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Here’s a poem that, for me, perfectly captured how I felt on Wednesday.

Holding Vigil

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,

the heaviness of it, like sitting outside

the operating room while someone you love

is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs

eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine

which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,

waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out

in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down

to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels

as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about

is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat

asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.

I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,

the fact that we are all waiting in the same

hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,

and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?

Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,

as families do, and bringing each other coffee

from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it

while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,

which is also what happens at times like these,

and

I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,

heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,

in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep

of human history, a soap bubble, because empires

are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations

die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens

all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,

your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,

and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about

when she wakes at three in the morning,

cause she’s got two daughters,

and that’s the thing,

it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day

and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,

cheap clothing,

but right now I’m talking about the babies,

and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls

and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,

the icebergs for the love of God—every single

blessed being on the face of this earth

is holding its breath in this moment,

and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,

then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it

we all just have to live through it,

holding each other’s hands.

- Alison Luterman

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It fits the situation perfectly. I did feel as if someone close to me had died.

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That's exactly what I told a friend . . . it took me back to the evening my father died when i was just 19 . . . I felt as tho' a huge chasm, a sinkhole, had opened in my body. For days afterward I just operated on auto pilot, making arrangements, etc. . . . that was 50-years ago now, but I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday.

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👋, Thank you for your words and the meaning behind them.

Before the Biden administration leaves; it was a good one, too.

Prez & Vice Prez, must shore up all the good done, make it impossible to be rescinded or just wiped away,

There are means to "GO LOW" WITH DIGNITY. In these last days do all you can, with the knowledge that!YOU, PRESIDENT BIDEN, ALSO HAVE IMMUNITY FROM CRIMES COMMITTED UNDER PRESIDENTIAL ACTS.

WE ARE LEFT HANGING; DO SOME THINGS TO PREVENT THE LOSS OF ALL YOUR ADMINISTRATION, MANAGED TO GIVE TO US IN ONLY 4 YEARS, PLEASE.

GO LOWWWW FOR US, WE THE PEOPLE, WHO VOTED FOR YOU AND KAMALA, TWICE, 💙💙💙💙💙🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊, YES U CAN.

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Omg! I agree with you. If the democrats don't start fighting, we are lost.

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I loved your poem. You nailed it

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Beautifully articulated thank you 💙🤙🏽💙

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It did it again 🖕🏽

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Is anyone having their posts getting cut off at random spots?? Cause today 3 of my posts were cut off mid sentence.. it’s getting fucking annoying

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It was the death of Democracy.

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me too

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Oh, Larry! How heartbreakingly beautiful! That is exactly what I felt like all evening Tuesday, and now I feel like the doctor came out with his mask dangling around his neck and That Look on his face that told me all hope was gone.

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What a truly wonderful poem, describing what so many of us are feeling right now. Thank you.

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I'm afraid I'm feeling a little different. My son and daughter-in-law are with Trump and so are my older brother and sister-in-law. I feel so betrayed some how. Don't they realize what this maniac can do to his mother who lives on a small pension and social security. Too many people only think of themselves, and totally disregard those of us on retirement who depend on social security to get by. Not to mention that Trump will surely turn against everyone who isn't rich.

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I understand totally. All I have is Social Security. I just had an appointment with the person who handles the HEAT program, which helps low income seniors with heating costs, and the program has already been cut down from what it was. It still helps, and I am VERY grateful, but the fact that things are already being cut is frightening for those of us who have nothing else.

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Sorry to hear about your personal situation, April. Just know that there are friends who support you within this community, even though you don't know or see us.

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I ,likewise have family who support Trump. They do not know how or maybe do not realize that I will have no Medicare or health insurance. It is so expensive to go to the dentist or Dr.. I live on SS AND BARELY get by. I am thinking of selling my house and living on the money. I am 86, maybe that will be better than going to Canada, which I decided last Wednesday ,when I realized the election was lost.

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I am sorry for your situation. Canada is difficult. You are not eligible for services unless you get a status.So you have to buy private insurance and prove you will never be a financial burden on the state.

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Bonnie Reeves,

Don't sell your house. Go to one of the colleges and take in a foreign student border. Rents are higher than most mortgages these days. I have a couple years left to pay off my home. I will keep it one way or the other. don't give up. You're in my prayers.

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Thank you all. I've been a mess. Now I feel better.

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When your son and daughter-in-law start crying because the inflation is going to get worse and suddenly this country is falling so apart, you can say to them, don't complain to me. Suck it up stupid! I told you not to vote for him. Give out the old I told you so!

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Wow. That’s beautifully sad and I love it. Going to swipe it for myself when I need it …

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Go for it.

