23 thoughts on “News/Politics 12-30-20

  1. One more doy of 2020.
    I wish I could say that I expect a better 2021, but with the Bidens in charge, I can’t.
    Hunker down!
    Pray a lot.
    Keep your financial affairs simple and straightforward.
    I think we have tough times ahead.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. McConnell says “We will begin a process……”

    …..Of leaving out the American people from our porky giveaway.

    When you lose the Senate to Dems, this will be why you idiots.

    https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/12/29/mcconnell-well-begin-process-consider-expanded-covid-19-relief/

    “McConnell: We’ll “Begin A Process” To Consider Expanded COVID-19 Relief”

    “Kinda puts a new spin on the check’s in the mail, eh? The House began the process yesterday with its supermajority passage of a clean bill that bumps direct COVID-19 relief payments to $2000 per individual. Chuck Schumer tried to “begin the process” this morning by moving the House bill on an emergency basis, which requires unanimous consent. Mitch McConnell objected, blocking the move, but promised a “process” for dealing with Donald Trump’s demand:

    Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, on Tuesday sidestepped a push to increase stimulus checks to $2,000, saying instead that the Senate would “begin a process” to consider bigger payments, along with two of President Trump’s other demands: protecting election security and removing some legal protections for technology companies.

    Mr. McConnell did not elaborate further on how exactly the Senate would move to consider Mr. Trump’s demands, which the president made on Sunday after finally agreeing to sign a $900 billion stimulus package and government spending bill into law. Mr. Trump had held the package hostage for days, insisting that lawmakers triple the direct payments to $2,000 from $600, remove a legal shield for companies like YouTube and Facebook and investigate ”very substantial voter fraud.”

    Blocking Schumer’s move doesn’t mean he’s blocked the bill itself, but it delays the processing considerably by forcing HR9051 into the regular order — meaning readings, committee assignment, and so forth. Furthermore, McConnell declared that all of the president’s priorities should be addressed if the Senate is to take up the direct payments. That suggests that McConnell will link these three into a single bill, which creates all sorts of new obstacles for any of them to pass:”

    ———–

    Which seems to be the Republican plan……

    This is real simple clowns. People need help.

    The lady or the tiger. You choose.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Trump’s right on all counts.

    ————-

    https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/29/what-big-tech-didnt-want-you-to-see-on-the-federalist-in-2020/

    “What Big Tech Didn’t Want You To See On The Federalist In 2020

    Google, Facebook, and Twitter ultimately don’t want you to see anything from The Federalist. They also hope you don’t notice.”

    “Leftist media has skewed U.S. politics for decades, but Big Tech’s amplified influence over global discourse and governments is new. While Congress passed no legislation related to this political and national security emergency, we the people were held captive in lockdowns during a major election while crucial public information was filtered, hidden, and surveilled by unaccountable companies with no allegiance to the United States and obvious disdain for hundreds of millions of its inhabitants.

    This is a huge social problem. Regaining our freedom to speak and to share and compare information may be the first task towards redressing our grievances against those who claim to govern us. For how can consent of the governed be truly granted when the people’s ability to inform their consent is manipulated? It cannot.

    o more of that effort, here is an accounting of Federalist work that Google, Facebook, and Twitter tried to keep people from seeing in 2020.

    You will notice it fits the pattern of big tech censorship that big tech claims isn’t censorship: it all goes one way politically. All of it also comprises election-meddling by effectively promoting misinformation and disinformation on key voting issues.

    Just Plain Hiding the News They Can’t Use
    In June, a foreign think tank, NBC, and Google colluded in an attempt to demonetize The Federalist in retaliation for our coverage of Black Lives Matter rioting. The tech giant demanded we end our commenting section, and continues to refuse to allow it back. Google-owned YouTube also continues to shadowban Federalist content and choke our engagement.

