The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
Campaign lies
Thomas Sowell
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Democrat Debate: The Dodgers Return to Brooklyn
The Dodgers baseball team left New York City for Los Angeles after the 1957 season, but the Dodgers — a.k.a. the Democrat politicos old enough to play on the original team — returned to Brooklyn Thursday night for a night of exaggeration, weaseling and lies.
In the ninth Democrat debate, the rhetoric between Hilly Clinton and Bernie Sanders grew sharper as each candidate covered the bases to prove their liberal bonafides. The two candidates bunted on the question on gun control — situational rhetoric to appeal to the crowd. Clinton denied that she blamed guns sold in Vermont for NYC's crime rate after moderator Wolf Blitzer fact-checked her to say only 1.2% of guns recovered in NYC originated from Vermont. Meanwhile, Sanders reversed his original call on the field regarding whether the families of the Sandy Hook victims have the right to sue gun manufacturers. Previously, he said they had no such right. But after a judge granted the ability for the suit to proceed, the socialist batted from the other side of the plate.
Sanders came out and swung hard at Clinton's connections and donations from Wall Street, accusing her of having bad judgment. The grizzled socialist was trying to make up for the embarrassment of the New York Daily News endorsing his rival days before. "Subjected to meaningful scrutiny for the first time, the senator from Vermont proved utterly unprepared for the Oval Office while confirming that the central thrusts of his campaign are politically impossible," the Daily News wrote. Clinton used that endorsement as another grounder to highlight her pragmatic experience.
After such a bitter game, sports announcers political commentators like James Taranto wondered if the smack talk in the Democrat dugout has gotten so contentious that the party will split between veteran Clinton supports and young socialists. Sanders' wife, Jane Sanders, said the couple will vote for Clinton if she advances to the playoffs. But Sanders' supporters — who were looking for the political revolution Sanders keeps dreaming about — may take their ball and go home. -The Patriot Post
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Mental Health Misfire?
One of the more daunting issues facing Congress is how to reform mental health care without abrogating one's constitutional rights. Both sides are more or less unified on the issue of better mental health care, but while the Left believes the Constitution can be circumvented, Republicans want to make sure no one's rights are unjustly trampled. After it initially appeared that a compromise was in the works, it may not work out after all.
According to The Hill, "Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is in talks with leaders of the Senate health committee to combine his mental health bill with one that passed the committee last month. But Democrats object to certain sections of Cornyn's bill that they say would make it easier for mentally ill people to acquire guns, and the controversial provisions could shatter Democratic support for the bill. Those provisions would require a full judicial hearing to ban someone from buying a gun due to mental illness and would allow people previously committed for mental illness to purchase a gun as soon as a judge's commitment order expires."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) complained, "Obviously I can't support a bill on the floor that has those provisions in it." Cornyn is "open to discussing it" but insists "this whole idea that we're not going to have a fulsome discussion about mental health and [the] problems it creates with the criminal justice system, housing and the health care field seems kind of unrealistic to me."
In too many cases, a person's right to bear arms has been taken away without due process. For example, as Hot Air notes, "[T]here are tens of thousands of people in New York who might argue the point after Andrew Cuomo placed countless residents on the No Guns For You list without a single medical professional weighing in on their competence under the provisions of the NY SAFE Act."
Republicans are at least trying to reach across the isle with a rational compromise. But despite how often they talk about common sense, Democrats want none of it. All that's important to them is restricting guns from those who exhibit any type of "mental illness." And as we've already seen, that could literally be anybody. -The Patriot Post
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Dodd-Frank Act Is Too Big and Failing
It's been six years since Barack nObama signed the Dodd-Frank Act — one of the most monstrous attempts at "reform" ever imposed on Wall Street. "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," nObama said at the time he signed it. "And these protections will be enforced by a new consumer watchdog with just one job: looking out for people." Well, certain people — namely Democrat constituents. But recently, this nObama legacy seems to be falling apart, and up and down, left and right, Americans are now ready to fix that onerous legislation.
The watchdog agency nObama created, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is one of the least accountable bureaucracies in Washington. And it's in federal appeals court this week, where a judge appears to think the whole bureau is unconstitutional. The CFPB was designed to be a fast-acting agency that can lay down regulation and demand compliance with rapid speed. It's headed by a lone director who is not beholden to Congress because the bureau gets its money from the Federal Reserve. No accountability? Massively concentrated power? What could go wrong?