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Brilliant and beautiful and morose.. I’m tired and tomorrow will be a better day but today I’m exhausted by MAGAts and their vitriol.fck them and their bullshit.

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They make me want to punch them in the face. MAGA butt-wipes!

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I sympathize with you as my husband last year a week after a heart valve procedure, developed a gastric volvulus, a rare condition that occurs when the stomach rotates 180 degrees which can lead to a closed-loop obstruction. In other words it turned into a figure eight part of it ending into his diaphragm. We were lucky that in emergency the right doctor who specializes in bariatric surgery for obese people knew what the problem was. He had waited 8 excruciating hours of pain till this wonderful man showed up. Since he was on blood thinners he had to wait even longer before the surgery could be performed. He was the kindest person trying to console me but at the same time was terribly honest and confessed that he had never performed such procedure and the chances were 50-50. I waited all night with phone in hand as he promised to let me know if he had made it. 3 months in hospital dealing with this gastric problem plus his heart was very weak due to the stress. He had tubes from every orifice in his body. Could only have liquid food for nearly 3 months. Knock on wood he seems to be doing ok. All of this after 2 heart attacks and a stroke. I feel lucky that he’s alive. The results of this election is tremendous stress. No family here nor close friends. Had lived in London for over 25 years and still go back and forth. With Trump back I’m doing my best to cross the pond and join our only child and friends. Praying that his health can cope with the move.

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I'll say a prayer that your husband's health will improve. I've never heard of something like that happening. It seems a miracle he is still alive. Good luck getting the two of you over to England. Go and stay. That's what I would do.

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Bless you. Hope good luck with his and your health.

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Dear Rusalka, I will be praying for you and your husband to recover from all of this and find a peaceful place in England to consider these tumultuous times from a distance. You deserve comfort and peace.

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Watching from Canada and feeling your pain. 🇨🇦

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and worrying about our own future

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Thank you. I don't know what's going to happen. Whatever, it will be bad. We've been fighting Trump for years, and now we've lost.

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We’ve lost the most recent battle, not the war.

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Tell us about Canada. Lots of things, like ---How long to become a citizen?

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I asked my WWII Army Ranger dad how he had the courage to fight against overwhelming odds. He said: “‪Courage is what remains when you are out of options‬.”

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Yes. My Dad WWII Navy.. this is NOT his Republican Party.. this is a fascist takeover. I’m glad he’s not here to see this..

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Thank-you for this poem. Indeed, the feeling of overwhelming grief and loss I felt on Wed. in the post mortem time was the same feeling of an inescapable heavy weight falling on me and (actual) heartache that I have felt losing loved ones. A familiar sorrow, this time for the loss of our beloved country.

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Brilliant words, heartfelt, true and so worth sharing, thank you !!

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Beautiful and true. Thank you so very much

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Thank you for sharing this with us . . . it is very apropos.

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Thank you for your words and the meaning behind them.

There are ways to go low, while maintaining dignity . These last days are the perfect time to shore up all the things put in action and for Joe to use his Immunity powers, too.

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Alison, you’ve captures so well what I too have been feeling in all too many ways. Although in my situation, I’m the only one left in my generation of my immediate family. The closest relative left is a cousin by marriage, wife of my late husband’s cousin, she just lost him. The men were only children, almost like brothers, lived around the corner as kids. Stayed close friends as adults. He and his wife were/ are, our daughter’s god parents.

On the other side none remain, except for a few estranged as often happens when rampant alcoholism’s addictive personality disorder’s damage make relationships to dangerous to retain. As we see daily playing out in the News, in the form of political power plays for our national family. When in the early ‘80’s at a family level, that became attempted violence, against husband, home and son. Lies that were a foreshadowing, [no one could ever have imagined they’d sound like synchronistic echoes in the next century, coming from a former President, as equally damaged] of what was to come on a larger level to rent asunder our National family.

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Thank you for the words that I really needed to hear!

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Here's what I wrote to President Biden today at whitehouse.gov/contact:

Dear President Biden, thank you for the many achievements of your presidency. There’s one more act that would cement your legacy as the most progressive leader in my lifetime: RESIGN.

Yes, please resign and make Kamala Harris the 47th President of the United States for the last two months of democracy in America. Let her become our first Madam President. Let Doug Emhoff become the first First Gentleman.

Urge her to appoint Pete Buttigieg as her Vice-President. Let his husband (Chasten Buttigieg) become the second Gentleman.

When you were running for President in 2020, you swore to appoint a woman as your running mate and you kept that promise. Now you have the opportunity to double-down on that pledge and give us a woman of color for our first female President and a gay man for the President of the Senate.