    In July, Google claimed it had “mistakenly” made it impossible for people to find a slew of conservative news sites, including CNSNews.com, The Washington Free Beacon, Breitbart, Twitchy, RedState, PJ Media, The Blaze, Townhall, LifeNews, PragerU, and The Daily Wire.

    After the election, Instagram slapped a warning label on a post in which President Trump honored Pearl Harbor Day. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, put an automatic “fact check” on Trump’s post that claimed Joe Biden won the election, although Trump’s post included nothing about the election results. Instagram later removed the “warning.”

    In October, “Twitter suspended U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan for a post celebrating the success of the U.S. southern border wall keeping violent criminals from reaching American communities,” reported The Federalist’s Tristan Justice.

    The online publisher banned Morgan, a public official, from communicating the elected president’s publicly stated priorities, telling him in an automated message the post violated the publisher’s “hateful conduct” policies. Morgan had written: “@CBP & @USACEHQ continue to build new wall every day. Every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drugs from entering our country. It’s a fact, walls work.” If this is hate speech, all conservatives are criminals.”

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Heroes, Villains, and Victims of the 2020 Horror Show

    Heroes, Villains, and Victims of the 2020 Horror Show

    “Who were the year’s heroes, its villains and, above all, its victims? And which figure in American politics fits the bill for all three?”

    “The year began with so much optimism.

    Record low unemployment, rising wages, and a strong stock market buoyed the outlook for business owners and consumers alike. The president earned all-time high approval ratings following the Democrats’ impeachment farce. In February 2020, Republicans enjoyed a seven-point lead over Democrats in party affiliation, an advantage the GOP hadn’t seen in at least 15 years. The Democratic presidential primary field was a clown show; party elders publicly worried that none of the candidates could prevail over President Trump in November.

    And then—disaster.

    The ongoing catastrophe related to COVID-19 is mostly caused by human malice and hubris, not the virus. The year 2020 featured many villains, a handful of heroes, and millions of defenseless victims harmed by heartless authoritarians of both parties—politicians and bureaucrats consumed with power, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for the media’s approval.

    The Heroes
    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: After barely beating Andrew Gillum in 2018, DeSantis landed near the top of the Left’s hit list and has stayed there ever since. DeSantis resisted calls in the spring to shut down Florida amid a vicious smear campaign by the news media, which continue to vilify him to this day.

    DeSantis navigated a summer surge that also hit other parts of the Sun Belt without coming close to the fatality rates endured in states such as New York and New Jersey, which were hailed as models by the Left. In September, DeSantis lifted all restrictions on bars and restaurants and opened up nursing homes for family visits, later promising never to shut down again. People and businesses are flocking to the Sunshine State from failed blue states. DeSantis, 42, now is viewed as a 2024 Republican presidential contender.

    Dr. Scott Atlas: A neuroradiologist and Hoover Institution fellow, Atlas joined President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force in August, six months too late. An early proponent of a more realistic approach to COVID-19, Atlas has been torched by the press, Democrats, public health “experts,” his Stanford colleagues, and even some in the White House.

    But his views about herd immunity, mask use, and the human toll of lockdowns are scientifically sound. The people who push lockdowns, Atlas told me this year, “have blood on their hands.” Sad, but true: History will be much kinder to Atlas than to the current tyrants in the media and “expert” class.

    Alex Berenson, Team Reality: Only a very small handful of journalists and commentators objected in March to shutdown orders to “flatten the curve.” Former New York Times reporter and author Alex Berenson led the pack this year, challenging the groupthink of his peers and focusing on data as opposed to fear. Amazon briefly banned the sale of his ebook critical of lockdowns. Others on Team Reality include Jordan Schachtel, Justin Hart, Aaron Ginn, Phil Kerpen, Daniel Horowitz, Steve Deace, Jesse Kelly, Tracy Beanz, and many others behind the scenes studying the actual science.

