Election officials in Georgia formally announced(11/09/22) that the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock(D) and his challenger Herschel Walker(R), will be headed for a runoff slated for December 6th, 2022. Prior to this formal announcement however, Gabe Sterling, the Chief Operating Officer at the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, appeared on CNN, where veteran Anchor John King, an authority in election result coverage, appeared to question the wisdom behind the decision to declare a runoff, when in his opinion, there were still enough outstanding votes to bring either candidate to 50%. I found that exchange quite interesting because it was John King, a very respectable figure, essentially arguing that a runoff decision was premature.
John King(0:46): “Why are you certain at this point, it will be a runoff? If you look at the results, there’s 49.2[Warnock] to 48.7[Walker] and we have the estimated outstanding vote here, maybe you have updated numbers. We have it at 96% estimated reporting, and you still seeing these circles, a decent amount of votes, a decent share of the votes still to come in in Fulton County and the suburbs around it, where Senator Warnock is doing well. You’re certain that there’s absolutely no possibility he gets to 50?”
Gabe Sterling: “At 2 AM last night I tweeted out it’s pretty safe to say we’re going to have that runoff. As we get closer and closer, more votes keep coming in. By our internal estimates, we have less than 10,000 votes to go into the election night reporting for the final counts. You know, I’ve seen some of these estimates of these votes and I’m like, I don’t know where the hell they are getting these numbers from, but we know there’s about less than 10,000, so there’s just not enough numbers out there still, to change the outcome of this race.”
Did CNN get the numbers wrong? Was Gabe Sterling’s answer satisfactory? Is this an issue the Warnock campaign needs to look further into? Hmm, lots of valid questions here, that’s all Yours Truly is saying.
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Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge appeared on CNN’s Tonight show (08/22/22) to address recent media reports that show significant appraisal disparities between homes owned by people of color, as opposed to those owned by Whites. Secretary Fudge told CNN host Laura Coates that the appraisal problem, which was initially relegated to homes in redlined districts, is now “systemic, and intentional to some degree.”
The latest example which has stunned many, involves two Black Johns Hopkins University professors, Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, who live in an affluent Maryland neighborhood. The Black couple’s home was initially appraised at $472,000, but after they “whitewashed” their home and let their White friend pose as the home owner, their house was appraised at a staggering $950,000, almost double the initial value.
Asked for her response to the outrageous Maryland incident, Secretary Fudge said(2:23): “I think professionally and personally, it is an absolute violation of the law. It is a violation of the fair housing law, it is a violation of the lending law, so what HUD is doing, and what we have done already is, we were tasked by the president to look at appraisal bias, because what we know is that it used to be that these things happened only in redlined communities, but now it is pervasive. It is happening everywhere, and we determined that part of the problem was how appraisers are trained, who is in the appraisal industry, and how they are governed, and so what we did in March was to present a report that showed how deeply this whole bias situation is across this country. It is systemic, and it is intentional to some degree…What we’ve already done is have the appraisal sub committee say to every single state in this country, the test that you use is no longer valid because it is a violation of the fair housing law.”
Secretary Fudge clarified her remarks regarding the test saying she was referring to the test to become an appraiser, adding(3:53), “What we have looked at is how data is collected. That’s part of the problem, it’s the data. So they collect data, and the data is not what it should be, they then use the data in a way that it should not be used, and so they come up with these biased appraisals. But as well, when you look at an industry that is more than 95% White, you find that people of color are treated differently because there is an inherent bias with a lot of them, and because they collect the data, the data is not good data.”
Secretary Fudge also made a startling acknowledgement regarding HUD, saying no previous administration has ever attempted to address the home appraisal bias problem, which is now evidently systemic. She said(5:05): “It has not happened before. This is the first of it’s kind report, this is the first if it’s kind subcommittee. It’s called Property Appraisal Valuation Equity. What the president has said is that we have to look at everything through a lens of equity. What we have realized is that people selling homes, just as the persons you were talking about, and even people buying homes, if their appraisal is not correct, what we find, especially as Black people and communities of color and underserved communities, is we lose great wealth just through the appraisal process. If those homes are appraised the way that they should be, then we look at being able to pass down significantly more resources and more wealth to generations that follow. But if we are constantly undervaluing communities of color, either because they are communities of color, or that the person themselves is in a community that they don’t think that we should be in, then we consistently lose wealth in our communities, and that’s why this is so important from an equity situation.”
