Originally posted by surfgun
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“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
Ehhh...no. The "conspiracy rags" are the links you've been posting.
The Atlantic is a respected publication that deals in facts. Left-Center lean, yes. "Far Left Conspiracy rag"? No.
Not even because Donald Trump told you it was.
Analysis / Bias
Both The Atlantic Magazine and web publication produce quality journalism that utilizes moderately loaded wording that typically favors the left: This Is the Moment of Truth for Republicans. All news stories on The Atlantic are properly sourced to factual information and usually present a reasonable balance on issues. Editorially, The Atlantic takes a Left-Center position on most issues and has long endorsed Democratic candidates. In general, the news is reported factually with a moderate liberal editorial bias.
Failed Fact Checks- None to date
Overall, we rate The Atlantic Left-Center Biased due to editorial positions and High for factual reporting based on excellent sourcing of information and a clean fact check record. (5/15/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 09/04/2020)
Over, and over, and over.
Until there is no one left who tries to spread false Russian propaganda by slandering storied American media institutions.
And, then a bit longer, just to be sure: Never Again.
Trust me?
I'm an economist!
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Originally posted by surfgun View PostTops, obviously you had zero comprehension on the two year comment. Stew on.
Now this reporter sat on a story for two years. I think not. I think it took him awhile to hear something through the Washington DC grapevine to prompt his digging. Then it took time to build the source and vet the information which is the job of a top reporter. Once the confidence level of the story is high then he can go forward so two years isn't s stretch at all. Since then his story has been confirmed by at least five assorted news organizations I know of. Of course Trump will best Nixon here on the attack since no one has the dirty filthy mouth that Trump has had all his life.
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Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
Two years, two years, sounds familiar. Oh, yeah Watergate took from June 1972 to August 1974 and it was all do to two dogged reporters and one unnamed source called Deep Throat. According to Carl that source gave them 200 pieces of information during that time and in the end it was all true. Not that Nixon and his cronies didn't do all they could to shut it down.
Now this reporter sat on a story for two years. I think not. I think it took him awhile to hear something through the Washington DC grapevine to prompt his digging. Then it took time to build the source and vet the information which is the job of a top reporter. Once the confidence level of the story is high then he can go forward so two years isn't s stretch at all. Since then his story has been confirmed by at least five assorted news organizations I know of. Of course Trump will best Nixon here on the attack since no one has the dirty filthy mouth that Trump has had all his life.
Something called "investigative journalism."
It has to do with ethics, integrity, honesty, and the truth.
The penny drops: That's why these Trumpeters hate real news sources so much!Trust me?
I'm an economist!
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Donald Trump Confronts Faux Barack Obama In Resurfaced 2012 ‘The Apprentice’ Style Video
President Donald Trump is shown firing an actor playing former President Barack Obama in a recently resurfaced video from 2012, when he was considering running for president.
Details about the video came to light in former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s book, Disloyal: A Memoir, out on Tuesday via Skyhorse Publishing. According to The New York Times, Cohen describes the making of a video where a video where “Trump ritualistically belittled the first Black president and then fired him, a kind of fantasy fulfillment that it was hard to imagine any adult would spend serious money living out — until he did the functional equivalent in the real world.”
The scene was reportedly made for the 2012 Republican National Convention, but was axed from the broadcast. There were reports that year that Trump would make some kind of surprise appearance on the first night of the convention. But those plans were scuttled because of the threat of a hurricane striking the Tampa region, where the convention was held.
In the book, Cohen calls himself “one of Trump’s bad guys,” and describes his former boss as “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator and a con man.”
With the new book on Trump by Bob Woodward coming soon, and others by Trump’s niece Mary Trump and former FBI agent Peter Strzok that casts a critical eye on the president’s cozy relationship with Russia, the president is getting hammered on numerous fronts.
Perhaps the most damning came not from a book, but from a sourced article in The Atlantic which alleges the president denigrated U.S. soldiers, including calling those killed in combat “losers.”