    The New York Post: In October, after the Post published shocking information discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop, the paper faced an onslaught of criticism. Articles detailing the trove, which confirmed Biden’s overseas rackets and his father’s involvement, were banned both by social media and traditional news outlets. Twitter locked the Post’s account for two weeks ahead of Election Day.

    Former intelligence officials, including John Brennan and James Clapper, signed a letter claiming the laptop materials were part of a “Russian disinformation campaign.” The paper has since been vindicated; news reports published after the election confirm Hunter Biden is under federal criminal investigation.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: Rank-and-file Republican are rightly furious at top party officials for failing to confront egregious—and likely election-altering—voter fraud in key states. Trump’s legal team was all over the place, clearly unprepared for the necessary court challenges. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a solid lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court on December 7, later joined by several other state attorneys general and more than 100 Republican congressmen, outlining election illegalities in four swing states. Paxton’s filing should have been prepared by Team Trump and the Republican National Committee right after the election. The high court, to its lasting shame, refused to consider the case.

    Honorable mentions: Tucker Carlson, Chef Andrew Gruel, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Senator Rand Paul, Rep. Andy Biggs, the Great Barrington Declaration authors, and California doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi.”

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  5. What If I Were to Tell You COVID Cases Would Be Declining Nationally If Not For One State?

    And you know who it is…..

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/12/29/what-if-i-were-to-tell-you-covid-cases-would-be-declining-nationally-if-not-for-o-n2582126

    “We had a spike in COVID cases over the Thanksgiving holiday. No shock due to the millions who traveled to see their families, which is not an act of evil, a narrative the liberal media peddled for days. People were going to travel, folks. We’re pandemic-fatigued. And it’s Thanksgiving. This was bound to happen. So, now that the holiday season is drawing to a close—are we still in the midst of a COVID spike? If you watch CNN and MSNBC, well, you’d think half the population contracted it over Christmas. Not the case, in fact, COVID cases nationally would be declining if it weren’t for one state: California.

    Both New York and California have become the Mecca and Medina for this virus. New York, by far, has a higher death rate and the number of infections than the red state outbreaks that the media tries to pass off as similar in size and scope. It’s not. For starters, in most red states, their COVID outbreaks are part of a first wave that never touched them back in the spring. At the same time, that doesn’t mean as a governor you don’t force facilities housing those who are most susceptible to die from COVID to accept such patients, which led to the deaths of thousands of people. Almost half of all COVID deaths in the US come from nursing homes.

    And this isn’t conservative media or Fox News making this point about California. It’s the Mercury News:

    As other regions of the country finally see some relief from the insidious coronavirus, California’s surge has grown so large it now claims a dark distinction in the nation’s outbreak: Without the Golden State, U.S. numbers would be dropping.

    That’s according to The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic, which analyzes data from across the country.”

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  6. Expert or grifter?

    You decide.

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dr-anthony-fauci-coronavirus-marco-rubio

    “Sen. Marco Rubio: Dr. Fauci lied about coronavirus — I am appalled by his arrogance

    “Placing blind faith in unelected celebrity scientists has its limits, and we must not be afraid to call them out”

    “Thanks to our news media’s monomaniacal obsession with President Trump, few have paid attention to an important interview that Dr. Anthony Fauci gave last week, in which he acknowledged that he selectively lied to the American public about the coronavirus and what was needed for our national recovery.

    The story is straightforward. For most of this year, Dr. Fauci and other scientists in our public health establishment have been telling Americans that about 60 to 70 percent of the nation would need a vaccine in order for us to reach herd immunity and make the coronavirus a non-issue.

    But, speaking with The New York Times, Dr. Fauci admitted that he believes the real number is in fact significantly higher — perhaps 75 to 90 percent — and he declined to be forthright because he felt the country wasn’t ready to hear it. Only now did he say that he feels he has the freedom to “nudge this up a bit” without discouraging the nation.

    I am sure that Dr. Fauci — the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — made the decision to mislead with nothing but good intentions. However, let’s be clear about what he was doing: lying to the American people in order to manipulate their behavior.