Secretary Fudge concluded with her personal home appraisal story, telling host Coates that her house , which is in a Black community, is literally two doors away from an all-White community. She has a bigger lot size and house than the one two doors away from her, yet her house is valued at $25,000 less than that house in the White community.
Bottom line folks, the problem of biased home appraisals is a major one, and needs to be confronted head on. As Secretary Fudge correctly pointed out on CNN, “If those homes are appraised the way that they should be, then we look at being able to pass down significantly more resources and more wealth to generations that follow.” This issue is especially important to communities of color.
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CNN’s Whitney Wild appeared on Outfront w/Erin Burnett show(07/29/22), where she dropped a bombshell, telling host Jim Sciutto(subbing for Erin), that embattled DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari did not find out about the missing Secret Service text messages in December 2021 as has been previously reported, but rather, in May 2021–seven months earlier. This means Inspector General Cuffari took a whole year before informing the January 6th Committee about the missing texts, a totally unacceptable position, which only heightens concerns about a possible cover up by DHS.
As host Sciutto correctly pointed out in his intro, it’s not only the missing Secret Service texts that are at issue here, but also, those from former Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, and his top Deputy Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli’s texts are crucial to the January 6th Committee’s investigation because former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue testified before the Committee, under oath, that Trump had tasked Cuccinelli with seizing all voting machines for the purposes of investigating his bogus election fraud claims. Cuccinelli’s communications with Trump’s White House officials, or Trump himself, would therefore be very valuable to the January 6th Committee, and the fact that they cannot be retrieved, should be cause for serious concern, even a possible criminal investigation.
CNN’s Whitney Wild(video at 1:50):“What they had said prior is that the [DHS] Inspector General was aware of the missing text messages as of December 2021, that was the information we had learned some days ago, when two key Democrats were calling for the Inspector General’s recusal. Now, sources tell CNN, that the Secret Service notified the office of the Inspector General that text messages were erased in May of 2021, seven months earlier than previously known. The Secret Service has explained that these text messages were lost in a previously scheduled data migration of agents cell phones. The Committee [January6th] and Cuffari [DHS-IG] are interested in these text messages because, as you point out, these are people who were right at the center of what was going on on January 6th, and depending on what the content is, could shed light on the Secret Service’s response that day, and further, what they witnessed, among others…The other big thing that we’re learning here about the timeline[is]…in July, a representative for the Inspector General’s office told the Department of Homeland Security, they were no longer seeking these text messages. That was in July of 2021, about a year before the Inspector General brought these hurdles to congressional oversight committees.”
There’s no other way to interpret Whitney Wild’s remarks other than(I’d be happy to stand corrected of course), DHS Inspector General Cuffari is not being forthright about his investigation into the missing Secret Service texts. The shifting narratives as to when his office found out about the missing texts only raises suspicions from the general public, of a possible DHS cover up. Also, why did his office stop looking for the texts in July 2021? Wasn’t that the proper time for him, or the DHS Secretary for that matter, to notify the January 6th Committee of the problems they were having retrieving the texts? Very suspicious indeed.
Bottom line folks, the missing Secret Service texts scandal is just the latest in a long line of very troubling stories emanating from DHS, which all center around the same original sin–lack of proper congressional oversight, an issue Yours Truly has repeatedly screamed about, to your rolling eyes of course. Simply put, DHS has devolved into the corrupt federal behemoth we are witnessing today because at every turn since it’s inception, Congress and the corporate mainstream media, have looked the other way, when the public has raised credible concerns about abuses at/by the agency.