But in this video published by something called “BirtherReportDotCom” — seemingly named for the false campaign to challenge Barack Obama’s birthright as an American, Trump takes part in a mock assessment of his predecessor in the form of his past career as a reality show host.
The video shows Trump in classic The Apprentice mode, berating the faux Obama about his lack of accomplishments and (ironically) how much he golfs, ending with Trump’s signature statement: “You’re fired!”
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Good god, talk about derangement syndrome
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Trump campaign attacks Biden for visiting his son's grave
Francis Brennan is Director of Strategic Response for Trump's 2020 Campaign
On a morning that Trump spent golfing at his own course, Joe Biden went to church and then visited the graves of his dead children and first wife. He acknowledges with a wave and continues walking the same clip and direction. Hardly "meandering".
So naturally, the Trump campaign attacked him for it.
There is no "rock bottom" with Donald Trump or the "best people" that he hires.
Oh and this what "meandering" look like.
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
LMAO there we go, right on cue.
They're not a favorite but you post links from them all the time. Got it.
Also, not a word...not a single word from you about that Fox News clip.
"Don't give a damn" confirmed.“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
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Why Trump’s generals are remaining silent on story of fallen soldiers
In a Labor Day column, conservative David Frum wondered why none of President Donald Trump's generals are racing to defend him against allegations about his insults of fallen soldiers.
It was reported last week that Trump called fallen soldiers "losers" and "suckers," consistent with Trump's attacks on POWs during the 2016 campaign and late Sen. John McCain.
"Amid the clamor, it's easy to overlook those who are not yelling, those who are keeping silent," wrote Frum. "Where are the senior officers of the United States armed forces, serving and retired—the men and women who worked most closely on military affairs with President Trump? Has any one of them stepped forward to say, 'That's not the man I know?'"
It was a similar question to one dodged by Trump aide Jason Miller during a CNN appearance Sunday evening in which he was asking why Gen. John Kelly hasn't come out to defend Trump. Miller claimed it was because Kelly likes to stay out of politics. That flies in the face of Kelly coming out to oppose Trump's use of the armed forces to fight protesters.
"How many wounded warriors have stepped forward to attest to Trump's care and concern for them? How many Gold Star families have stepped forward on Trump's behalf? How many service families?" asked Frum. "The silence is resounding. And when such voices do speak, they typically describe a president utterly lacking in empathy to grieving families, wholly uncomprehending of sacrifice and suffering."
Frum then remembered the incident when Trump promised the widow of a fallen soldier he would send her $25,000. It was only until the Washington Post reported that Trump reneged on the promise that he actually wrote the check.
Trump was then heartlessly dismissive of the death of Sgt. La David Johnson in a call to his wife. Trump called at the worst possible moment, Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, a close family friend, was visiting the Johnson family at the time.
Then there was the time Trump attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, the lies about the Veterans Choice Act, and the lie that he would donate money from a charity event to the charities cited. Trump had to be forced to actually give up the money.
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“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Everyone Knows It’s True
As Trump vehemently disputes reports that he has disparaged veterans, some silences speak loudly.
Donald Trump generates a lot of noise. He talks. He tweets. He is echoed and amplified by a vast claque, on TV and online, made up of Americans and foreigners, humans and bots.
Never has he shouted louder than in the days since my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg reported the president’s disparaging comments about those who have fallen, been maimed, or taken prisoner in war.
Trump’s protestations have been seconded by his wife. The first lady’s endorsement of Trump’s pro-military credentials has been repeated by Trump Cabinet secretaries, as well as by Fox News talking heads, and by a recipient of a Trump pardon.
Amid the clamor, it’s easy to overlook those who are not yelling, those who are keeping silent. Where are the senior officers of the United States armed forces, serving and retired—the men and women who worked most closely on military affairs with President Trump? Has any one of them stepped forward to say, “That’s not the man I know”?
How many wounded warriors have stepped forward to attest to Trump’s care and concern for them? How many Gold Star families have stepped forward on Trump’s behalf? How many service families?