The House Financial Services committee passed two bills Wednesday that would place the responsibility to disperse CFPB's budget in Congress' hands. But that's not the only part of the act that's falling apart. This week, federal regulators declared five of the eight big banks were still too big to fail. They didn't have adequate plans in place to declare bankruptcy and bring the U.S. economy down with them. Remember: Dodd-Frank was, in part, supposed to prevent the American public from bailing out the big banks again.
"Dodd-Frank's failure on its own terms virtually guarantees that someone will reform it," wrote the Wall Street Journal editorial board. "The question is whether it will be the judicial or legislative branch. Republicans have been criticizing Dodd-Frank since it was on the drafting table. More significant is that both Democratic presidential candidates are now also talking reform. Obviously a Bernie Sanders rewrite of financial rules would look very different from a Ted Cruz version. But outside of the White House, the status quo has almost no constituency. And with Barack nObama due to vacate the premises in just nine months, Dodd-Frank's flaws are becoming impossible to ignore." -The Patriot Post
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State Department Belatedly Releases New Clinton Benghazi Documents
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Tom Fitton.
{judicialwatch.org} ~ Judicial Watch announced today it has obtained new documents from the Department of State containing the telephone transcripts from the evening of September 11, 2012... in which then-Secretary of State Hilly Clinton informs then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi “had nothing to do with the film.” The documents include previously unreleased telephone transcripts with world leaders about the Benghazi attack. Clinton’s admission to Kandil was first produced to the Select Committee on Benghazi on October 13, 2015 and publicized on the day of Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, October 22, but court filings in Judicial Watch litigation show that the record was only produced after two federal court judges ordered the State Department to produce more Benghazi-related records to Judicial Watch. Similarly, Judicial Watch litigation also forced the release of the September 11, 2012 email in which Secretary of State Hilly Clinton informed her daughter by email that the attack had been staged by an “Al Qaeda-like group,” rather than as the result of “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” as Mrs. Clinton had claimed in her official public statement one hour earlier... http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/state-department-belatedly-releases-new-clinton-benghazi-documents/
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Look what happened to a U.S. corporation that
DARED speak out against nObama policy
Allen West
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{allenbwest.com} ~ Just yesterday we shared the story about the end of the coal industry in America with the bankruptcy filing by Peabody Coal. We asked the rhetorical question, what kind of American president would intentionally seek to destroy an American industry?... I think it was an easy to answer question and of course we know what kind that is. I find it utterly hilarious to hear these misguided little millennial progressive socialists regurgitate talking points about corporate welfare and crony capitalism — they only need to examine the nObama administration for that – but perhaps they NEVER heard of Solyndra. And of course we know nObama does favors for those whom he embraces, and uses…ask JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon. Now before I share this story, I must say in full disclosure I wear Asics. As reported by The Boston Globe, “New Balance is renewing its opposition to the far-reaching Pacific Rim trade deal, saying the nObama administration reneged on a promise to give the sneaker maker a fair shot at military business if it stopped bad-mouthing the agreement. After several years of resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact aimed at making it easier to conduct trade among the United States and 11 other countries, the Boston company had gone quiet last year. New Balance officials say one big reason is that they were told the Department of Defense would give them serious consideration for a contract to outfit recruits with athletic shoes... http://www.allenbwest.com/allen/look-what-happened-to-a-u-s-corporation-that-dared-speak-out-against-obama-policy
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US, Israel Missed Major Opportunities to Take
Out Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities
Les Speyer
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Amb. John Bolton
.
{algemeiner.com} ~ The US and Israel “missed a huge range of opportunities over the last 10 years” to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, a former US Ambassador to the UN told The Algemeiner Thursday evening... Speaking on the relationship between the US and Israel during a forum sponsored by the Israel Air Force Center Foundation in New York alongside Israel Air Force Brig. Gen. Yaron Rosen, diplomat John Bolton said, “The two countries sort of look at each other and say, ‘Well, why don’t you do it first.’ The fact is a US strike could be more effective because we’ve got better capabilities.” Bolton — who also serves as chairman of the conservative think-tank the Gatestone Institute — told The Algemeiner that the situation with Iran is becoming increasingly perilous. “I didn’t have any trouble before advocating a strike because I view this nuclear threat as extremely grave,” he said. He went on to explain that the next president of the US will face a “very dangerous” period wherein they must “do the analysis that’s required to come to a decision to use force.”... http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/04/15/amb-john-bolton-us-israel-missed-major-opportunities-to-take-out-irans-nuclear-capabilities/
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Morgan Freeman Posts
Photo from 'Jerusalem, Israel,"...
