Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest aides and speeech writers, went on the talk shows to defend the travel ban and to lie again about voter fraud. What is it with these people? Usually the loser claims voter fraud, not the winner.
Meanwhile, Trump defended the Gestapo-style round up of immigrants as “keeping a campaign promise.”
Give to the ACLU.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump claims fraud because he cannot deal with the fact that more people chose Hillary. I have known people with this sort of mentality, and it’s horrifying that someone who cannot admit being on the wrong end anything is now President of the United States.
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Trump definitely “never loses” in his own mind. But he is also a strategist who will do anything to twist things into going his own way. Remember Greg Pallast’s documentary that looked at another kind of voter fraud. Instead of people voting more than once as Trump claims … people either thought their vote was counted or were not able to vote because of a system called Crosscheck implemented by some rust belt republican senator (about 20 plus states signed on to using this system in determining who was eligible to vote). And thanks to Crosscheck … even if voters did prove that they were for example Thom Perry Brown from MI not Thom Richard Brown from WI and their ss # was different, they were still given a different ballot – a provisional ballot… and if one (of 10) possible errors were made when completing this ballot, it didn’t count. But the individual completing the ballot had no way of knowing his vote never counted! Pallast reviewed exhaustively the suspiciously erroneous Crosscheck lists and to make a long story short… low and behold there were an inordinate number of democrat African American voters who either thought they were voting or were prevented from voting and many were from the rust belt states. So in REALITY (which is so scarce these days), Trump lost by even a larger margin if what Pallast holds is true and it is NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE VOTED MORE THAN ONCE it is because of a REPUBLICAN-ORCHESTRATED strategy TO DENY PEOPLE WHO WERE VOTING DEMOCRAT A VOTE. While I surely don’t believe Trump, Pallast actually researched and can produce those endless erroneous “Cross Check” lists… he has a lot more credibility.
Is Trump’s strategy therefore a smokescreen… a diversionary tactic (as in the way he used his Tweet account)?
Just thinking….
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Good thinking and with something approximating a paper trail. in the “Crosscheck” system.
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Wondering who in govt is going to speak up about Crosscheck! Has anyone paid any attention at all to Pallast’s findings?
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Doublespeak: suppressed voting is excessive voting.
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ponderosa You probably mean that what is common and authentic voting for everyone else is excessive or corrupt voting to Trump.
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Why doesn’t a reporter agree with the Trump rep who brings this up and just say, I guess Trump would know. He won because of Rep efforts disenfranchise millions of legal voters.
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Of anything, that should say.
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Trump is not a well person.
Neither is anyone who follows him.
It’s not going to be pretty when he crashes.
I just hope the country survives it.
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gestapo style? Obama had the record for rounding up “illegal” immigrants. I think that many liberals are horrified with how the alt left is acting. The NY Times has become a cartoon, where only news bashing Trump is reported.
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“alt left”: see what he tried to do there?
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GregB: Alt-left. Yes—I wanted to reply this to him: “Blah, blah, blah,” but I didn’t.
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This is the ultimate fiction of false equivalence (both-siderism). People like Joseph want to equate far-right fascism that masquerades as “alt-right” with center-to-center-left political views. We cannot allow this to be legitimized. I peat and repeat: there is no far left in the American political spectrum. There is no left equivalence that wants to delegitimize the concept of governing as currently exists on the right. Don’t fall into this trap and never normalize as fascist alt-rightism, Joseph, and his like-minded ideologues try to do.
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be very afraid of this alt-right nativist. His last boss was Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Miller, like Bannon, wants to shut the borders ….period. Lilly white is his favorite and only color….
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He’s got that the SS stare.
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GregB: You noticed that cold stare too. . . .
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Catherine: Just when we thought it was a historical relic. It isn’t.
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GregB: I think one word to describe it is “contemptuous.”
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I noticed his Nazi soul too.