The silence is resounding. And when such voices do speak, they typically describe a president utterly lacking in empathy to grieving families, wholly uncomprehending of sacrifice and suffering.
In September 2017, four U.S. soldiers fell in action in the African country of Niger. One of them was Sergeant La David Johnson. Trump placed a call to his widow, Myeshia Johnson. A family friend, Frederica Wilson, the representative for Florida’s Twenty-Fourth Congressional District, reported Trump’s attempt at consolation: “He knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” Trump responded by launching Twitter and TV denials. Myeshia Johnson spoke about that call on ABC’s Good Morning America, confirming Wilson’s account, and adding more: “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name. And that what’s hurting me the most. Because if my husband was out here fighting for our country, and he risked his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name?” Talking to Trump about her fallen husband, Myeshia Johnson said, “made me upset and cry even more.”
In June 2017, Sergeant Dillon Baldridge and two other soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Trump called the Baldridge family. On the call, Baldridge’s father, Chris, complained about the slowness of military survivor benefits. To which Trump replied, “I'm going to write you a check out of my personal account for $25,000.” The promised check, of course, never arrived. Three months later, the elder Baldridge told his story to The Washington Post. “I could not believe he was saying that, and I wish I had it recorded because the man did say this. He said, ‘No other president has ever done something like this,’ but he said, ‘I’m going to do it.’”
Only then, after Baldridge went public, was Trump shamed into making good on his weird, inappropriate, and insincere promise of personal assistance.
Trump has rarely met families who received remains of their loved ones at Dover Air Force Base. Media reports count just four visits, because—in the words of an aide—he had been “rattled” by an angry outburst from the father of William “Ryan” Owens, killed in action in Yemen in February 2017. The elder Owens had refused to shake Trump’s hand.
Trump soon recovered his composure. At his first speech to a joint session of Congress in February 2017, Trump told Ryan Owens’s widow, Carryn, that Owens would have been happy because the applause at the mention of his name “broke a record.” Later that month, Trump gave an interview to Fox News and shoved blame for the failed raid that cost Owens’s life onto “the generals.” “They lost Ryan,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly slighted concerns over the well-being of U.S. troops. Here he is in Davos, answering questions about U.S. soldiers who had suffered injuries in an Iranian missile attack.Weijia Jang: Mr. President, a question on Iran: Initially, you said repeatedly to Americans that after Iran retaliated for the Soleimani strike, no Americans were injured. We now know at least 11 U.S. servicemen were airlifted from Iraq. Can you explain the discrepancy?
Donald Trump: No, I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things. But I would say, and I can report it is not very serious—not very serious.
Jang: So you don’t consider a potential traumatic brain injury serious?
Trump: They told me about it numerous days later. You’d have to ask [the] Department of Defense. No, I don’t consider them very serious injuries, relative to other injuries that I’ve seen.
I’ve seen what Iran has done with their roadside bombs to our troops. I’ve seen people with no legs and with no arms. I’ve seen people that were horribly, horribly injured in that area, that war—in fact, many cases put—those bombs put there by Soleimani, who is no longer with us. I consider them to be really bad injuries.
No, I do not consider that to be bad injuries. No.
President Trump disparaged the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after that naval officer warned superiors of a COVID-19 outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier.Here we have one of the greatest—here we have one of the greatest ships in the world. Nuclear aircraft carrier. Incredible ship with thousands and thousands of people. And you had about 120 that were infected.
Now, I guess the captain stopped in Vietnam and people got off in Vietnam. Perhaps you don’t do that in the middle of a pandemic or—or something that looked like it was going to be—you know, history would say you don’t necessarily stop and let your sailors get off, No. 1.
But more importantly, he wrote a letter. The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place. That’s not appropriate. I don’t think that’s appropriate. And these are tough people. These are tough, strong people.