Mark Tapson
.
.
{truthrevolt.org} ~ In Israel filming for his new Nat Geo series The Story of God, actor Morgan Freeman made the heinous error of posting a photo of himself on Facebook captioned, "Jerusalem, Israel."... As Fox News Insider reports, this simple act of recognizing the fiercely-contested Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state of Israel sent social media into a feeding frenzy. The Facebook post has drawn over 9,000 comments as of this writing, thousands of which consisted of arguments as to whether the city belongs to Israel or "Palestine." “It’s Palestine you fool,” wrote one commenter. Another asserted that Jerusalem is "the eternal and Struggling capital of the state of Palestine." "Jerusalem is the most beautiful place in Israel... Have been and will allways belong to the Jewish state ISRAEL.. No doubt on this!!!" wrote another person... These people don't know history or the Bible, that's a fact. http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/morgan-freeman-posts-photo-jerusalem-israel-facebook-commenters-attack
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slump-Trump Uses the Wall Street Journal to Prove
He Is One Truly Stupid Person
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{redstate.com} ~ Donald slump-Trump is a monumental incompetent. There is no kinder way of putting it. His name, in business is associated with an excess of hype followed by abject failure and bankruptcy... He is the poster child for the small-handed rich kid, who, being born on third base, trips over his own shoelaces, does a faceplant, and then demands to be given credit for a home run because he really could have done it if things had gone the way he wanted. His campaign is in crisis. He has divided his campaign staff into warring tribes that spend more time fighting each other for butt-kissing festivals with slump-Trump than they do trying to run a national primary campaign. He is at the point where he needs a run of amazing luck to win the nomination on the first ballot and he has proved singularly inept a wrangling delegates to achieve that goal. So Donald slump-Trump does what he does best. He whines. He mewls. He snivels. He befouls himself and rubs it in his hair in rage. You really need to read this op-ed to appreciate what kind of a sniveling, cringing coward Donald slump-Trump becomes in the face of adversity...
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Cruz’s Wonkish CNBC Economy Interview...
apkyletexas
apkyletexas
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{redstate.com} ~ Cruz just had a very interesting hour-long interview on CNBC this morning with Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin on the Squawkbox financial program... The CNBC gang hit Cruz with everything from Japanese and German basis points, to negative global interest rates, to bank bailout policies, tax reform, economic effects of climate change proposals, opposition to various kinds of VAT taxing, instability of commodity prices, Fed monetary policy, etc. Cruz just absolutely kills this interview, and spends the entire hour talking off the cuff about numbers and financial and monetary policy, and the exact devices to get the economy to rebound. This is a much more in-depth discussion than the stump speech snippets we’ve all heard many times. No one who sits through this 46 minute video will be able to walk away with any opinion but that Ted Cruz is the only competent, qualified adult running for President today from either party...
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nObama and Yellen Are Planning to Implement
Debtor Prisons/FEMA Camps
Dave Hodges
.
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{thecommonsenseshow.com} ~ We are living in a time when nearly every important banker and senior finance minister will/has been meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. The Federal Reserve in is an absolute state of panic... I have just found out that the Federal Reserve met secretly with nObama at the Pentagon and members of the Joint Chiefs. Vice-President loose lips-Biden was in attendance as well. This speaks to the gravity of the situation, because the President and the Vice-President almost never attend the same meetings for security reasons. Also, it is highly unusual for the President to ever meet with the Federal Reserve. The Federal tells the President what to do. So, one has to ask themselves, what does the Federal Reserve need, from the President, that they cannot supply for themselves? Answer: They need the use of the President’s military assets... http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/04/15/obama-and-yellen-are-planning-to-implement-debtor-prisonsfema-camps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-and-yellen-are-planning-to-implement-debtor-prisonsfema-camps
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Europe: Suicide by Jihad
Guy Millière
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{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ The March 22 jihadist attacks in Brussels were predictable. What is surprising is that they did not take place sooner. What is also surprising is that more people were not killed... It seems that the authors of the attacks had larger projects in mind; they wanted to attack a nuclear power plant. Others may succeed in doing just that. In the last two decades, Belgium has become the hub of jihad in Europe. The district of Molenbeek in Brussels is now a foreign Islamist territory in the heart of Belgium. It is not, however, a lawless zone: sharia law has effectively replaced Belgian law. Almost all the women wear veils or burqas; those who do not take risks. Drug trafficking and radical mosques are everyplace. The police stay outside and intervene only in cases of extreme emergency, using military-like commando operations. Other areas of Belgium, such as Shaerbeek and Anderlecht have the same status as Molenbeek. The Belgian authorities have allowed the situation to deteriorate. The situation in the country now is virtually equivalent to a surrender...Do we want this to happen in the USA? http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7826/europe-suicide-jihad
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Insurers Say They’ll Exit nObamacare Without
HUGE Premium Increases
Jeff Dunetz
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{lidblog.com} ~ Heath insurance companies participating in the nObamacare exchanges are losing money hand-over-foot and many are warning that without major fee increases they will stop offering nObamacare plans... In November, United Healthcare started the ball rolling by announcing that they were considering exiting the exchange marketplace because they lost almost a half a billion dollars selling nObamacare plans. A month later another insurer HealthSpan went further, they announced they were indeed getting out of the nObamacare exchange marketplace. Now even more companies are warning they may drop their exchange plans... http://lidblog.com/insurers-say-theyll-exit-obamacare-without-huge-premium-increases/?utm_source=The+Lid+List&utm_campaign=268e2ba0db-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_597b72c01c-268e2ba0db-291705165
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Bill Nye Is Not A Real “Science Guy”...
