cash in their pockets.” Thomas did not respond to detailed questions for this story. The justice’s failure to report the transaction suggests “Thomas was hiding a financial relationship with Crow,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis who reviewed years of Thomas’ disclosure filings. *** The revelation of a direct financial transaction between Thomas and Crow casts their relationship in a new light....... www.rawstory.com/billionaire-harlan-crow-bought-property-from-clarence-thomas-the-justice-didnt-disclose-the-deal/ |
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Post by hop2 on Apr 13, 2023 19:43:27 GMT
There is no way in hell he will resign. He would need a conscience for that and he doesn’t have one. And a GOP house will never do a damn thing about him.
Rules for thee but not for me
Literally nothing will be done about it as usual.
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Post by Scrapper100 on Apr 13, 2023 19:52:06 GMT
The more that comes out the more shocking it is but I agree it’s doubtful that anything will happen to Thomas about this. I do hope that things change going forward and new rules put into place.
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 14, 2023 2:23:27 GMT
Oh!
From The NY Times…
“ Advocates pushing for greater transparency at the court said the most recent revelation went well beyond typical social activities between friends.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island, said in a statement that he would call on the policymaking body for the federal courts to refer Justice Thomas to the attorney general for potential violations of government ethics law.
“The Supreme Court justices are so deeply ensconced in a cocoon of special interest money that they can no longer be trusted to police themselves without proper process,” he said, adding that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. should open an ethics investigation into Justice Thomas’s financial ties to Mr. Crow and his “apparent brazen disregard for disclosure laws.”
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 14, 2023 3:26:59 GMT
Chief Justice Roberts will investigate Thomas as well as he investigated the leak of Alito's Dobbs decision...
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Post by aj2hall on Apr 14, 2023 3:37:12 GMT
I doubt anything will happen, but there's a pretty convincing case here that there should be an investigation and a referral to the attorney general. A conservative justice who thinks the rules don't apply to him is problematic. At this point, Thomas should step down, but that won't happen either. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/13/clarence-thomas-real-estate-deal-ethics-harlan-crow/The matter of Clarence Thomas’s relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow has now entered new territory, treacherous for the justice and the court on which he serves.
Until Thursday’s ProPublica’s report disclosing Crow’s purchase of property owned by Thomas and his family in 2014, the story was about Thomas’s judgment, or lack thereof, in accepting large amounts of luxury travel from the Republican megadonor, and whether he had failed once again to comply with federal financial disclosure rules.
The latest revelation escalates the situation to a new and concerning level. This time, Thomas directly received money from Crow — perhaps in excess of the market value of the Chatham County, Ga., properties that Crow purchased from Thomas and his kin. This is no longer about receiving “personal hospitality.” It’s about a financial transaction between Thomas and a GOP donor who has also subsidized his vacations.
There is no doubt that the sale of personal real estate to Crow should have been reported on the justice’s financial disclosure form for 2014, and there is no excuse for failing to do so. The most logical explanation is that Thomas, whose relationship with Crow had already been the subject of unflattering news
Thomas’s relationship with Crow and the accuracy of his financial disclosure reports must now be fully scrutinized by the Judicial Conference of the United States, which oversees the federal judiciary and may refer the matter to the Justice Department for additional action. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. surely understands, this is a problem not just for Thomas but also for the court and its public legitimacy.
According to the ProPublica report, a company controlled by Crow bought the properties in Savannah, Ga., for $133,363 from Thomas, the family of his late brother, and his mother Leola Williams, who continued to live there.
“Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees,” ProPublica reported. “The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.”
Crow told the publication that the transaction was “at market rate.” The year before, he bought two other properties — a vacant lot and a house on the same block for $40,000. Thomas, in earlier financial disclosure forms, listed his one-third interest in “rental property” in Savannah at $15,000 or less.
Crow said his interest in the property was “to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice” and “approached the Thomas family about my desire to maintain this historic site so future generations could learn about the inspiring life of one of our greatest Americans.”
Fine, but the real estate deal raises several questions, among them: Why didn’t Thomas report the transaction on his financial disclosure forms? And did Thomas’s mother pay Crow rent as he improved the home and paid taxes on it? ProPublica posed this question to Crow, but he did not answer.
Thomas has said that he didn’t have to disclose his Crow-paid vacations under the exemption for “personal hospitality” — a dubious defense when it comes to his use of Crow’s private jet. Thomas had reported travel at Crow’s expense before he stopped disclosing it in the wake of negative news stories.
But Thomas’s obligation to report the real estate deal couldn’t be clearer. He had reported the property as an asset. Selling it was a transaction that necessitated disclosure.
The Ethics in Government Act requires judges, like other senior officials, to file annual financial reports, and sets out the consequences for failing to comply. It further provides that the relevant party, which in the case of judges is the Judicial Conference, “shall refer to the Attorney General the name of any individual which such official or committee has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file information required to be reported.” A violation can result in a fine under the criminal code.
