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U.S. Politics: If Trump Is In Attendance, The Next Protest Should Be A Roman Salute


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51 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The bolded section hits the nail on the head and I tried to address it before, but it would seem that I failed. Part of the reason why I've argued that there is an ethical and moral argument for abortions is precisely because you have to factor in everything that interacts with the decision.

I'll say it once and for all, but in the long-run abortion should really be a non-issue: both liberals and conservatives agree that ideally there should be no abortions.
From a liberal point of view, if the issues of poverty, contraception and sexual education were correctly delt with, there would barely be any need for abortions. It's only because of so many other dreadful policies that morally and ethically speaking you just cannot force people to have unwanted children.
As for conservatives, they seem to want to force unwanted children on people, period. And the primary reason for that is religious, though there is also a lot of hogwash about individual responsibility that mainly shows how pro-life people fail to understand the many insidious ways in which poverty affects people's lives. And I think I can say it here, but I believe American conservatism especially tends to blame poverty on the poor, because it completely rejects determinism through the myths of the American dream and the self-made individual. These twisted aspects of American conservatism really obscure the rare arguments about the sacredness of human life that many (if not most) liberals would actually be on board with.
So the issue is particularly salient in the US because it sits at the unconfortable crossroads between individual liberties and individual responsibility. And it's a useful issue for politicians (on both sides I'd say) because it has become this abstract debate on moral principles rather than a debate on the root causes for abortions and the consequences of not having access to abortion, thus neatly separating "liberals" and "conservatives." If the debate went back to how we want society to see human life as valuable, and what it really means in terms of policies, most reasonable people would probably agree that they'd much prefer the rate of abortions to be lower and seek policies to do that, focusing not just on abortion but also on what other policies are needed to fight what everybody would probably agree is a problem. And sure, there might be some people on both sides who would stick to relatively radical views, but I find it hard to believe that in the 21st century most conservatives wouldn't agree that if you want to restrict the access to abortion, then morally and ethically speaking, you also have to improve the access to sex education and contraception, and conversely, if you don't clearly support sex education and contraception then you have no right to oppose abortion.
Hope I made sense. That was all a long-winded way of saying that I naively imagine there *can* be a consensus on abortion, even in the U.S.

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Howard Schultz’s Third Way

The former Starbucks chairman is thinking about getting into politics. What would that mean for the Democratic Party?

https://newrepublic.com/article/148744/howard-schultzs-third-way

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But for all his headline-grabbing innovations, Schultz cuts a familiar profile in Democratic politics by combining socially liberal policies with a conservative economic bent. The Democratic Party will be tempted by independently wealthy candidates like Schultz, since it faces a financial disadvantage in its battle against the Republican Party. What Schultz represents though, is a centrism that is not only out of step with the party’s base but also with the larger electorate as well.

In particular, Schultz is obsessed with the hoariest concern of serious Beltway types: the national debt.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Howard Schultz’s Third Way

The former Starbucks chairman is thinking about getting into politics. What would that mean for the Democratic Party?

https://newrepublic.com/article/148744/howard-schultzs-third-way

 

I think my general attitude towards somebody like Schulz with his socially tolerant but fiscally conservative outlook is, not to beat around the bush here:

Just fuck him.

I’ve I wanted socially tolerant policies combined with so called “fiscal conservatism” I’d vote for liberatians whose philosophy I’ve compared to a mullet with it’s “socially liberal party back end” and its “fiscally conservative business front end".

For one the idea of “fiscal conservatism” has been a flamin’ joke ever since Ronald Reagan.

If Schulz’ idea of “fiscal conservatism” means we have to gut social security, yeah, just fuck that because no really we don’t.

If his idea of “fiscal conservatism” means we have to cut our tiny SNAP and TANF budgets, yeah fuck that too.

If his idea of “fiscal conservatism” means that we don’t use aggressive monetary and fiscal policy when needed to restore full employment, then fuck that.

If his idea of “fiscal conservatism” means pissing on organized labor every chance he gets, then fuck that.

If his idea of “fiscal conservatism” means keeping the Republican Party’s sorry ass corporate tax bill in place because all his CEO friends really like it, yeah fuck that. That sorry ass bill needs to be made revenue neutral and that means the rate will have to be raised.

I’m not of course unmindful of the future fiscal challenges the US faces. But most of that has to do the the US sorry ass overpriced health care system. 

Fact of the matter is that so called “fiscal conservatism” is a canard to cut safety nets rich CEOs and Republicans don’t like.

Because, you know, they can’t really be honest about what they really believe, the flamin’ cowards.