Jeff Dunetz
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{lidblog.com} ~ Bill Nye, who goes by the nom de plume, “the science guy,” said in an interview with Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, that he doesn’t mind the the idea of jailing people who are skeptical of the man-made global warming hypothesis... Nye’s attack on the First Amendment would be an extreme one for anybody. But, when one considers that the children’s TV entertainer is not a scientist and has, at times, even been ridiculed by climate experts, his comment are even more outrageous. During the interview Morano asked Nye about Robert F. Kennedy’s call to jail climate skeptics for treason and lock them up at The Hague. Nye who has been a vocal supporter of the climate change hypothesis isn’t more qualified to speak about climate science than any other non-scientist. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, and worked at Boeing in the mechanical engineering department...These scientist have no rights whatsoever or non-scientist. http://lidblog.com/bill-nye-is-not-now-nor-has-he-ever-been-a-real-science-guy/?utm_source=The+Lid+List&utm_campaign=268e2ba0db-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_597b72c01c-268e2ba0db-291705165
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Campaign lies
Thomas Sowell
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{onenewsnow.com} ~ The success of campaign lies depends ultimately on two things: how conscientious the media are ... and how gullible the voters are.
If you took all the lies out of political rhetoric, how much would be left? Apparently even less than usual this year.
The latest, and perhaps biggest, lie -- thus far -- is that Donald slump-Trump was cheated out of delegates in Colorado because the voters did not select the delegates.
Two very different questions have gotten confused with each other. One question is whether this is the best way to choose delegates. Most of us would say "No," but most of us don't live in Colorado, and each state is allowed great leeway in how it chooses to pick its delegates.
The more fundamental question is whether this was some trick cooked up to deprive Donald slump-Trump of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination. That is of course how Donald slump-Trump and his followers automatically depict anything that doesn't work out to his advantage.
But the Colorado rules were written and known to all before anybody cast a single vote in the primary elections, anywhere in the country.
If the people who ran the slump-Trump campaign were not aware of what the rules in Colorado were, and Ted Cruz's people were, that is what happens when you hire people who are not up to the challenges of their job. The fact that one of those people has been fired and replaced has gotten much less media attention than slump-Trump's loudly repeated charges that he was robbed.
With so many primary election rules that vary from one state to another, some of these rules are bound to work out to one candidate's advantage and another candidate's disadvantage.
When slump-Trump, for example, wins less than a majority of a state's votes and yet gets 100 percent of its delegates, you don't hear other candidates yelling or whining that they have been robbed. But the cold fact is that slump-Trump's percentage of the delegates is still higher than his percentage of the people who actually voted for him.
Apparently it all depends on whose ox is gored -- and who yells the loudest, with the most irresponsible charges. It also depends on how conscientious the media are and how gullible the voters are.
Other political campaign lies have been repeated so often, over so many years, that they have become part of a tradition that is almost never questioned. Demands for "equal pay" for women, for example, proceed without even a definition of what that means.
Some years ago, I was shocked when my research turned up the fact that young male physicians earned substantially more than young female physicians. But, when my research also turned up the fact that young male physicians work hundreds of hours more per year than young female physicians, it was not shocking any more.