This would be a shining moment in American history. You are uniquely positioned to gift us with this slice of joy. Thank you for considering this petition.

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Brilliant!!! Madam President!!!

God Bless the United States of America

We all must instill her words into our souls and hearts.

"When we fight...we win"

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And let her pardon Hunter.

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And pardon our President Joe Biden in advance for anything that should be slung at him from the next president, any federal “crime”

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Excellent idea.. The only consideration I might make differently is to have Kamala's own VP pick: Tim Waltz chosen for the VP job...

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Where can she put Pete and Chasten? So many need that right now. A time of acceptance for all.

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In charge of Climate and Education, AND make Jack Smith U.S. Atty. GENERAL

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I agree. Make Jack Smith Attorney General and put Trump on trial in the next 72 hours. End Trump Presidency or make him serve it behind bars.

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Wouldst that Grandpa Joe had it in him to pull off a move this bold! Most innovative idea of the post-election.

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I really wish you wouldn't call him that. It's disrespectful, especially given all he's achieved. Even worse, it sounds like the former occupant of the Oval Office!

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Hindsight is so easy to do. Name calling is what maggot world excells in.......

Joe Biden did amazing things and should never be degraded with names.

difny...certainly questioning my respect for you.......we do not need negative energy here in these critical times

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Boo-hoo.

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Isn't your site the one down the street??

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I’ve taken to assuming that any response as mean, and brief, as “boo-hoo” indicates that the poster is a foreign bot. Double your chances in presence of bizarre avatars. They invade every sort of site possible, so the odds aren’t that bad. If it is local, it’s not like commenter deserves better.

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Donable Lector truly is Putins fucking bitch!!!! Diaper Don doesn`t give a shit if his wifes nude shots go viral!!!! https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/42019

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Don't forget, you and those like you didn't get the pass you think Y'ALLS got,😂😂😂😂😂😂

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“Grandpa” is a term of respect and honor and love. He can be my or my kids’ grandpa anytime.

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Elwyn, not in this case. "Grandpa" is an endearment and term of respect when the person using it is showing respect. In this case, and among many other people in this nation, it isn't. Biden was maligned for his age while Trump who is experiencing the effects of aging and dementia has been seen as a remarkable example of old age or rather middle age or something else. That is dishonesty and disrespect all at the same time.

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Donald Trump needs the 25 Amendment invoked on his MAGA brain today and not tomorrow. Then force his crony Vance to a psychiatrist to check on his mental stability. They are both very very sick.

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You're absolutely right, Elwyn, but I must agree with Ruth Sheets, too. I guess it goes on a case by case basis, alas!

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Agreed

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POTUS hanging on too long lost him any respect I ever felt for him and set up the Dems to lose the election so, respect exhausted, I can only be disrespectful.

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No actually that’s not your “only” response. If we give you the benefit of the doubt, we could say you’re in the anger stage of grief.

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difny, I would also like to see Biden and Harris go to the Library of Congress, to the National Archivist and order that the ERA be placed into our Constitution. We have all the states required and there is nothing in the Constitution about time limits. The President has immunity when an act is official, and this would be official. It's time. Then, he can resign and make Kamala our first woman president. That would be remarkable and history-making! He could do it. Now, does he have the courage?

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Ruth, I love the ERA idea. The women of America are going to need it!

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In a word? No. Glib response, I know. But I doubt he has the radical core to do so. Maybe I'm wrong; I hope so.

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Honestly, what does he have to lose?!

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President Biden already did one incredibly selfless thing. It’s probably not fair to ask him to do another but it would be nice.

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Love it!!! YES.

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Lisa, wouldn't that be an amazing thing for Biden to do, step down on behalf of Harris-Walls with a quick change of some of the cabinet positions. I like the comment of having Jack Smith as AG for the time left. Biden would be making history and remembered for generations, if we are around that long as a people.

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It sure would. But unfortunately his male ego won't allow it. Neither would Jill I imagine. I blame them both a lot for this mess.

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So do I.

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And it would kill the orange pne to have her hand over the reins!

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I would love to see that scenario on inauguration day...

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That wat Kamala doesn't have to be the one to certify the electoral vote.

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Look at all the norms the Republicans busted! The worst was monkeying with the Supreme Court. Holding a seat bc it’s too close to an election and then appointing another right b4 the 2020 election. Hypocrites! That said I don’t think Kamala Harris would want to do it that way. This election doesn’t sit right with me though. How could everyone be so wrong? And Trump got EVERY swing state? Really? No ground game, little real campaigning, dwindling crowds.. no it doesn’t seem right. I hope they’re investigating bc it feels like 2001 all over again.

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I love that picture you have presented...