Frankly, I’m extremely suspicious of people like Schulz, Bloomberg, and Cuban. While I think their socially liberal attitudes are great, I do believe they’d rather be Republicans, but just can’t because that party has gotten so crazy. But, I think they should use their clout and resources to fix the Republican Party, rather than turning the Democratic Party into the socially liberal version of the Republican Party.

And by the way, their so called “fiscal conservatism” likely will make matters worse with regard to social liberal attitudes and things like racism. We have every reason to believe the sorry ass Euro as configured has made xenophobia and racism worse. Along with the sorry ass response to the GFC there and not dealing with trade issues.

And these are some of the reasons I can’t stand much that trash that goes to Davos every year. These guys want to portray  themselves as progressive hipsters and fret about the rise of authoritarianism in Europe, yet have no fuckin’ clue how to alleviate any of it. Instead they talk of “multi stake holder solutions” which is meaningless garbage, instead of diagnosing the actual issues which and how to fix them. A lot of it isn’t a mystery.

And perhaps if trade policy had been handled right, meaning it was done in a manner that would  go against what is understood as “fiscally conservative policies”, Hillary wouldn’t have lost states like Michigan, Pennsylvannia, and Wisconsin to the Dumbster.

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3 hours ago, williamjm said:

I think that would also be a good swap.

Yeah, but it seems to me that right about now, we produce more conservative buffoon clowns than does anybody else. So it seems like we should be exporting more, than we are taking in.

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BE OBJECTIVE AND CALM, ZABZ?!?!?!?

The bolded section hits the nail on the head and I tried to address it before, but it would seem that I failed. Part of the reason why I've argued that there is an ethical and moral argument for abortions is precisely because you have to factor in everything that interacts with the decision. Not that you would ever need it explained to you, but the example I've always heard that's moving is what should a single mother due if she's already struggling to support her kids and she learns that she's pregnant again? One the one hand, she loves her children and she might want to have another. OTOH, having the child could be detrimental to her other child who are already here. Ultimately the decision is hers and hers alone, but you can absolutely argue that she's doing what's best for her children by deciding not to have another child. 

CALM GOES BEST WITH MY OUTFIT TODAY.

And the thing about this debate is that it is almost impossible to have the discussion in the realm of logic and reason.  It lives in emotion and anecdote.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing - when you start getting too logically rigorous, you end up with the Singers of the world.  Which is why, what someone said above is exactly right - the actual way to behave ethically here is to reduce to the barest of minimums unwanted pregnancies so that you are really left with the "hard" cases (which aren't that hard ultimately IMO - trump card goes to the mother), and reduces the pinhead dancing around when human "life" begins.  AND, btw, as part of this, I deeply we need to focus our compassionate and social efforts on the living IMO, in order to improve all lives in being.  But I'm starting from an ethical stance that all human life is inherently valuable.  It is actually possible to construct a worldview around different propositions (that we can debate the ethics of), and it is a coherent and relatively popular (though nihilistic) worldview on both the right and the left (for different reasons).

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6 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

But, like I said, 11 times out of 10 it ends in shouting.

Honestly though I’m not sure how it’s supposed to pan out other than turning into a shouting match.

I mean I can thoroughly understand why some or many people aren’t particularly comfortable with abortion. Truth, be told, I’m not entirely comfortable with it.

But, it seems to me, even if you are not entirely comfortable with abortion, but believe that decision should be left to individual women to make for themselves, you’re never going to meet in the middle with people that think that it should be largely banned or made illegal. And those people aren’t likely to change their mind.

I mean I am willing to give prolife people the concession that I understand why they don’t like it. But, I’m not going to agree  with them that it should be banned or severely restricted. So this thing will have to be hashed out politically and the fight, like it has been for awhile, will be intense. I don’t know what else there is to be done.

I mean it’s kind of like when conservative sorts of people I know start up with a bunch of crazy ol’ conservative conspiracy theories and won’t stop. I’m like:

“Would ya stop being an ignorant redneck, cause you’re f*** killing me here.”

Because there is little left to be done.

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17 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yeah, but it seems to me that right about now, we produce more conservative buffoon clowns than does anybody else. So it seems like we should be exporting more, than we are taking in.

It's our comparative advantage!!!!!  I largely agree with your analysis of Schulz, Bloomberg, etc. (though I really like them because I'm more conservative than the average bear on the board), BUT here's the rub, they can't fix the Republican Party.  It's too far gone.  Seriously - there's nothing left to save.

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3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Honestly though I’m not sure how it’s supposed to pan out other than turning into a shouting match.

I mean I can thoroughly understand why some or many people aren’t particularly comfortable with abortion. Truth, be told, I’m not entirely comfortable with it.