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Stephen Miller? Really? He performed like some heavily scripted robot or automaton, like something you would see at Disneyland. Voice synthesizers have more humanity than Stephen Miller. Talk about being brainwashed; his brain must have been laundered, dry cleaned and fumigated with DDT to ensure that he would utter every syllable perfectly according to Bannon’s diktats. Miller vomited up all the usual balderdash about massive voter fraud without any proof.
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Yup….he was reading cliff notes just to his right….and the reading was pathetic…..
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I’ve been wondering about Stephen Miller . . . What I just saw was a highly intelligent person (aka data informed fast talker) who uses a particular brand of rhetorical method (bullying) to run right over Chuck Todd (MSNBC) who had the right questions, but didn’t know how to field them with equally-nuanced responses from this (what Bernie Sanders referred to rightly as) rhetorical “shell game.”
Miller’s cold controlled stare is coupled with so many (a) misguiding trails of thought; (b) incisive and remarkably important omissions; and (c) Orwellian misrepresentations, it will make your head spin. Where to start.
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From CNN: Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser on Sunday repeated Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that people were bused from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to vote illegally in the swing state during the 2016 election.
But he provided no evidence to support that claim or other claims of widespread voter fraud.
In a contentious interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” White House policy director Stephen Miller repeated Trump’s claim last week that he would have won New Hampshire were it not for “thousands” of people being bused there.
“Go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who’s worked in politics there for a long time. Everybody’s aware of the problem in New Hampshire,” Miller said.
Stephen Miller, replicant/animatronic figure, paid liar for the Liar-In-Chief. Now vomit.
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WHAT IS IT? You ask
This is what it is:
We now have President Bannon https://thebuckleyclub.com/president-bannon-29eaa6437b14#.pobher4q1
Here’s what the man who whispers in the ear of our dummy president thinks– a speech that he made in 2014 to a Vatican conference.Little noticed, until now, was https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/europe/bannon-vatican-julius-evola-fascism.html
“Mr. Bannon reference to Julius Evola has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the Nazi-affiliated thinker who was the darling of Italian Fascists & Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists of the 60s &70s, who looked to him as a spiritual and intellectual godfather. More important for the current American administration, Evola also caught on in the U S with leaders of the alt-right movement, which Mr. Bannon nurtured as the head of Breitbart News and harnessed for Mr. Trump. Some on the alt-right consider Mr. Bannon a door through which Evola’s ideas of a hierarchical society run by a spiritually superior caste can enter in a period of crisis. ‘Changing the system, Evola argued, was “not a question of contesting and polemicizing, but of blowing everything up.’ ”
That is Bannon’s Blueprint for Trump and why all this is happening.
WHEN FASCISTS RULE, lies are the way it is! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/01/29/1626928/-Bannon-s-Blueprint-Read-it-for-yourself?detail=email&link_id=6&can_id=47594dc7343bb19ac4f7621b50e457f8&source=email-kellyanne-conway-goes-on-bonkers-rant-calls-for-trumps-media-critics-to-be-fired&email_referrer=kellyanne-conway-goes-on-bonkers-rant-calls-for-trumps-media-critics-to-be-fired&email_subject=kellyanne-conway-goes-on-bonkers-rant-calls-for-trumps-media-critics-to-be-fired
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“Gestapo style” if by that you mean picking up people who are in the country illegally, I suggest you use a different analogy.
The gestapo picked up people who were innocent if breaking any laws. The only threevthings people were picked up for were being if the wrong ethnicity/religion, who were involved with resistance acts (or arrested as replacements), and labor needs.
The United States is open to immigrants. The language needs to be a little more exact. The laws are broken when people enter the country illegally (or overstay applicable visas).
The United States, like every other country in the world, has an issue with ILLEGAL immigrants. Every country in the world sends illegal immigrants back to their last known point of residence.
So to make the current president out like a monster in this area is outright hypocrisy. Where were the protestors when the previous president sent hundreds home last year and the years before?
If it is wrong now, it was wrong then. To say anything different is hypocrisy.