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Creative ideas are contagIous. Monday morning:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/11/biden-resign-kamala-harris-president

"Former Harris aide suggests Biden resign so she can serve as president

"Jamal Simmons says move would help Democrats seize public’s attention before Trump begins term in January" —Ramon Antonio Vargas | Guardian US politics live – latest updates Mon 11 Nov 2024 08.57 ET

[Apologies if this is a dup. First attempt vanished before my eyes.]

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Heather Cox Richardson is on the Stephanie Miller show for the first time today!!

Coalitions and putting our heads together............similar to the allied forces in WW2 that defeated (Orange) Hitler.....Creative ideas.........How about First Lady Jill replanting the Jackie Kennedy White House rose garden that Melanoma gutted and hideously destroyed........(so ugly like her lesbian porn shoot outakes)..........Is Melania going to write a book about her escort experiences when she was hanging out at the Kit Kat Klub???

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Or with The Maxwell lady in Jeff 's jet.

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THIS! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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We are in a whole new paradigm. I worry for Mary’s safety and that of other indie outlets. Of course, the Trump MAGA train wants to see us quaking in our boots.

Right now brave souls are canaries in coal mines. Hugs and strength to all members of The Resistance!

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Time for brave souls to lace up their boots and start tramping! Mary, you are correct that right wing media has subverted the entire news ecosystem, and that proponents of 'democracy' have had no answer. Telling is that 2.0 out of 3.0 registered voters in the U.S. DID NOT vote for Kamala! This statistic indicates that unless an overhauled news media inclusive of the Substacks that doesn't pander to megalomaniacs comes forward, we will tread a rocky road for decades, or until our end. I do not fathom that it could end with this degree of extreme illiberalism. But then, people these days seem not to have any interest in reading history, they would sooner take their swill easy from the lie machine of the far-right.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fareed-s-take-democrats-blew-it-by-making-3-big-mistakes/vi-AA1tPJiE?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=4b5a4ed33cbf49a598345c73363cae03&ei=9

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There are no good words like times such as we find ourselves. My advice is to take a few breadths, get on with your life and when he firsts acts out, we must prepare to strike back. Consistently

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Exactly, people are so clueless about history of things, like past dictatorships and even present day...they seem to be almost immune to the fact that Trump is a good bedfellow with Putin. Simply doesn't register with these people. Now with Boards of education and public schools eliminated, we as a nation will be more ignorant than we are, thus creating a new generation that will be more conducive to manipulated.

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All true! Egg his stinking motorcade on his inauguration day. He cheated to win.

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Be Real; Kamala lost because white men and women are TERRIFIED OF BECOMING THE MINORITY HERE.

THEIR women are enamored with the exotic and making babies with men across all races and they are beautiful.

White men fear Penises of a different color and their women just love, love them. 😏🙄 , as simple as that !!!

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I 100% believe he's capable of murder! I also believe it's been arranged on several occasions, where's Maria? He has 0 emotions and I don't think he had Ivana buried at the golf course outta affection but of nessesary means as thinking you can't exhume a body on private property! Someone who is getting older & has physical issues is going to avoid the stairs, my Ex husband when I left took the mattress down the stairs so he didn't have to go upstairs just to sleep! Makes perfect sense to me now

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I didn't know Ivana passed away. And I do believe Trump is capable of murdering someone. But just like most thugs, they get their cronies to do the dirty for them. The stinking mafia behavior. Trump has a big mouth and deep down inside he is a coward. Mark Meadows said that Trump is scared to death of Putin. It's all a show.

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Allan Lichtman gave a debriefing about why his keys were wrong. He stuck with his prediction of a kamala landslide all the way into election night. And, he still defends his keys as  being an accurate indicator of group behavior that's based on scientific studies of elections over the last few centuries.

Most of us have experienced the same disonance after attending kamala's rallies or waiting to vote in election lines. There were hardly any visible MAGAts. They weren't even showing up at Trumps rallies. The enthusiasm and energy in the air no matter where you went was all for kamala. All the signs pointed to a kamala landslide. Her campaign could not have been run any better.

Lichtman made some astute observations. The first is the unofficial results for Trump are almost identical to those in 2016 within a margin of error of 1%. You would then think that would mean the results for his opponent would have the other half of the votes. In fact, 20 million fewer people showed up to vote for kamala than in the 2022 elections. Lichtman rightfully points out swings do happen inbetween elections, but not by that much. Trump, despite being a proven asshole had no swing at all since 2016. So, it doesn't make any sense that sentiment would have suddenly changed so much about kamala on election night. And, finally women have voted overwhelmingly for abortion rights in states who had them on the ballot. Why would they then vote for Trump on the same piece of paper who was the guy that first took them away?