But, it seems to me, even if you are not entirely comfortable with abortion, but believe that decision should be left to individual women to make for themselves, you’re never going to meet in the middle with people that think that it should be largely banned or made illegal. And those people aren’t likely to change their mind.

I mean I am willing to give prolife people the concession that I understand why they don’t like it. But, I’m not going to agree  with them that it should be banned or severely restricted. So this thing will have to be hashed out politically and the fight, like it has been for awhile, will be intense. I don’t know what else there is to be done.

I mean it’s kind of like when conservative sorts of people I know start up with a bunch of crazy ol’ conservative conspiracy theories and won’t stop. I’m like:

“Would stop being an ignorant redneck, cause you’re f*** killing me here.”

Because there is little left to be done.

See my post immediately above this one.  I agree that it is at the end of the day hard to have an actual logical debate because the debate touches what we actually are as humans and, frankly, the meaning of life, and we've been fighting wars about that since approximately forever as best I can tell.

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

More comedy:

Read between the lines.....

Also, you got to love how Giuliani says adult film stars lack credibility while not realizing that Trump has appeared in a few. Thank god he kept his suits on (I think). 

Rudy and Donald are really on the same page -- of the Big Book of Color Me Crazy.

Giuliani takes swipe at Stormy Daniels: 'I don't respect a porn star'

Moving the nutso needle up another notch, Rudy made these remarks as he was being interviewed by women, whom he claims to respect. Stormy Daniels, in Rudy's assessment, cannot be damaged or believed because of her occupation. He must have mistaken her for a politician.

I find Stormy's account of her unfortunate encounter with the pussy-grabbing "president" entirely in keeping with other reports of his behavior. I would not question Stormy's credibility unless she had reported Donald displayed a preternaturally prodigious penis when he trapped her in that hotel room.

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15 hours ago, ants said:

They’re a democratic way to decide who will represent your party. Don’t really have much to do with preferential voting. 

I don't see how. You can put all of your candidates on the same ballot paper at the time of election. Then, you still get to pick who represents your party and who wins your electoral division at the same time. You can have more than one member of a party on a ballot paper.

Best of all, you get to determine if you want to prioritise certain people over others, or certain parties over others.

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7 hours ago, IamMe90 said:

Bro, I said IF someone thinks that abortion is the killing of infants. I do not think that, as I am pro choice and I do not think abortion is unethical. Someone can have an ethical argument that is wrong, or with which you disagree, but that doesn't mean that they don't have an ethical argument, or that ethics are not involved in the discussion. Which is what Tywin and Jace seem to be contending, and which is a terribly un-nuanced (and also just wrong) view.   

Incorrect. I am basing my statements on facts and medical objectivity. Feelings have no place in the biological sciences.

6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Muses that the people who call fetuses parasites don’t have children, or at least I very sincerely hope they don’t, and never will.

Your concerns are noted.

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

No, I used a facetious example to highlight why it’s silly to compare apples to oranges.

.

Sith Lord Jace is only capable of communicating in absolutist scorching hot take. It is known.

The debate over the legality and morality of abortions is right at the center of American politics. The conversation is right where it belongs.

'Member when Thanos showed up how Captain America and Iron Man's beef seemed quaint? I bring people together.

5 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

But, like I said, 11 times out of 10 it ends in shouting.

 We end up with people calling pro-choice advocates babykillers and (some) pro choice advocates calling fetuses parasites (I work with words for a living - being provocative like that isn't cute or effective) and forget about all the other (more) important stuff. Thus, shouting.

Perhaps you should reevaluate your career if the word parasite is confusing to you. @Week even defined the term quite earlier in the discussion. 

If logic and accurate descriptives of the ailment known as pregnancy are what you want, Jace is here to help. 

Claiming that a medical diagnosis backed by science is akin to weeping over spent sperm betrays your deep misunderstanding of the difference between opinion and reality.

For example: Jace is of the opinion that reason will win the day. But the reality is that far too many live in make believe worlds where their opinions are relevant to the informed medical procedures of an unrelated party.

If I have been in any way unclear, it would be no trouble to further educate regarding the subject.

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Firstly, to everyone, I'm a little sorry for contributing to making this into an abortion thread, but the point I was trying to raise was around the politics of it.  Or rather, how some of us liberals approach the debate.  A bit ironic that I believe everyone who has posted is actually from the same side in the debate on the issue! :P

There is a strong preference (IMO) for we liberals to push the practical side of abortions when arguing for keeping them legal.  It makes sense that we do.  On a practical level, the research and logic make it clear that abortions are a societal good.  They lead to stronger, happier families in better economic conditions.  And of course there is Tywin's (and others) comments about how the Right's policies actually lead to more abortions is also a strong argument - from a pragmatic point of view. 