    The American people deserve the truth; they also deserve accountability. When elected representatives make decisions, they can be held responsible by the public. But when public health officials with decades of experience and leadership within our nation’s institutions short-circuit the political process and make these decisions themselves, they deny the American people that same opportunity — and to change course if desired.

    After all, accountability is a central tenet of representative government. It’s the best way to ensure that the vision of what is being enforced by decision-makers matches the values of the population who have elected them.

    Over the past year, difficult choices have had to be made: How do we allocate scarce personal protective equipment? Is it safe to play a high school football game? How should we prioritize vaccine distribution?

    They’re not easy questions, but people should be trusted to make these decisions for themselves armed with facts honestly presented by public officials. And when it comes time to make decisions as a community, elected officials at every level of government must lead.

    Passing the buck to unelected technocrats avoids accountability and means falling back on two fallacies: first, that science gives us a straightforward playbook for answering questions facing decision-makers; and, second, that those technocrats are the only legitimate interpreters of the facts. “

    Liked by 2 people

  7. That’s quite a trick to come up with over half a million last names that nobody else in PA has. That would require a computer program that not only picks names that no other registered voter has, but the name would have to look legitimate, not random letters like Nqxix.

    How can the courts ignore evidence like this? And of course PA is not the only state that had massive cheating…

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/mathematician-bobby-piton-finds-500000-unique-last-names-pennsylvania-sophisticated-state-actor-able-optimize-desired-outcome/

    “Piton revealed this weekend that he examined just over 9 million records in Pennsylvania and has identified 521,879 unique last names.

    In other words, these people have no parents, siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins who share the same last name (phantom voters).”

    “245,033 or just under 47% of the total last names in Pennsylvania belong to ONE and ONLY ONE PERSON!”

    “Bobby Piton essentially discovered where those 695,000+ illegal ballots came from in Pennsylvania.

    President Trump was ahead of Joe Biden by over 700,000 votes on election night in Pennsylvania and within a few days after the election, hundreds of thousands of ballots appeared for Joe Biden.

    Between 695,000 to 958,000 voters just got up and vanished out of Pennsylvania!”

    Stop the Steal!!!

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  8. The solution is simple.
    But impossible given present policy.
    Stop mail in ballots.
    Have write-in ballots upon request prior to election
    No votes after thepolls close, no matter what cause.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. I came across this article last night. Trump and friends have a habit of accusing their opponents of something they themselves would do. Perhaps the press is looking at the wrong voting machine.

    https://www.dailydot.com/debug/trump-dominion-ess-election-fraud/

    Unique last names don’t necessarily mean anything — if I was to move to about half the US states and Canadian provinces, I would have a unique last name (not Penn — apparently there is one adult with my last name; he’s a unique last name for now). In addition there’s no means to see which unique last name is legitimate or illegitimate and if the unique last name person voted Democrat or Republican. Given my relatives and even non-relatives with my last name, the odds are they vote conservative. By a simple search, I found a person with a unique last name in Pennsylvania (he appears to have two girls of unknown age), he exists and I’m sure the rest of these unique last name person also exist. A common conspiracy takes what appears unusual and makes it appear to be part of a conspiracy.

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  10. Trump appears to want burn bridges on his way out of the White House. McConnell’s response is definitely being played up by the Democrats in Georgia. Not sure what McConnell is actually doing — apparently he thinks his policy of “do nothing” can continue indefinitely.

    Not sure why the Republicans and the right in general continue to want to interfere in private corporations and their propriety rights. I thought that was a socialist trait. In addition, its rather amusing to hear the right rail against Facebook et al as the left has complained about Zuckerburg in particular for years. If the Republicans succeed with political interference in private corporations — will Sanders and AOC et al follow suit…

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  11. On a per capita basis, California is 34th in covid cases and only 40th in terms of covid deaths. This is quite good given its population density. Its no surprise California only took six weeks to reach the second million cases. The US took 9 months to reach 10 million cases, it took about six weeks to reach almost 20 million cases. California is just reflecting national trends.