2024’s election results don’t just resemble Trump’s 2016 win over Hillary Clinton. They’re almost identical

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-harris-states-map-clinton-2016-b2642237.html

The US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is the federal branch of goverment which audits elections. They are the storage repository for the original paper trails of all the individual votes, regardless of which state they belong to. The trails and  counts come directly from each county, and NOT from the state election boards themselves. The EAC does not release any official numbers to anybody (including Biden and the Associated Press) until the last vote is counted in the entire American election. 

The EAC was established in 2002 as an idependent bi-partisan organization to manage American elections. Prior to that, the Clerk of the House of Representatives did everything since 1920. And, even before that, it was just the state election boards themselves who ran everything. Before 1920, there were many serious irregularities in, and confusion about, the results of most American elections.

The EAC website  ( eac.gov) claims it audits the official results prior to their release. But, it is ambiguous as to what these audits are, and to what degree they are performed, or if at all unless by request. The auditing process is not disclosed as a measure of protection to prevent fraudsters from creating audit records to support any falsified "candidential declarations of winning". When you do not know how you will be checked, it becomes impossible to cheat.

Two centuries ago, before the advent of computers or mechanical tabulating equipment, vote certification was manually done in paper ledgers by each state. This is what state election boards are: they are the certifying bean counters that check the authenticity of their own state's election results. Once they have ensured the voice their electorate was heard, they produce a certificate which then goes to congress to be counted. 

Under this system, any corruption would be contained within its own state, as state election boards have no jurisdiction over each other. For someone to manipulate a federal election, there would have to be collusion across many states at the same time. And, the results would still have to be congruent within the context of the entire election. For example, if one state reports a number of votes for a presidential candidate, that when added to the votes cast in the rest of the states produces a tally greater than the number of eligible voters, the corruption stands out in context of the entire election.

Not only would someone have to collude with other people, in addition to making up new numbers, they would have to ensure those new numbers balance with all the other election activity in all the other states, and that of their opponents. Given that a ballot in a united states election is like doing a tax return, coming up with fake numbers that will balance like this is pretty hard, unless you copied them from ANOTHER election. What if you gave these other results to a state election board for them to report, instead of what was actually coming in?

That is what I watched happen on election night via several different election result maps hosted by different media outlets. I saw inconsistant counts, not just for each state, but even for what states closed their polls and were reporting in.  And, the individual ballot counts (not percents) were changing in both directions at the same time for the SAME states. Several states reported having concluded their counts far more faster than it was humanily possible to process ballots that were cast outside of polling stations. That was when I realized something aweful was going wrong.

First, the media cannot access the results from the EAC as they won't be released until several weeks from now. They simply are unavailable to anybody. The media had to phone the state election boards themselves to ask what was going on with the counts. 

Secondly, over the year, the state election boards of Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan were discovered to have pro-Trump activists on them. What other state election boards are still out there that have also been compromised by Trump partisans?

When the media called one of these state board members for a count on election night, they tied them up from talking to anyone else. The next caller could get a MAGAt who just read off the altered results given to them. Meanwhile, the first caller might be getting the factual count from an honest individual. Both callers post what they heard to their respective organization's election  maps. That is why the maps were so out of sync, and would occassionally go back into agreement when the different organizations contacted differently motivated election board members. 

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Based on my belief that trump would do anything to win, I’d believe this ! Please please will it be investigated ASAP !

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I do not think Biden wants to investigate it. I wrote several open letters to him and his responses were: he would get back to work and start acting like a president by emulating Vladimir zelensky, he was going to do a peaceful transfer of power to trump based on the unofficial results without checking them despite all the discrepencies, and he started crying at the Arlington cemetery yesterday and begged the American military to do the right thing in the future because the ball was in their court now. I don't know what that means. In the dream, when all this happened, there was somebody in Asia that tried to start world war 3 - but they were defeated on their own territory. in real life, Trump has been the only candidate to have kept talking about a third world war. we now have a coincidence that Russia is training 100,000 North Korean troupes on its territory in the same week the us election happened. before it invaded Ukraine, it did the same with 30,000 of its own troops. when Reagan said “Gorbachev, tear down the wall”, Biden as a senator criticized reason for provoking the great Soviet bear. I don't know if this is all related.

Rumor has it Trump is Putin's puppet. if Trump was not installed, would that mean Putin was going to attack everybody? is Biden allowing trump to take over to stop Putin from waging a bigger war? if so, Biden is doing what Paul von Hindenburg did with Hitler, and that didn't work. 75 million people died. Biden has to confront trump. appeasing is the wrong path, and it will lead to countless horrors.