I AM an immigrant. Went through the legal process before leaving my country of origin (as immigration laws require) waited and waited (even though at that time I had been married to an American citizen for twenty years, was the father of two American citizens). When I got the last interview (after writing check after check, each without any assurance that I would get a visa!) I finally got permission to enter. But had to do that within two months or I would have start the process all over.
So I understand the pain and angst and uncertainty. But that still does not excuse illegal immigration.
I started working within weeks after moving here, and gave worked everyday since. What, I even paid taxes from my very first paycheck, too.
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“The gestapo [sic] picked up people who were innocent if breaking any laws.” (Makes no g-d—–d sense whatsoever.) This statement is actually more than sick. It implies a legitimacy of the Gestapo’s activities. But then again, from what I’ve read, actual history is not your strong suit.
As a first generation American, I would gladly trade you for thousands of Syrians, Sudanese, Yemenis, Libyans, Iraqis, Iranians, Somalis, Mexicans, and anyone else from Central and South America (or anywhere else in the world) who would choose to come to this country in a heartbeat. Curious if my friends in the Netherlands would even allow you back.
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First, “if” should be “of””.”
Second, I would ask an uncle and grandfather, but I never knew them because they were picked up by the gestapo as slave labor and hauled off to Germany, never to be heard of or seen.
Third, being in ANY country without permission from government is illegal.
The same thing has been happening a lot under the previous president – where was your indignation then?
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Not sure of “First” criticism. Perhaps you are referencing your own quote.
Can’t verify “Second” criticism. Based on what I’ve read of your previous remarks, I’m skeptical.
As for third, if persons sought by Gestapo had been turned over by the Mussert regime, it would have been legal, but was it ethical or justified? Does that fall under “ANY”?
Lastly, my “indignation” of Obama deportations was contemporaneous with the events as they happened. It was a black mark on his presidency that is magnified by the politicization of worse actions by the current one.
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It does not matter whether your are sceptical or not.
” if persons sought by Gestapo had been turned over by the Mussert regime, it would have been legal, but was it ethical or justified? Does that fall under “ANY”?”
Since Mussert’s government was an illegal government, any act by that government that did not meet constitutional demands would be an illegal act. But that means you still have to stop for a red light etc.
Handing people over for acts that were against an illegitimate government (printing fake ID’s, counterfeit money, blowing up train tracks and such, being Jewish, Roma, Jehovah’s Witness, Homosexual, Christian speaking out against the “government,’ and such) are wrong.
However, the problem the Nurnberg trials ran in to was the concept that such actions were deemed legal by the German government. Citizens following those laws could not be tried according to German law, so the Allieds had to come up with an entire new concept. And so they went by a Higher Law… Total invention, though.
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So, Rudy, you do not believe that there are war crimes, or crimes against humanity?
You think that the Allies (regarding the Nuremberg Trials) came up with an “entirely new concept?”
Not to mention the Inernational Court at The Hague.
Are war crimes and crimes against humanity “new” concepts, or were they always there but never acknowledged or prosecuted before?
What do you believe?
It does seem as though, from your comments, that you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth.
Elucidate.
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Yes, I believe there are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“International humanitarian law took its modern form after World War II in order to create a deterrent to the repeat of the horrors that took place in the trenches and concentration camps. Important conventions were agreed on including the European convention on Human Rights (4), the Genocide Convention (5), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (6)and the four Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols (7) (that protect the civilians and victims of war). By including criminal provisions and obligations for nations these also gave strong notions of a development in international criminal law.”
There was no law that could be used to prosecute Nazis in 1945. What took place during the years between 1936 – 1945 had never been done before. Existing law could not deal with the legalities involved. After all, what Hitler did was covered y the laws of Germany,
The ICJ did not get the workable laws in place until 2002.
Had these laws been in place when the original Court of International was set up, in 1899, England would have been hauled before the court because of their actions in South Africa (Using concentration camps to haul in the families of the Boers, who were in the veld to wage war.).
Stalin would have been convicted because of the tens of thousands of Russians he killed.