Other researchers, many of them female, have found the same pattern in other fields where there are income differences between the sexes. Women work fewer hours annually than men, and do not work full-time and continuously over the years as often as men do.
Among college graduates, women receive more than three-quarters of the degrees in education, while men receive more than three-quarters of the degrees in engineering. When engineers are paid more than teachers -- partly because engineers work year round, while teachers work nine months -- do not be surprised by sex differences in earnings among college graduates.
None of this is news for people who have checked out the facts. Researchers -- including female researchers -- have repeatedly turned up such facts for decades. But the politicians, and much of the media, prefer a moral melodrama, starring themselves on the side of the angels against the forces of evil.
That wins votes, helps TV ratings and lets lots of people feel good about themselves. But this also requires a gullible public.
A very similar game can be played with racial statistics. What if I said that basketball officials call fouls on black players out of all proportion to the share of blacks in the general population? You might well say, "Wait a minute! The proportion of black players is far higher in the NBA than in the population."
Yet that simple difference between the proportion of blacks in the general population and blacks involved in whatever activity is being measured statistically is repeatedly ignored, both by politicians and the media.
The success of campaign lies depends ultimately on how willing the public is to be stampeded without bothering to stop and think.
If you took all the lies out of political rhetoric, how much would be left? Apparently even less than usual this year.
The latest, and perhaps biggest, lie -- thus far -- is that Donald slump-Trump was cheated out of delegates in Colorado because the voters did not select the delegates.
Two very different questions have gotten confused with each other. One question is whether this is the best way to choose delegates. Most of us would say "No," but most of us don't live in Colorado, and each state is allowed great leeway in how it chooses to pick its delegates.
The more fundamental question is whether this was some trick cooked up to deprive Donald slump-Trump of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination. That is of course how Donald slump-Trump and his followers automatically depict anything that doesn't work out to his advantage.
But the Colorado rules were written and known to all before anybody cast a single vote in the primary elections, anywhere in the country.
If the people who ran the slump-Trump campaign were not aware of what the rules in Colorado were, and Ted Cruz's people were, that is what happens when you hire people who are not up to the challenges of their job. The fact that one of those people has been fired and replaced has gotten much less media attention than slump-Trump's loudly repeated charges that he was robbed.
With so many primary election rules that vary from one state to another, some of these rules are bound to work out to one candidate's advantage and another candidate's disadvantage.
When slump-Trump, for example, wins less than a majority of a state's votes and yet gets 100 percent of its delegates, you don't hear other candidates yelling or whining that they have been robbed. But the cold fact is that slump-Trump's percentage of the delegates is still higher than his percentage of the people who actually voted for him.
Apparently it all depends on whose ox is gored -- and who yells the loudest, with the most irresponsible charges. It also depends on how conscientious the media are and how gullible the voters are.
Other political campaign lies have been repeated so often, over so many years, that they have become part of a tradition that is almost never questioned. Demands for "equal pay" for women, for example, proceed without even a definition of what that means.
Some years ago, I was shocked when my research turned up the fact that young male physicians earned substantially more than young female physicians. But, when my research also turned up the fact that young male physicians work hundreds of hours more per year than young female physicians, it was not shocking any more.
Other researchers, many of them female, have found the same pattern in other fields where there are income differences between the sexes. Women work fewer hours annually than men, and do not work full-time and continuously over the years as often as men do.
Among college graduates, women receive more than three-quarters of the degrees in education, while men receive more than three-quarters of the degrees in engineering. When engineers are paid more than teachers -- partly because engineers work year round, while teachers work nine months -- do not be surprised by sex differences in earnings among college graduates.
None of this is news for people who have checked out the facts. Researchers -- including female researchers -- have repeatedly turned up such facts for decades. But the politicians, and much of the media, prefer a moral melodrama, starring themselves on the side of the angels against the forces of evil.
That wins votes, helps TV ratings and lets lots of people feel good about themselves. But this also requires a gullible public.
A very similar game can be played with racial statistics. What if I said that basketball officials call fouls on black players out of all proportion to the share of blacks in the general population? You might well say, "Wait a minute! The proportion of black players is far higher in the NBA than in the population."
Yet that simple difference between the proportion of blacks in the general population and blacks involved in whatever activity is being measured statistically is repeatedly ignored, both by politicians and the media.
The success of campaign lies depends ultimately on how willing the public is to be stampeded without bothering to stop and think.
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