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Putin was given 12,000 North Korean troops and they are already defecting over to Ukraine or they are being killed in mass numbers. They are not good fighters at all. That is what I have been reading.

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I heard it on the CBC, but I can't find the article. what I saw looking for it was estimates of 3,000 or 10,000 or 12,000 or 50,000. So, I guess your estimate of 12,000 is right. what I read about that is there are still more troops being sent. but, thanks for the correction

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There is a Threads set of posts that talks about hacking voting machines that I found very intriguing. It would explain why trump wasn't worried about people voting, telling everyone that he already had enough votes. https://www.threads.net/@billt801/post/DCIIRcrRhmD?xmt=AQGzhSKTK0bwm7SWhJ3PqIEsc7VAGHCy5KFWBr_J60Dfkw

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I thought about that. There have been reports coming out of volunteers saying the upload of the totals to the EAC took far longer than normal, like hundreds of times longer.

This could suggest somebody intercepted the upload and modified it while in transit.

First, the uploads likely used encryption keys in the same way as your online banking application does. These are incredibly hard to break, unless you know what they are. Second, the data on the drive itself is also encrypted by another set of keys. And, these would be different for each machine. At this point, it's unlikely somebody could have gotten their hands on all the keys. Thirdly, the files that were uploaded were likely compressed into a zip archive. So, after somebody got the keys, they would have to unzip the archive first, edit and change the files inside it, encrypt everything with the correct keys, zip the files again into an archive, then encrypt the archive with the right key, and send everything on its way again. As you can see, this is a LOT of work. If this is what happened, it would explain the long time it took to upload things.

BUT...

I worked for a manufacturer of television broadcasting equipment for content producers and distributors. Today, HDTV uses a digital packet based data stream, much like the internet. So, when PBS broadcasts a show it travels as a bunch of numbers at the facility. HDTV signals carry several different sizes of the picture frame (720, 1024, etc} simultaneously. So its a lot of data. What they do to save space is they compress the stream by "zipping" the original program. But, some station affiliates want to put their call letters at the bottom corner of the picture

To do this, they would have to decompress the picture, add the overlay, and compress it again. Every time they do this, the picture loses some of its clarity. So, we had a product that was able to code the overlay into the data stream in realtime WITHOUT first decompressing it. This would essentially be the same technology you would need to do that to the election uploads.

Now, nobody has written an application to do this for elections. The expertise is rare, and the hardware to run it on is even harder to find. It would require a parallel processing platform written in F#. These boxes don't work like a regular computer. The operating system takes a program and breaks it up into non-dependant steps. it then runs them all at the same time. afterwards it reassembles all the answers. into one. This is a lot like how chatgpt works.And, you can see the size of the installation required for it if you do not have custom hardware.

so, I do not think this happened. I think the problems were with bandwidth availability and throttling at each of the ISPs. Elon Musk has the resources to do it, but not the human expertise. It would be far easier to do something else, like have state boards announce an alternate set of prepared numbers instead of the actual counts. That's why I think the actual ballots were not tampered with. if you audit the state tallies against the ballots at the EAC, you will discover whether the state tallies are real or not. right now, they suspiciously look like the numbers from the 2016 election

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Thank you for your thorough explanation, Andy. I essentially know nothing about the stuff you were talking about but it all made sense. I think I feel better now - as better as one can feel knowing that we will be enduring another 4 years of trump. I am now back to wondering how people can forget how bad things were under trump the last time. I also don't understand why people are blaming Biden for things they don't like, and are not holding the chaos party responsible for all the things they've blocked, which have been counterproductive for the country.

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I think we are chasing imaginary people. I think at least 70% actually voted for kamala. When we are trying to explain how and why people voted for Trump in 2016 instead of Hilary, by applying those numbers to 2024, we will only give ourselves a headache. right now, we have no idea who won because the unofficial results are in question for a lot of valid reasons.

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Yes, one of the things that has been bugging me about news coverage is that Kamala did all the things they said she didn't do. Like address the issues that affect people where they live. I just can't fathom voting for trump as a vote for positive change.

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yes, kamela did an excellent job. and, not just her, Walz did too. he screwed up the Vance debate. but, he also showed how he worked to be relatable and that he did not ignore prople. Vance and Trump meanwhile alienated almost everybody.

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Trump won in 2016 because to many people voted third parties. Had they voted for Hillary and not for some other party, Hillary would've been the President elect.

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I still feel sick to my stomach about last week and have been staying in bed hiding. I have to push myself to be active. But, for me I had a nightmare in 1986 that had all these things (more than 30 years ago) that's been very accurate on other things. so, for me it's kinda like living through this a second time. be glad you don't have a map!