Falling back on those arguments make a lot of sense, as if the debate is along logical lines it can be won.

However, the issue is that too many of us then write off the other side's arguments as illegitimate.   Which is what Tywin has done.  He's said that they don't have an ethical basis for arguing for abortions.  That is just very clearly untrue.  We might argue their ethical argument is wrong (which I do), but the simple fact of the matter is that there is no way to categorically say when life starts, and there is no perfect way to measure the conflicting rights of the woman against the fetus.  All of this is based on opinions.  

I don't think we'll ever reach a consensus between the two sides on this issue.  But for us to just write off the other side's arguments as illegitimate is certainly going to achieve nothing but shouting.  As a minimum we have to understand that they're arguing the ethics (or religion), and not the pragmatic practical, social side, is a first step to actually having a debate, rather than sitting in ivory towers thinking "we're right". 

The better approach would be to try and follow @Mlle. Zabzie's ideas of pushing for how to mitigate abortions.  That approach couldmaybe, be used by a Democrat candidates in reddish states to try and stay on the "right" side for both groups.  And not be scared of labelling some laws that will lead to more abortions as "pro-abortion" when pushing against them in red states.  Use their own hate against them, and try to stop the right splitting it issue into little pieces which they can then make arguments on that resonate with their base, but are contradictory at a combined level. 

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Wow, lol…..

Let’s take it even further. You can’t prevent genocides, so why should international courts make them illegal? War crimes, can’t stop them either. So why bother? Comparing abortion to universally recognized crimes is silly and intellectually lazy.

Um, you're making my point.  We don't make things illegal because we expect it to 100% stop them from happening.  We make things illegal because we think it shouldn't happen, want to reduce its occurrence, and punish those who do it.  Arguing that laws won't be 100% effective at stopping a behaviour and therefore that we just shouldn't criminalise it is a ridiculous argument.

The issue with abortions is that some people believe for ethical or religious reasons that they're wrong, and that's why they try to criminalise it.  I agree with you that the religious arguments are bunk, but to simply say there is no ethical reasons to justify abortions is also wrong.  

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And yes, policies are connected. You have to factor in how they affect one another. If you want to ban abortions and push policies that will dramatically increase unwanted pregnancies, and then further foster a culture that shames women who get pregnant out of wedlock, what’s going to happen?  

So? You're talking practicalities and being pragmatic.  If someone has an ethical or religious reason to be for those laws, they can still argue that it is right to have those laws, even if they may not have results ANYONE would see as preferable. 

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8 minutes ago, Yukle said:

I don't see how. You can put all of your candidates on the same ballot paper at the time of election. Then, you still get to pick who represents your party and who wins your electoral division at the same time. You can have more than one member of a party on a ballot paper.

Best of all, you get to determine if you want to prioritise certain people over others, or certain parties over others.

Because then you can have shenanigans such as one (or more) parties putting 10, 20 people on the ballot so that it is swamped with their party.  It makes sense to allow each party to have limited representatives on the final ballot.  It also allows the party to signal who is their best representative. And for individuals who want to side with the party and not an individual, it simplifies things for them.  So there are a lot of good reasons to limit the number of representatives each party can have on the ballot.  

I do agree with having more than one person per party (I would have two), but I think there needs to be a limit.  And as soon as you put a limit on it, you need a system to decide who represents the party. Hence primaries.

I would note, Australia has something similar.  Except instead of public primaries, who represents each party is decided internally by the parties and their members.  For some parties this involves voting, and other than the public aspect I'm not sure why you would distinguish this from a primary.  

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2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Frankly, I’m extremely suspicious of people like Schulz, Bloomberg, and Cuban. While I think their socially liberal attitudes are great, I do believe they’d rather be Republicans, but just can’t because that party has gotten so crazy. But, I think they should use their clout and resources to fix the Republican Party, rather than turning the Democratic Party into the socially liberal version of the Republican Party.

Why in the world would they do that? The whole point of this division is that the billionaires benefit regardless of which party is in power. Of course, some benefit more than others from one party or the other based on their allegiance and economic sector, but on the whole they have been getting richer regardless of whose turn it is at the moment. Despite Trump's populism, the Republicans are doing exactly what they usually do with regards to people like Schultz, Bloomberg and Cuban and do not require further conditioning at this time. It is much more important for the latter to make sure that the currently increased Democrat activism stays confined to social issues and does not venture into financial ones -- there's little to no chance of this at the Federal level, but it's not entirely impossible for state-level politics to get out hand in one or more states.