One only hopes that some of the outrage over the missing/deleted Secret Service texts will be aimed at complicit Congress and the corporate mainstream media. Simply put, DHS and other agencies tasked with our national security, will never change without proper/effective oversight. Plain and simple.
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MSNBC’s Katie Phang show(05/21/22) did a segment on WaPo’s bombshell revelation that Ginni Thomas’ involvement in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results was much more than has been previously reported. The conversation then turned into how ruthlessly Republicans would have dealt with a similarly situated liberal justice. Guest Kurt Bardella slammed the perennial weakness by congressional Democrats, who he said always played defense as opposed to the attack-minded Republicans. Bardella then made a startling assertion, telling host Katie Phang that if the January 6th Select Committee doesn’t go on the offense by making top Trump officials testify in public like Republicans did Hillary Clinton during Benghazi, then “this[2022 midterms]might be the last free and fair elections we have.”
MSNBC host Katie Phang(video at 5:11): “Kurt I saw you tweeting about how you were surprised that Democrats didn’t immediately start investigations into the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic as soon as they got into power. Now we see the January 6th Committee is apparently fine with not even getting him to testify…What will it take for the Dems to go on the offensive?”
Kurt Burdella: “I just think back to the Benghazi Select Committee, when Republicans didn’t blink to bring up Hillary Clinton to testify for more than 11 hours and face that type of grilling. I don’t know how you can have a system that has Secretary Clinton at the time having to do that, but you let Donald Trump, and people like Mike Pence, and Ginni Thomas, and Rudy Giuliani, and Steve Bannon, and Mark Meadows avoid that type of public setting. It’s such a parity and I’m telling you, we’re seeing right now, at this very second, Republicans campaign for the midterms on the idea that they are going to do this to the Biden administration. That they are not going to hesitate to use the reins of power to go after the president’s son…to try to impeach the president, to try to impeach the DHS secretary…Democrats are about to get a lesson on how to wield power, whether they like it or not, if they don’t step up right now because they are the last line of defense of stopping Republicans from hijacking democracy. It’s not about 2024 Katie, it’s about 2022 because I promise you, if Republicans are allowed to regain a congressional majority, they will not certify a Democrat win in 2024…This check and balance that we are about to see with the January 6th Select Committee is perhaps the last guardian of defense that we have of our democracy and our process, and if we don’t get answers from everybody who was involved, especially at the very top, this might be the last free and fair elections we have.”
As outlandish as Kurt Bardella’s assertion sounds, rank and file Democrats know it is absolutely true. A lot of the crazy things we’ve witnessed from Trump Republicans are rooted in their belief that Democrats will never muster enough courage to hold them accountable in any meaningful way–all bark no bite. Let’s hope the January 6th Select Committee breaks this expectation of weakness by Republicans, by holding them accountable through lengthy public testimonies, under oath. If the January 6th Select Committee fails to hold Trump and his top lieutenants accountable, then as Bardella correctly points out, democracy as we know it, will be dead this year, not in 2024, and Dem weakness will be partly to blame. This of course, also apples to President Biden’s Department of Justice.
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Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper appeared on CBS’ Face The Nation (05/15/22) to discuss his new book “A Sacred Oath”, which chronicles his time in the Trump administration. During his interview however, there was an interesting, even awkward exchange about the infamous Lafayette Square incident, that left viewers wondering whether he, or former Attorney General William Barr, or both, were lying to the public about the incident. Specifically, Esper told host Margaret Brennan that former President Trump did indeed request 10,000 active duty troops to deal with the BLM protesters at Lafayette Square even though at his earlier appearance on the same show, with the same host, former AG Barr had called such claims “completely false.”
How can two senior officials of the Trump administration(SecDef & AG), who were both present at a seminal moment in the administration(Lafayette Square protests), end up with a polar opposite recollections of the same event? Who’s lying?