I thought it looked terrible, to be honest with you. Now, they made their decision. I didn’t make the decision. [The] secretary of defense was involved and a lot of people were involved. I thought it was terrible what he did to write a letter. I mean, this isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear-powered. And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter. He could call and ask and suggest.
The uniformed military will remember how Trump has abused one of the greatest commanders of the age, Admiral William McRaven, who commanded the operations that captured Saddam Hussein and killed Osama bin Laden. In November 2018, Fox News’s Chris Wallace asked about an op-ed by McRaven that complained of Trump’s divisiveness.Chris Wallace: Bill McRaven, retired admiral, Navy SEAL, 37 years, former head of U.S. Special Operations—
Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton fan.
Wallace: —Special Operations—
Trump: Excuse me, Hillary Clinton fan.
Wallace: —who led the operations, commanded the operations that took down Saddam Hussein and that killed Osama bin Laden, says that your sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime.”
Trump: Okay, he’s a Hilary Clinton backer and an Obama backer, and frankly … wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that? Wouldn’t it have been nice? You know, living—think of this—living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan.
Trump has also abused General Stanley McChrystal, a former commander of forces in Afghanistan:“‘General’ McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover!”
And how did he treat Marine General John Allen, another former Afghanistan commander, who later coordinated the fight against ISIS? “His record = BAD”
Or Marine General James Mattis, Trump’s own former secretary of defense? “The world’s most over-rated general.”
So perhaps it’s no surprise that when Trump went looking for military character witnesses, he could find so few to vouch for him.
One of the most striking things about Trump is how seldom, if ever, anybody tells a story of kindness and compassion about him. Not even his own children have much to say. Here’s his daughter Tiffany at the Republican convention in 2016:My father always asked about my family in Georgia, to make sure that they are healthy and safe … A few years ago, someone very dear to me passed away, and the first call I got, as I knew I would, came from my father.
And that’s it. Few former employees of the Trump administration praise him as a boss. Few business partners speak of his honesty. Few tenants of Trump buildings have anything good to say about the homes he supposedly built. Few officials of any city have been willing to celebrate any contribution to urban life. Few beneficiaries of any Trump philanthropy.
Imagine a man who has lived in the public eye for half a century, supposedly one of the country’s leading business figures, and when in trouble he struggles to summon credible or trustworthy witnesses from outside the Fox Cinematic Universe. There’s just a gaping zero where goodness should be.
So when it is reported—first in The Atlantic, then by The Washington Post, the AP, CNN, and Fox News—that multiple sources have heard Trump sneer and jibe at America’s fallen, the reporting rings true because it is consistent with the public record. The denials ring false because they defy that public record.
The things reported fit in the mouth you know. Everybody knows it’s true, and most especially those who have been tasked to deny it.
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Such a damn shame that Trump's followers don't have the balls to come right out say it: "Yes we know he said it, no we don't care".
I mean, is self-honesty really that hard?“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Originally posted by DOR View Post
I've heard of that before.
Something called "investigative journalism."
It has to do with ethics, integrity, honesty, and the truth.
The penny drops: That's why these Trumpeters hate real news sources so much!
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Originally posted by GVChamp View PostThe evidence presented for latest scandal is...not exactly compelling. Believing in the latest outrage is poor intellectual hygiene. You should wait longer than the 24 hours news cycle to actually form opinions about the latest news scandal. This is doubly so if it confirms your priors: "I want to believe" should be reserved for the X-Files.
Note that your quoted article completely mischaracterizes Bolton's position, which, with no ambiguity whatsoever:
News: Trump said this horrible thing!
Bolton: uhhh, I was there, he didn't say that, he cancelled it because of the weather. I mean, he might have said it later, but at that conversation he didn't
News: Further proof Trump said this horrible thing!.
Let's face it: Donald Trump has openly and publicly sneered at American POW's as a group, disparaging their status as heroes and saying that he "likes people who weren't captured". He's done it multiple times over the years. He's had no problem saying it. He truly believes it.