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18 hours ago, Yukle said:

Since the primaries have been in the USA news a fair bit, and on BBC News, just to clarify: what's the rationale behind primaries? Why do they exist? Isn't it much cheaper just to have preferential voting? And easier? And time-saving? And more representative?

This isn't being facetious; preferential voting has existed longer than the USA primary system, so what was the rationale behind adopting this runoff election system rather than making it much faster and better and not as protracted and expensive?

Whenever you look at any institution in the U.S. you should forget the idea that anything is thought out in detail or planned to be efficient or sensible. Most things are just left to grow organically out of legal gaps, short-term ad hoc solutions that become long-term institutions, or, at best, falls under the adage of "It seemed like a good idea at the time..."

Trying to figure it out while looking at it through any other lens is a recipe for slowly losing your mind.

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Back to Basics

Donald Trump returns to race baiting as Republicans stumble toward the midterms.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/donald-trump-returns-to-race-baiting-as-republicans-stumble-toward-the-midterms.html

 

Quote

 

In other words, race baiting. A number of Republican strategists think this might work. “Trump’s habit of ignoring the economic message preferred by House and Senate Republicans in favor of the culture war tropes that propelled him to the White House is increasingly seen as an asset,” reports David Drucker for the Washington Examiner. “Though provocative, the president’s rhetoric resonates with the base, offering Republicans a vehicle for matching the Democrats’ critical voter enthusiasm edge.” Drucker quotes several conservative analysts and consultants, including Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institution, who says Trump “very cleverly tapped into this issue.”

Clever might be stretching it. At the start of the year, Republicans thought they would be running on tax cuts.

 

 

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13 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Howard Schultz’s Third Way

Howard Schultz as a presidential candidate is an absurd notion that would be as preposterous as Bloomberg running, except Bloomberg actually has political experience.  This goes for all the captains of industry being bandied about as potential candidates.

10 hours ago, Holy Sith! said:

Rudy and Donald are really on the same page -- of the Big Book of Color Me Crazy.

Giuliani takes swipe at Stormy Daniels: 'I don't respect a porn star

Mika Brzezinski was all over how disgraceful his his comments were yesterday (Thursday), and beyond how disgusting Guiliani and his comments are to anyone with a brain, he's also becoming patently Trumpian, which unfortunately is why I'm sure we're going to hear more from him:

Quote

"Yes I respect porn stars. Don't you respect porn stars? Or do you think that porn stars desecrate women? Do you think that porn stars don't respect women?" Giuliani said. "And therefore sell their bodies. So yes, I respect all human beings. I even have to respect, you know, criminals. But I'm sorry I don't respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person and isn't going to sell her body for sexual exploitation."

What a piece of shit.

On 6/7/2018 at 12:34 PM, Yukle said:

Since the primaries have been in the USA news a fair bit, and on BBC News, just to clarify: what's the rationale behind primaries? Why do they exist? Isn't it much cheaper just to have preferential voting? And easier? And time-saving? And more representative?

This isn't being facetious; preferential voting has existed longer than the USA primary system, so what was the rationale behind adopting this runoff election system rather than making it much faster and better and not as protracted and expensive?

The rationale behind primaries is the US is a two party system.  I'm not sure what you mean by preferential voting - that could mean ranked, runoff, or open list - but it's pretty axiomatic that those in power make the electoral rule, and the two parties have (and have always had) an interest in putting only one candidate up for the general election.

9 hours ago, Yukle said:

I don't see how. You can put all of your candidates on the same ballot paper at the time of election. Then, you still get to pick who represents your party and who wins your electoral division at the same time. You can have more than one member of a party on a ballot paper.

Best of all, you get to determine if you want to prioritise certain people over others, or certain parties over others.

That doesn't really work with single member districts.  You can't vote for a candidate and party simultaneously, you just have to vote for a candidate.

5 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Whenever you look at any institution in the U.S. you should forget the idea that anything is thought out in detail or planned to be efficient or sensible. Most things are just left to grow organically out of legal gaps, short-term ad hoc solutions that become long-term institutions, or, at best, falls under the adage of "It seemed like a good idea at the time..."

Trying to figure it out while looking at it through any other lens is a recipe for slowly losing your mind.

Yes, it is true that the Framers didn't consider (and hoped against) parties at the outset.  But I wouldn't describe primaries as developing "ad hoc."  There's a pretty clear correlation between parties being nationalized and politics in general being nationalized through media with it reaching a crescendo during the 68 Chicago riots.  After that, both parties accelerated the process by both ensuring each state had a primary (or caucus) and making them binding.

 

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