Host Margaret Brennan(video at 3:50): “You(Esper) talk about, and have spoken quite a lot this past week about the events in Lafayette Square, and it’s an important bit of the public record. You were in the Oval Office with the President, and he spoke about a very specific number, 10,000 of active duty troops potentially being sent into the streets of Washington DC. I want to play a clip for you here, because I asked the then Attorney General Bill Barr about exactly that..[plays clip with AG Barr, where he calls such claims ‘completely false’]…”
Margaret Brennan: “Why do you seem to have different recollections?”
Mark Esper: “I don’t know. I wrote about this in my book that Bill Barr and I have different recollections. Of course if you go through my story you’ll understand that the President calls into the Pentagon earlier that morning and talks about 10,000 troops. That’s when I’m first made aware of this request. Look, I don’t know why we have different recollections. I think in all these cases people hear or see different things, but I’m 110% confident of what the President was seeking that morning.”
Reasonable people will agree that these two dramatically different accounts of the same Lafayette Square event cannot both be true. Someone is clearly lying here. Who is it?
Bottom line folks, this new phenomenon of Washington insiders sitting on information of great public interest, only to release them after lucrative book deals, is getting out of control. Both Esper and Barr have written books about their experiences in the Trump administration, and have presumably been rewarded handsomely for the books. The public however is still left hanging on the question as to whether Trump requested active duty troops to deal with the Lafayette Square protests. What public good do these “bombshell” books serve?
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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on Fox News’ Ingraham Angle show(04/21/22) to discuss among other things, reports this week that China has signed a security pact with the strategically located Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Pompeo slammed the Biden administration over this, saying they are “allowing China to walk all over them.” He added that China will “park missiles” in the Solomon Islands, and could in the future use this strategic location to block trade routes that are important to the United States.
Pompeo specifically told host Ingraham(video at 1:20):“The Chinese have been trying to expand their footprint in the Pacific, and in particular, the South Pacific for an awfully long time. They began by building out a set of islands called the Spratlys. They put military bases on there after they promised President Obama they wouldn’t, and when they did, he did literally nothing. The Solomon Islands and other Islands in the Pacific are places where they can park missile systems, naval bases, other naval capabilities that they can use to foreclose trade, all of the important trade that moves through all of the South Pacific into the Eastern Pacific, into places that matter an awful lot to the United States of America. It’s why China is so focused on it, it’s why in the Trump administration we worked so diligently to try and build out alliances with those countries. The Biden administration has allowed China to walk all over them throughout the entire Pacific.”
Pompeo went on to add(video at 2:30):“I don’t think they[China]respect or fear the United States under the leadership of President Obama and the team…This administration hasn’t shown the same resolve and the same capacity to deter aggression that we did for 4 years…The Chinese Communist Party presents the single greatest external risk to the United States of America from any place in the world…We need to lead the effort to make sure that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t dominate global trade and dominate the global economy in the years and decades ahead. We can do it, but it takes American leadership.”
Bottom line folks, even though reasonable people will agree that Trump GOP is currently mired in frivolity(fights with Disney, hyperventilating over CRT, going after transgender athletes etc), the China issue remains one of the few legitimate arguments they still have. Simply put, the United States cannot allow a perception to fester out there, that China is always running us over. So you ask, “Why should we care about such a perception”? Look no further than the current Russia-Ukraine war. Make no mistake about it, Putin invaded Ukraine because (1) he knows he has China’s support and (2) the United States has demonstrated no willingness to confront China in any way out of fear of “disturbing our trade ties”. This dynamic has to change. We need to make China respect and fear the United States, not just for our own national security sake, but also to deter autocrats around the world who have figured out that they can commit atrocities while hiding under China’s umbrella.
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Secretary Hillary Clinton discusses Russia-Ukraine conflict on MSNBC’s Morning Joe (02/25/22)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show (02/25/22) where she slammed GOP’s seeming praise of Russia’s President Putin, even as he continues with his invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Secretary Clinton called this the height of “naivete”, saying Putin, who “takes no prisoners”, would similarly kill, poison, and imprison those in the GOP who think he’s their friend. Secretary Clinton was on Morning Joe to discuss her bombshell piece on The Atlantic titled, “A State of Emergency For Democracy.”