I can only reassure you, it is possible to change a timeline from what it used to be. you do have control over your future, but you must be engaged and act.

The other thing is this is going to affect everybody. It's not like because Mary Trump is related to Donald that she is in more danger than us. We are in danger as much as she is. Trump doesn't pick targets according to who he knows. He picks anybody that's an easy target to terrorize. And, he will do it with general decrees: "today, everyone who wears glasses will be arrested and sent to a detention camp" or "if you live in New York, I don't like you. nobody there likes me. why should I do anything for them? tomorrow, we will put a blockade around New York State and not let anything in or out" see what I mean?

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Yes I do. And I can see him trying to destroy El Paso, where I live because we are right on the border (one can literally walk from El Paso to downtown Ciudad Juarez) and we have a population that is about 85% Hispanic. What I fear for most apart from the people he will terrorize for no reason, is what his stupidity about climate change will do to nature, which is what recharges me. I'm sorry your nightmare is coming true.

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well, the election is one of the sideline themes in the nightmare. I think what happened is a girl I new and had a big positive effect on her life found after she died (in her natural lifespan) found consciousness continued.bBut, the environment she found herself in had no linear time. it had state time instead. state time is like an ever persistent present moment. the past and the future behave as if they are happening right now over there. state time is also mapped to linear time which is what we experience. she found that she could "travel back in time (as a ghost) and warn me. so, in 1986, she told me everything she remembered before she died. I have been trying to change things since then. my involvement with Mary trumps website was to prevent the disasters related to people abandoning governments from happening.

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No! Our military is required to make his life hell when he gets that far out of line. And I believe they will. If Biden called on them to protect this country they will do it. They know Trump is a piece of crap!

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he's already preparing an executive order he will sign as soon as he is sworn in, to move current generals that would oppose him to desk jobs. he is also putting together a list of people to promote into the chain of command. as commended in chief, he does not need congressional approval for reorganizing the military. it's pretty scary what he is doing

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-team-drawing-up-list-pentagon-officers-fire-sources-say-2024-11-13/

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Thank you for your post.

VERY SIMILAR circumstances in 2016.

So many people

are accepting the "results" of the "election."

Like the Trump voters who accepted Trump's reality

and voted accordingly, people are accepting that if there was an "election," the "results" must be the "will of the people."

Trump and Co has LIED for 9 YEARS.

Why wouldn't the "election" be a lie also?

AP was posting Trump the "winner" with sometimes only 3% of the vote in. They had an option of declaring "trending" but chose "winner" constantly. The "map" was quickly turning red.

There is a short time to investigate the outcome.

Jack Smith should not be backing off prosecution. Trump is NOT a "sitting" President. Just because Trump "may" do something to end his case doesn't mean he shouldn't be sentenced NOW.

Too many people are going with, "we can't do that," instead of following the law and finishing Trump's trial.

What happened to, "a clear and present danger"?

Once CONVICTED as a FELON, Trump should NEVER have been allowed to run for POTUS.

Blind "Justice" is holding scales ⚖️ but she also has a SWORD🗡 to ENFORCE the law.

EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW must apply to EVERYONE.

Including SCOTUS 6, and

President-elects.

Do you have a link to Allan Lichtman?

🗽🇺🇲🇺🇦

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Re the recent U.S. elections, things will be put to rights by those who have sworn allegiance to the US Constitution though the Devil may bar the way. Blood and sacrifice have been spent to keep this bond and we must not fail. I believe that President Biden will fulfill his oath to protect this Country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He has the power and the obligation. We will know his answer soon.

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About choosing winner constantly...

The guys running the result maps at ap and Decision Desk probably were told not to make up their own results or assume things. They were probably ordered to post whatever the state board said at the time of the last phone call. So, if they happened to get a MAGA operative on the phone, that operative probably read the sheet of fake tallies and said "oh yeah he won - had 120,000 votes". And, they recorded that on the map. The next guy who called from the same company got an honest state board guy who told him the actual counts and that they were still counting. so he enters THAT into the map and it overrides the previous call where the guy said he won. Like you, I've been seeing this all over the map for the first two hours. I stopped watching and started doing research on it to explain what was going on. I came back half an hour later and almost the whole map was under counts despite the timezones. places were counting in zones polls should have still been open

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Speaking of AP, they joined forces with the University of Chicago to create a project called AP-NORC VoteCast. This project has been operating for many years now. It is a giant exit poll that is done for every election. The sample size is over half a million people. They stop and ask people who have just voted about HOW they voted. This poll is conducted across all 50 states. They were supposed to have released votecast files Nov 5 for the 2024belection. But, those files are missing, which is another irregularity:

https://apnorc.org/projects/ap-votecast/

https://www.norc.org/research/projects/ap-votecast.html

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yes, he has a YouTube channel that he regularly appears on

https://m.youtube.com/@AllanLichtmanYouTube

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I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly!! Well put!