Over the years, the cases in front of the Court were between countries. It was not until this century that individuals were brought in front of this Court.
The “new concept” was the “Higher law.” NO National law could be used could be used during the trials.
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Well, that is interesting to learn that Hitler did nothing wrong because there was no law against genocide! Thanks, Rudy. Do we owe his family an apology? He owes my family an apology for gassing them and incinerating their bodies. I didn’t know murder was not against the law in Germany. Could he have been tried, along with subordinates, on 6-8 millions counts?
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You really unable to see the context? Where did you study history???
Where did I say he did nothing wrong. What I said was: they could NOT USE GERMAN LAW DURING the trials. GERMAN LAW!
I suggest you read up on the history of nazi trials Diane.
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So murder was not unlawful under German law in 1945?
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You said, “So murder was not unlawful under German law in 1945?”
Killing Jews was not. Killing romas was not. Killing jehovahs witnesses was not. Killing poles was not. Killing Bonhoeffer was not. Killing Anne Frank and her family was not.
Killing nazis was. Killing German police was. Kilken memvers of Das Herrenvolk was.
The 1936 racial laws changed Germany in the worst possible way.
I guess they don’t teach things like this in the US.
Unbelievable that the two largest genocides of modern history are not taught in this country.
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Thousands of Dutch people got killed. Anne Frank ring a bell? Corrie ten Boom mean anything?
Every year since 1945 a bell rings at 8:00 pm on the plains where resistance fighters were shot.
Every family gathering two people were missing because of what the Germans did.
So don’t ever say truly ignorant things like, so Hitler did no wrong!”
If you know the history of the Nuremberg trials, you would learn REALLY quick what the major problem was. It was not that what happened was wrong. Everybody involved knew that. But how do you adjudicate that when the LOCAL NATIONAL LAW approves it?
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“maintaining a realistic attitude” went out the door Trumps first week in office. Simply look at his choices, on average, for the highest positions in the administration (De Vos, Perry, Bannon, Miller, Flynn, Sessions)….all “extremists “Ducks”…….add this to Trumps (and his minions) daily avalanche of pure unadulterated lies should shake any rational person to their bones…….what world leader would “ever” take Trump at his word…?
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Rudy, does Miller seem a little creepy to you?
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Yes, but so do people I meet throughout the day. I was taught never to judge someone by appearance. I’ve learned that was good advice.
Were you to ask me if I hear worrisome words coming out of his mouth (or pen), I would say a loud yes.
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Rudy, welcome to the U.S. One of our colloquial sayings here is based on the “Duck Test” …. “If it walks like a Duck, swims like a Duck and quacks like a Duck, IT IS usually a Duck ….
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But it DOES not etc., etc., etc.
Where Nazi Germany rewrote the law to fit their purposes, trump’s ban was stopped by the court system. And that is how the system is designed to work. So the quacking is not there, the walking etc. is not there, either.
I know it’s a national sport now to compare trump with whomever we think the worst of, but maintaining a realistic attitude rather than sensational does make things a bit easier to deal with.
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See this and know what to do: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/515082/can-it-happen-here/?utm_source=nl-video-weekly-021017
AND SEE THIS: Making Sense of the News: Searching for the Truth with Verification from Bill Moyers http://billmoyers.com/story/making-sense-news-searching-truth-verification/THE RESISTANCE
AND THIS from http://www.IndivisibleGuide.com. is fabulous!
Indivisible: A Practical Guide For Resisting the Trump Agenda
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DzOz3Y6D8g_MNXHNMJYAz1b41_cn535aU5UsN7Lj8X8/mobilebasic
AND listen to this Keith Oberman’s series THE RESISTANCE which should go viral
HERE IS THE VOICE WE NEED TO SPEAK FOR US!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLnG5cYhc1Y&list=PL0hKMB1-xkc-XWNf9VL-LxVYysdHpjyMF This introduction to his series, is the impressive, heart-breaking, not to miss … and the links to them all are there. Trust me!