Did Thomas act “knowingly and willfully” in failing to report the property sale? One relevant consideration: The Judicial Conference has seen this kind of nondisclosure from Thomas before.
Like other senior officials in government, justices must disclose their spouses’ sources of income, although not the dollar amounts. On his financial disclosure forms, Thomas simply marked the box labeled “NONE” for noninvestment income earned by his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. In fact, she was employed by the House Republican leadership, Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation, earning more than $1.6 million from those sources, according to separate records compiled by Common Cause and the Alliance for Justice.
Thomas’s explanation — a “misunderstanding” of the reporting rules — was unconvincing then, and relevant to the situation now. As the instructions for “filer’s spouse” state, “Report only the date(s) and source of earned income from any source that exceeds $1,000.”
Second, Thomas had complied with those rules for the previous decade, reporting the source of his wife’s income during his years as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit, and for the first five years of his tenure on the Supreme Court.
The justice is a repeat offender. Judges aren’t eager to police their own — especially not a sitting justice. Human nature and history suggest the Judicial Conference won’t do a thing. But the Georgia real estate deal will make that dodge harder. And the law requires otherwise. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 14, 2023 4:45:18 GMT
How easily he could have reported the gifts he received and recused himself accordingly. Not 100% good, but... Maybe passable .
But then there is no honor among thieves. How many others do/did not report? I'd put Alito at the top followed by who paid the credit card indebted and mortgaged kavanaugh ..
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Post by aj2hall on Apr 14, 2023 11:30:30 GMT
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-13-2023And speaking of problems, it turns out that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas neglected to disclose not only the “hospitality” he enjoyed at the hands of Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, but also a real estate deal. Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica—which broke the initial story about Thomas’s involvement with Crow—revealed today that Crow paid Thomas more than $100,000 for a house in which his mother was living and for two vacant lots. The reporters note that, by law, justices are required to disclose real estate sales of more than $1,000. Thomas did not report the sale, thus obscuring the flow of money—not just hospitality—to him from Crow. Further, Crow then made significant improvements to the home, where Thomas’s 94-year-old mother still lives, and bought and tore down the house next door. Calls for at least an investigation of Thomas are growing louder. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who is a leader of the effort to clean up the courts, said: “It would be best for the Chief Justice to commence a proper investigation, but after a week of silence from the Court and the latest disturbing reporting, I’m urging the Judicial Conference to step in and refer Justice Thomas to the Attorney General for investigation” for possibly breaking government ethics laws. The Judicial Conference meets twice a year to examine policy and administration of the federal court system and to recommend new laws to make it function better. It is made up primarily of leading circuit judges and led by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, in this case John Roberts.
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Post by femalebusiness on Apr 14, 2023 16:05:52 GMT
I always find it amusing that the extreme right wing Peas stay hidden in their slimly holes when topics such as this come up. They have no integrity and no sense of self respect or honesty. They don't care how scummy a person is, as long as they are a right wing extremist they support them. I don't see how they can stand to look themselves in the mirror when they brush their teeth. They are truly broken people.
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Post by onelasttime on Apr 15, 2023 16:00:07 GMT
Good!
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Post by mollycoddle on Apr 15, 2023 16:14:17 GMT
Good luck with that thought. There is no chance that he resigns under a Democratic President. None. He has no integrity, he is as MAGA as his wife and he's got a personal grievance list probably a mile long at this point. It's a religious calling for people like Thomas. I actually think there is a greater chance that Roberts resigns. I continue to suspect he has some underlying health issues and my impression is that he's an honest, ethical person and dealing with the continuing messes of his less honorable colleagues has to be weighing on him. Everyone knows Alito leaked that decision and lied about it. Everyone knows someone paid off Kavanaugh's debts and he didn't disclose it. And everyone knows Thomas is a batshit fringe loon who apparently has been on the take for years. Not that they needed to pay him off with luxury vacations but gosh, maybe they just enjoyed his scintillating company. All of this. Thomas has no shame, and he will not retire. We are stuck with him and his batshit crazy wife for the duration. If Dems ever get decent majorities in Congess, I would favor some reforms. Term limits for sure, and possibly expanding the Court. |
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Just T
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,892
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Post by Just T on Apr 15, 2023 16:19:40 GMT
I always find it amusing that the extreme right wing Peas stay hidden in their slimly holes when topics such as this come up. They have no integrity and no sense of self respect or honesty. They don't care how scummy a person is, as long as they are a right wing extremist they support them. I don't see how they can stand to look themselves in the mirror when they brush their teeth. They are truly broken people. Yeah, all that. Instead of addressing the true misconduct and so many outrageous ideas, like it should be okay for 12 year olds to get married and that children playing sports should have their genitals examined, and that sex abuse by clergy should be overlooked, they fixate on drag queens and Hunter Biden. I'm so sick of this bullshit. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 15, 2023 16:55:30 GMT
Great response......
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