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  12. The place a candidate is on an election night depends on which votes are counted first. Biden was ahead in Ohio by 3-4% on election night but by midnight the numbers started to shift towards Trump. Ohio counted mail in ballots first and then urban centers started to report giving Biden an early lead. A similar thing happened in Florida — Biden was ahead but as the night went into morning and the panhandle votes were counted, Trump cruised to a win. In Penn they counted mail in ballots after the regular ballots. The votes were all there, you can’t claim victory just because you were ahead with 66% of the votes counted.

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  13. Republicans only need one of the two GA seats to retain a majority in the Senate. If they can’t do that, the entire government — House, Senate White House — belongs to the Democrat for the next two years.

    A couple of discouraging reports about the outlook from powerline blog this week:

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/12/another-depressing-report-from-georgia.php

    _______________________

    We have an absurdly generous film tax credit here, where we pay Hollywood 30 cents on the dollar to make movies here, and these policies, along with failing economies in blue states, have caused significant population growth. So, in a 50/50 state where some percentage of Republicans are refusing to vote because they think their vote won’t count, it’s not hard to figure out what will happen.
    ________________________

    and:

    _________________________

    I asked my Georgia source, a well-placed state Republican who correctly predicted the Georgia outcomes in November, for his view from the ground. I was hoping for reassurance. Instead, I got this:

    All of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room by the continued controversy around the November election. Loeffler and Perdue both almost immediately called for the resignation of the Georgia Secretary of State, the RNC and State GOP have filed suit against the Secretary of State, and there is growing tension among many elected officials over what exactly happened in November, and who, if anyone, is to blame.

    This continued fighting (Georgia GOP vs Secretary of State, POTUS vs. Governor, etc) has led to a lot of Republicans telling me they are not going to vote in January. It seems to be some sort of righteous protest on their part—wanting to teach Republicans a lesson for either a) not doing enough to change election procedures for the January election or b) not doing enough to “fight for Trump.” …

    … Georgia is going to be ground zero for election reform battles in 2021. Signature match, no excuse absentee voting, national change of address list maintenance, election observer access, and much more will all be on the table when the legislature returns for session in just over two weeks.

    Until then, if the election was held today, I return to my November prediction—slight advantage Democrats. If Republicans can get to rowing the boat in the same direction, they likely can pull it off, but time is running out.
    ___________________________

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  14. Tychichus, your 9:02, I’m missing something. In reading the article, I don’t see what he says happened. He says a lot of names have only one person in the state with that name. Is that newsworthy? He also says they have a lot fewer “common” names than they “should.” Is that newsworthy, either? If he makes an actual connection to the election, let alone to fraud, I missed it.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. It’s too bad that we don’t have about 52 other Senators like Josh Hawley…

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/sen-josh-hawley-will-object-to-electoral-college-certification-process-on-jan-6_3637703.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-30-2

    “Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he will object during the counting of the Electoral College vote process on Jan. 6, becoming the first senator to confirm they are joining an effort launched by more than a dozen House Republicans.

    “I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley wrote in a statement on Monday. “And I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega-corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden,” he added.”

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  16. Just wait until July 6th, when Senators Hawley and Cruz argue not before the Supreme Court, but directly in front of the American people with all of the evidence of fraud that has been gathered. Dems will no longer be able to hide behind the msm, and the msm won’t be able to hide the evidence anymore. Panic time…

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  17. Tychicus — for over six weeks the American people have been waiting for evidence of fraud to be presented and nothing. When given the opportunity to claim fraud in court, Trump’s legal team has declined. They simple don’t have the evidence.

    Penn’s so called failure to follow rules is not fraud, sloppiness perhaps but not fraud. I am rather amused to see politician from southern states taking an interest in other states in areas which is normally the prerogative of individual states. I thought state’s rights was important to southern politicians.