Clinton told hosts Mika and Joe(video at 7:25 onwards): “Starting with the ascent of Trump, there has been, sadly, a total loss of spine and conscience among too many Republicans who at first saw no harm in echoing and parroting the kind of crazy stuff that Trump would say, totally against history, against common sense…and now they are kind of caught in a bit of a downward spiral, where they are afraid to stand against even the most outrageous comments. ”
She added, “There’s also another element which is, these people are naive in such a dangerous way. They somehow believe that because Putin presents himself as a strong leader on behalf of certain values that are anti-gay, that are anti-freedom and democracy that is so messy, that somehow. that corresponds with the views of certain members and elements of the Republican Party. They could not be more mistaken. This man takes no prisoners. He kills them, he poisons them, he imprisons them…The naivete that we saw starting with Trump, but which has now been accelerated, is really hard to understand but nevertheless, we have to deal with it. We have to call it out.”
Secretary Clinton singled GOP Senator Ben Sasse (Nebraska) for praise, for his unequivocal denunciation of Putin and his thuggish regime. Senator Sasse appeared on Morning Joe right before Secretary Clinton’s interview.
Secretary Clinton concluded her interview by imploring the Biden administration to deal ruthlessly with the Oligarchs who Putin relies on to move his ill-gotten wealth around. She said, “We need to call the Oligarchs out. We need to call them out by name, we need to go after their assets, whether it’s temporary suspension of access to assets like yachts and huge houses…bank accounts, because if we don’t up the pressure now, whatever we are doing…will take longer, and Ukraine will be burning. Ukraine will be devastated.” She gave kudos to this U.K. MP for calling out Putin-allied Oligarchs in Parliament.
Layla Moran uses parliamentary privilege to name 35 Russian oligarchs that she thinks should be sanctioned. ? pic.twitter.com/zTqeD8GmsK
Bottom line folks, Secretary Clinton is absolutely right. One only hopes the Biden admin will heed her advice and (1) find a way to counter Putin’s propagandists on Fox News and elsewhere, and (2) squeeze his Oligarchs out of financial relevance. Then, and only then, will Putin come to the negotiating table in good faith.
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Biden administration’s Infrastructure Coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, made a major announcement on CNN’s New Day(02/08/22), that a major electric vehicle charging facility operated by Tritium, is opening in Tennessee. Tritium is a global leader in the electric vehicle charging industry, making this announcement a major development on the infrastructure front.
Mitch Landrieu said on New Day: “The infrastructure law is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild the country. We’re not just talking about roads and bridges and airports and lead pipes, we’re actually talking about manufacturing, and of course as we electrify the economy, and we talk about electric vehicles coming, somebody has to make the electrical vehicle charging stations, and we want those made here in America, so this particular announcement is really groundbreaking. It’s going to be in Tennessee. They are going to build 30,000 electrical vehicle charging stations. On Thursday, Secretary Buttigieg and Secretary Granholm are going to announce $5 billion to begin the process of putting 500,000 charging stations across America, but we want those charging stations made in America, we want them with American products, and today is the start of actually manufacturing those here at home.”
Think about that. The infrastructure law was just enacted the other day and already, the Biden administration is putting people to work. Per Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, the plan to install as many as 500,000 charging stations across the country, begins today in Tennessee. Talk about MAGA–Make AmericanManufacturing Great Again!!
Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly said the other day after Speaker Pelosi and her House Democrats passed America Competes Act, don’t get lost and discouraged with all the noise from naysayers on MSM, talking about how Dems will “lose in November because they are not delivering.” The fact of the matter is Dems, both congressional and the Biden admin, are hunkering down and delivering on things that matter to working families, the latest example being the electric charging plant in Tennessee, which translates to jobs, jobs, jobs(good ones). MSM naysayers have one valid point though–Dems need to do a better job of touting their accomplishments.