My favorites IS THIS ONE where he tells the media how they must handle this Liar in chief.
I have watched it many times; He mesmerizes me each time!
Watch it, trust me !
This one about how Donald Trump is Aiding the Enemy is very important! he explains who loved Trumps Ban…ISIS!
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Sometimes I post before I read all the posts . Great links exactly what I was thinking
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Okay so if a spokesperson is a fraud who lies like Kelly Ann Conjob or any of the other nefarious characters including the bloviating narcissist clown in the Oval office. Why do they put them on air . Moyers himself called out CNN for allowing Baghdad Barbra back on air .
And this piece pretty much sums MSNBC
http://www.alternet.org/media/nbc-accommodates-trump
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Isn’t it great? It’s propaganda and they spread it to every news outlet.
We did a local presentation to a high school class this year where we explained how voting works. They invited local people who have worked on elections – poll workers, primarily- to explain the mechanics. No politics, no conspiracy theories. That seems like a good way to fight back against what is (now) state-endorsed Trump propaganda.
Go under them. That’s how people have historically beaten national governments who issue propaganda. They control national but they don’t control local. So go local. Under.
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See the wonderful piece by Lizzy Ratner about Jared Kushner family history as refugees.
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Her article, in The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/nobody-wanted-to-take-us-in-the-story-of-jared-kushners-family-and-mine/
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Couldn’t help looking at Miller’s bio on Wikipedia…Seems to be a pretty hateful young man.
Here’s just one of many things that caught my eye:
Duke University’s former senior vice president John Burness told The News & Observer in February 2017 that, while at Duke, Miller “seemed to assume that if you were in disagreement with him, there was something malevolent or stupid about your thinking — incredibly intolerant.”
Sounds just like his boss…
BTW…he worked for Jeff Sessions prior to this gig.
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“The malignancy is deep in this one.” — Darth Jefferson Beauregard
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Joined ACLU. I NEVER USED TO THINK ABOUT OUR GOVERNMENT. NOW I DO–EVERYDAY.
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Good for you, liberalteacher! I have been a member of ACLU for close to 30 years now.
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It’s a house of mirrors to know what is going on. Trump did everything to get himself elected, whether he moves on those ideas is yet to be seen. already he is backing off of the support of settlements in Israel and moving the capital to Jerusalem. He is acting on removing “illegal” immigrants with criminal records, whether he can top Obama is yet to be seen. He needs to throw meat to his Republican base so he is cutting off funding of NGOs in foreign countries who support abortion, the same NGOs that are moving against him on the streets. It is interesting to see how this unfolds, but emotional attacks and name calling, like “fascist”, is premature, and counter productive. I don’t recall this frenzy when Reagan was elected. States will have to take more control over issues such as the environment as well as minimum wage and political parties will need to choose their candidates from the grass roots, avoiding the pay to play candidates. The alt left need to be more measured in their organizing and response, lest panic, led by the MSM, rule the day. Trump is a threat to major globalists and will remain the whipping boy accordingly
through the MSM.
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Joesph, please don’t refer to mainstream American voters with mainstream American values as the alt-left. There is no left-wing group whose values are equivalent to the white supremacist and anti-American views of the alt-right.
No. We are not an alt-left. We are the majority of Americans, indivisible.
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Sorry, we are “all” Americans, indivisible, that is what I am talking about. Throwing around terms attacking Americans like “white supremacist” and “anti American” compounds the idea of “the other”. There are plenty of “supremacists” in all cultures as we see ourselves as ” the indispensable country”. I would like to see what Trump will do, before getting lost in these weeds of name calling, and then take constructive action.
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Joseph
Many criminals are Americans, but also hateful like white supremacists, the KKK. and Bannon’s alt-right. I am intolerant of those who would destroy tolerance, education, ethics, morality, compassion.
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So when a group, any group, resorts to violence for whatever reason, you are against that?
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Thank you and Amen… Or, like a Democrat once said, “Question a man’s judgment, not his motives” – Democratic Senate majority Leader Mike Mansfield
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