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  18. DJ — although new residents might be part of the change in Georgia, the voting demographics in November also tell us that 20% of the voters were under 30. The fact that young people were the largest demographic voting, and esp black youth, pretty much explains Biden’s win. The Senate election is a toss up and as your article suggests its all about get out the vote. Will young people vote twice in two months? Will Republicans vote for two extremely wealthy and corrupt senators? Will McConnell’s inaction on Covid aid encourage Democrats and discourage Republicans, As soon as the run offs were announced, the left side of the internet was full of memes encouraging anyone turning 18 prior to Jan 6 to register to vote (apparently 23,000 teens have turned 18 since Nov. 6, I doubt the Democrats registered them all but they are chasing every single one they think will vote Democrat). Normally I would think the under 30 crowd would walk away from a run off but the Republican and Trump behaviour in the last month will keep them motivated. 2.3 million Georgians have already voted — early voters are usually Democrats, more mail in ballots were requested than in the presidential election, etc. This should be a coin toss but its starting to favor the Democrats. Honestly, if Trump accepted his defeat and Republicans passed a decent Covid package, this would be a Repubican win but now…

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  19. Tychichus, did you see my questions at 3:00? Having read the article in question twice, I don’t see answers to my questions in it, and wondered if you saw something I missed. BTW, July 6 will be too late to do anything about the 2020 election. It also seems unlikely that any statements made on January 6 are likely to be covered by media in more than a passing mention, or covered with any serious attention.

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  20. Cheryl: Admittedly, that article wasn’t well-written, but what she was trying to say is that Dominion leaders actually set a ‘name’ algorithm to take votes from people with certain common last names (Smith, Jones, Johnson, etc.) that you would normally see in a sampling of the population (or given areas), and replace those votes with fake last names who then ‘voted’ for Biden. In other words, Dominion not only used an algorithm to switch votes (as in other states), but also to ‘invent‘ people to vote for Biden. There were probably over 500,000 illegal ballots (by ‘voters‘ who voted without having any family lineage, or family tree) in PA alone.

    Piton is talking about machine-generated random character strings being produced as ‘names‘ (surnames) that have ZERO statistical probability of existing and don‘t show up anywhere else in public records data sets – no social security, no phone number data sets, no voter rolls, no census data – they are simply gibberish names. These ‘people‘ do not exist – not in birth records, no parents with the same names, no siblings, nothing. They are phantom, fake ‘people‘, and this is criminal vote-rigging.

    Monkeys banging on keyboards could randomly generate ‘names‘ such as what Piton found – and he found these names in areas where statistically 32% of last names are Smith, Johnson, etc. That makes it even more to the possibility of infinity, i.e. it’s impossible that it happens under any circumstances, except by a programmed machine that is ‘trained‘ to make it happen using randomly-generated surnames.

    Such irregularities could possibly be dismissed as random anomalies if we were talking about a few thousand votes, but not when we get into the 100-500K range – it is in essence an impossibility.

    PA sent out 1.8 Million mail-in ballots and received back 2.5 Million mail-in ballots. At 11pm on election night, Pres. Trump had a 750K vote lead, which at that point was actually impossible to overturn.

    It’s a strong indication of organized and systematic election fraud, since it is extremely unlikely (i.e. impossible) that hundreds of thousands of individuals spontaneously invented fake identities. It’s far more likely that the identities were manufactured at scale for this election. Very sophisticated, but they’ve been caught!

    Perhaps you can let me know on today’s thread that you’ve seen this…

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  21. Cheryl: July 6th was obviously an oversight, probably b/c it was after midnight here in Central Europe. Obviously I meant Jan 6th. (Speaking of oversights, my screen name is spelled ‘Tychicus’, just like Paul’s travel companion in the NT.) On Jan 6th it will be a joint session of Congress, so people will be able to see it clearly without msm censorship.

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