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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show (09/24/2021), where she blasted elected Republicans in Texas for giving in to former President Trump’s baseless demands for an audit into the state’s 2020 election results. The decision by the Texas Secretary of State’s office to conduct an audit into the election results of Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties, came literally a few hours after Trump’s demand, which led a visibly upset Judge Hidalgo to tell host Maddow that Texas was “being run from Maralago.”
Judge Hidalgo told Maddow:“We have to remember we had incredibly successful elections here in Harris County in 2020. We had innovations that led to record turnouts from both parties, the highest in 30 years, I mean it was beautiful, and since then, no evidence has come out that would in any way cause the need for this kind of audit. All we’ve seen is [former]President Trump exhorting the state, or [Governor]Abbott, to have this audit…The reality of it is Texas is being run from Maralago, and that is dangerous, and it’s not appropriate…it’s extremely concerning.”
Judge Hidalgo added that time had come for politicians in Washington to get off the sidelines, and actively join the fight against voter suppression in the states, telling host Maddow, “We need the federal government to act, I mean, this has gone too far… This should be another call to action. We’ve got the writing on the wall. We’ve got to get off our chairs and get moving on all this.”
Bottom line folks, as Judge Hidalgo correctly pointed out, time has come for some decisive action to be taken against these naked efforts by Republicans at the state level, to restrict the voting rights of minorities. Democrats in Washington cannot just sit on the sidelines, and watch their counterparts in Republican-led states like Texas, go to war against GOP’s efforts to restrict minority voting rights. Simply put, time has come for Democrats in Washington to finally do away with the filibuster, and institute a national voting standard geared towards making it easier for people to vote, as opposed to GOP’s scheme of limiting access to the ballot box. As Judge Hidalgo correctly put it, congressional Democrats need to “get off their chairs and get moving” on a comprehensive federal voting rights law.
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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on Fox News Sunday(08/15/2021) to discuss the ongoing crisis unfolding in Afghanistan, following the decision by the Biden administration to withdraw U.S. troops from the country. Pompeo, who naturally was intent on slamming the Biden administration for the chaos in Afghanistan, was however confronted with his own record as Secretary of State, specifically, his role in legitimizing the Taliban, and forcing the Afghan government to release Taliban fighters from prison.
Pompeo’s full interview on Fox News Sunday is available here, but the relevant clip is below
Host Chris Wallace’s question to Pompeo: “You are the first American Secretary of State to ever meet with the Taliban, and you talked about how they had agreed to join us in the fight against terrorism…Do you regret giving the Taliban that legitimacy? Do you regret pressuring the Afghan government to release five thousand prisoners, which they did, some of whom are now back on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban?”
Pompeo responded that even though he enlisted Taliban forces in our fight against terrorism, specifically Al-Qaeda, he has never trusted them. He specifically said, “We never trusted the Taliban…We made abundantly clear if they did not live up to that peace of paper[deal], to the words that they had put on the ground, we weren’t going to allow them to just walk away from any deal that they had struck. We were going to crush them…We didn’t take the word of the Taliban. We watched their actions on the ground. When they did the right thing and they helped us against terror, that was all good, and when they didn’t, we crushed them.”
Pompeo’s response is shaky on several grounds, chief among them, the fact that it dodges the million dollar question at hand, and that is, whether the Taliban fighters he forced the Afghan government to release, are the same fighters now running over the country. Reasonable people will agree that some of the Taliban prisoners freed as a result of pressure from then Secretary Pompeo, are the same fighters now causing all the chaos in the country.
Bottom line folks, the operating principle has been, and still is, that in all our military engagements, the buck always stops with the sitting Commander-in-Chief, in this case, President Biden. Republicans have every right to lay the blame on the Biden administration for the chaos currently unfolding in Afghanistan. It is totally disingenuous however, for Pompeo and others in former President Trump’s cabinet, to act like they had nothing to do with the current mess in Afghanistan. Reasonable people will agree that some of the five thousand Taliban prisoners Pompeo pressured the Afghan government to release, are the same Taliban fighters now running over the country. Simply put Mike Pompeo, you have a hand in the Afghan mess!!
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