Is it really that much further down that same indefensible and repugnant road for him to disparage American war dead as well?
It's blindly obvious that Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath. He is simply incapable of understanding or appreciating the concept of sacrifice, much less the ultimate sacrifice.
His "alleged" remarks are fully in character with this man.“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Just one more in a long line of disparagements of the military.
Had to keep a vessel named for one of the great Navy families of the 20th Century cause it would hurt someones feelings....
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...n-report-says/
And making the claim that military leadership has gone off the rails and taking military action to make money for defense contractors is beyond reprehensible.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/20...makers/168294/
And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs gets it and understands the role of military in a democratic society. Oh, and BTW, DC didn't need anything beyond its own National Guard...and even that was misused. The DC police have ample expertise in handling crowds but the Administration took control out of their hands which led to so many of the problems.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/y...loyd-protests/“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
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Originally posted by Albany Rifles View PostAnd making the claim that military leadership has gone off the rails and taking military action to make money for defense contractors is beyond reprehensible.
If Trump wants a prime example of the military-industrial complex, he can start with his very own appointee, because Mark Yesper is the very definition of it:
During his time with Raytheon, Esper focused on providing input on defense spending authorization bills crucial to the company’s bottom line, working specifically on acquisition policy and missile systems in 2016. Raytheon posted record federal lobbying spending during Esper’s tenure, peaking in 2013 when it shelled out more than $7.6 million. Link
On Monday, President Trump delivered one of his most baffling lines yet at a White House news conference. Asked again about the Atlantic story detailing his disparagement of wounded veterans and soldiers who died in war, Trump said the “top people” in the military “probably” don’t love him “because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
The idea that special interests hold too much sway at the Pentagon and ultimately benefit from its outsized budget is not a new one. Elizabeth Warren made pretty much the same argument in 2018 when she said, “It’s clear that the Pentagon is captured by the so-called ‘Big Five’ defense contractors-and taxpayers are picking up the bill.” But it’s confusing to hear Trump express that idea given his past actions regarding the Pentagon. Under Trump, the defense budget has risen for three straight years, an achievement he once was so proud of that he repeatedly exaggerated its scale and impact.
Two months after taking office, he told a joint session of Congress that he planned to propose a budget “that calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.” His resulting proposal did “not appear to be a significant departure from the Obama defense budget,” per the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ budget guru Todd Harrison, and if enacted, would have only been the “ninth-largest increase in the past four decades.” Even Congress, which was controlled at the time by Republicans, thought Trump could do better and ended up appropriating $37 billion more than Trump requested for general Pentagon operations “and another $60 billion for war operations overseas in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere,” the New York Times reported.
Trump’s budget proposals in 2018 and 2019 similarly raised defense spending, but not by nearly as much as Trump claimed in speeches on the campaign trail or in front of US service members. His repeated claim that he invested $2 trillion to burnish a “totally depleted” fighting force has been debunked over and over again.
But it’s not just the Pentagon’s budget; Trump has gone out of his way to boost defense companies directly. After the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by agents of Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Trump defended the Saudi dictator by noting that the kingdom had committed to spend $110 billion on “military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great US defense contractors.” During a meeting with the Vietnamese prime minister, Trump pitched him on importing weapons from the United States. “We make the best military equipment in the world by far, whether it’s jet fighters or missiles or rockets or anything you want to name, we make, we’re acknowledged to have made, we make the best,” Trump said. He’s also used the White House Twitter feed to promote companies like Lockheed.
Far from being a critic of Pentagon waste, Trump has actively abetted it by rewarding defense contractors with high-level government jobs. Several ex-Boeing executives received plush national security jobs, including onetime acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan. Mark Esper, the current Defense secretary, used to lobby for Raytheon. But now that his private remarks attacking the troops have become public, Trump, who spent three years exaggerating his own effort to boost defense spending, suddenly seems concerned about waste and corruption at the Pentagon. Link“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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Moved several posts from the Presidential Election thread over to here“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
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