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If you don't mind I'm going to copy this and post it elsewhere with appropriate attribution.

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okay

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Yikes!

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De

The DNC should file charges of fraudulent voting as vigorously as the RNC did.

Why are Dems so politely righteous?

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I don't know. It's actually the president's job to protect people's trust in the democratic process and elections. without it, nobody will believe in the country or share the same vision. Biden at the minimum has to do an investigation of the unofficial results. Normally, you would not investigate unofficial numbers that by definition could be wrong. But, what needs to be re-established is people's trust in the system the unofficial numbers have destroyed it. the easiest way is use an audit to explain the discrepancies. The official numbers will be the yardstick on who won. but, the unofficial numbers are showing there is some monkey business going on. And, the sooner we resolve what that is, the more people will trust the official numbers when they come out

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Thank Andy, good luck from Australia.

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I have long maintained that the demise of the local newspaper heralded the downfall of truth and connection to what was really happening. Not all read the NYT or WaPo or even should. But a vacuum was created when Sinclair and Gateway Media etc bought up all the locals. So people turned to social media for info…without the critical thinking capability to vet them for truth. (Full disclosure: I taught journalism for many years)

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Every word true. It's a damn shame so few readers understand this. (Yes—I spent most of my worklife at urban weeklies. It's still true.)

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This☝️ 💯 percent

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I honestly feel like there may have been some dodgy business at play here. Narcissists will often blame others for the very things they r doing. There were bomb threats n ballot boxes lit on fire. There was talk of trump having a final ‘surprise’. Mary, what do u make of it? You would know best.

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Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do, Mary! You are eloquent, brave, and caring! Sending love and hugs from Boston!

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Thank you Mary for saying what needs to be said. Right wing media has caused the division in our country because too many people live in an "alternate reality!"

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Sending love from Texas. We're gonna get through this. 💟🇺🇲

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founding

I agree. I also live in Texas.

Thank you, Mary 💙.

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How did Aldered lose?

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Trump supporters are the victims of right-wing media as we all are, because they will be the victims of Trump, as we all will be. Many Trump supporters would have voted for Harris if right-wing media hadn't kept them ignorant. Many do not want to lose the health coverage they get through Obamacare. Many do not want consumer prices to skyrocket because of tariffs and deportations. Many will be horrified to see their friends and neighbors and family members deported or held in concentration camps because deporting them proves impossible. Many do not want Putin to conquer Ukraine and then attack other Eastern European nations in an effort re-establish the equivalent of the Soviet Union. Many do not want polio and other horrible diseases to return if Trump succeeds in banning vaccines, and for their teeth to rot if he succeeds in banning fluoride in drinking water. Many will suffer if Medicare, Medicaid, and assistance to the poor are cut back. But right-wing media prevented them from knowing that all these things could happen if they voted for Trump.

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I should have included that many Trump supporters would prefer not to have more weather disasters occur because Trump considers global warming a hoax.

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An example of the incredibly naive, stupid, foolish harming yourself and the rest of our country, to eliminate weather service.

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Mary — you are 100% right about the right-wing news. Wasn’t it when the Fairness Doctrine was struck down, that people like Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdock were able to get their shows on the air?

This is the FIRST thing Democrats need to do next they take office, if that’s ever.

But I don’t know how to step forward and create a news-o-sphere that everyone would be interested in.

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The amazing thing about all these purveyors of hate and violence is that the hate is glib and the violence is always perpetrated by others. Bullies are classic cowards.

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no, the MAGAts do their own violence, alas!

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The gullible, yes; their leaders, no.

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Good luck Mary from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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We lost for one reason, and one reason only. He utilized a HUGE cast of characters. But we lost because of Vladimir Putin.

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Mary, Ann here. 89 yrs old. Deep South. Child of the Great Depression. Alway a Democrat. Was I mis-led? I thought we would save our democracy by voting for Harris. Now, we have to consider that we might have waited too late to save our democracy. Will I live to see the pendulum swing back?

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I've asked myself the same thing. Have we waited too long? Can fascism just be voted out? I think we were at the crossroads a long time ago and didn't realize it.

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I'll just say... Hillary Clinton warned us.

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I traded my subscription to WaPo for yours. I love your insights and your writing.

I am 76 years old and have believed that I grew up in the greatest generation of this country. My heart is broken to see how greed, corruption and ignorance has broken the fabric of our society. I hope we can recover. At least a little bit of progress soon.

Again, thank you for your contribution

Chrissy

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