Ep 22 ｜ Trump, The View & Tattoos
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Summary
In this episode of Relatable, we discuss the latest in the latest news involving President Trump and Iran, the release of the Carter Page FISA warrant, and the controversy surrounding Judge Jeanine Vissers' appearance on CNN. We also discuss a semi-theological question.
Transcript
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What's up, guys? Welcome to episode 22 of CRTV's Relatable, where we approach culture and politics
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from a biblical and conservative perspective. Sometimes we talk about theology. Sometimes
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we talk about politics. Sometimes we talk about social issues. Sometimes we talk about cats. It
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just kind of depends on what's going on. And of course, what you as a listener would like to talk
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about. My goal is that we're all fairly well-rounded in the knowledge that we glean from this
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podcast and the knowledge that we have. So today we're going to talk about everything. We are going
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to start with some of the major news stories. Then we're going to touch on a couple cultural things
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that I'm interested in talking about. And then we will do one semi-theological question. So all kinds
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of fun on this Tuesday. For news, we are going to talk about Trump's back and forth with Iran on
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Twitter and the released Carter Page FISA warrant. I know that we're a few days late on those things,
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but they're still the big topics for culture. We're going to talk about unearthing old tweets
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to ruin someone's life, as well as Trump derangement syndrome on the left as displayed with the
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conflict on the view with Judge Jeanine. And lastly, for theology, I'm just going to briefly discuss what
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I've already written about, and that is the crazy viral blog post titled Men Want Debt-Free
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Virgins Without Tattoos. So first, if you didn't know, like if you actually have a life and you
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don't spend all day on Twitter, which I'm sure is most of you, Trump sent out a tweet in all caps
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to Iran on Sunday, and he said to Iranian President Rouhani, never, ever threaten the United States
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again or you will suffer consequences, the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered
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before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.
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Be cautious! Exclamation mark. And I yelled all of that because, like I said, it was in all caps,
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which I really love. It just reminds me exactly of how any 70-year-old grandparent would send a text
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to someone when they're upset. The only thing that's missing in this tweet is scare quotes,
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which is something else that President Trump really likes. And more exclamation marks, I think
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we could have appreciated that. But this is great. And I'm actually being serious. I kind of like this.
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I know it's not the most diplomatic thing in the world. And I've never been a huge fan personally of
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the president's tweets. But you have to admit that it feels good to be stood up for. It feels good to
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have a president that's like, hey, if you're going to mess with us, then we're going to completely
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annihilate you. Like just FYI. And I actually think that he means that. But let's back up for a second.
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So I saw this tweet on Sunday and I was like, OK, this this probably isn't out of nowhere. So what's
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going on? So according to The Wall Street Journal, the administration's remarks appeared to refer
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to comments by Mr. Rouhani reported by the semi-official state news agency warning the Trump
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administration against continuing hardline policies against Iran. America. This is what he said.
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America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother
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of all wars. And Mohsen Rizé, I don't know how to say his name, a former commander of the Iranian
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Revolutionary Guard Corps on Twitter, warned Mr. Trump that 50,000 U.S. troops are in range of Iranian
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weapons. I mean, that kind of sounds like a threat to me. But of course, some reporters are accusing
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Trump of inciting conflict. But Sarah Sanders has rightly noted that if anyone is inciting conflict
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with their rhetoric, it's Iran, not us. Sure, President Trump probably could not respond publicly
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and then let his actions do the talking. But that's not really how he works. That's not his style.
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He is always working double duty, which kind of makes him good at what he does. Honestly,
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he's not just intimidating a foreign power to intimidate a foreign power. He is also intimidating
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a foreign power. So everyone will know that he's intimidating a foreign power, a.k.a. keeping
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America first, which is what so many of us elected him to do. Some people are saying that this is a PR
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stunt after he was accused of not putting America first during the press conference with Putin.
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And yeah, maybe. But who cares? That's politics. That doesn't make his words or his actions
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necessarily wrong. All politicians have multiple motives, and I'm sure the president does, too.
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But I I don't really see why that makes any real difference in any of this. Wall Street Journal said
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on Monday that the U.S. hadn't changed their military position towards Iran yet, and the rhetoric
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hadn't prompted any new sort of urgency. More context for this is that Trump recently withdrew
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from the Iran nuclear deal, which most on the left were mad about and most on the right were happy
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about. The deal was done by the Obama administration in 2015, and it basically said, hey, we will lift all
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of these horrible sanctions on you, Iran, that are currently stopping you from being able to trade and sell
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oil and keeping you from accessing about 100 billion dollars that was frozen because of sanctions
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and in sanctions on Iranian bank accounts overseas. They said that we'll lift all of those things if
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you guys agree to allow us to limit your nuclear capabilities. Iran said, OK, and the sanctions were
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lifted and Iran was able to access all their money. So when you hear conservatives say that Obama
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shipped pallets of cash to the Iranians, the number one state sponsor of terror, by the way,
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this is what they're talking about. You can see why people had a problem with this deal.
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So Trump said, no, that's that's not the deal we're going to keep going. It's a bad deal. It's
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one sided. No more. So the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in May and issued their
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requirements for a new deal, which basically demand that Iran completely change their military
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posture in the Middle East. And if Iran turns them down, which it seems like they probably are,
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then the U.S. is going to reenact serious sanctions, which will come back into play August 6th.
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These are sanctions on trade, banking, etc., which are going to seriously hurt Iran's already strained
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economy. So that's that for now. I'm not sure. I mean, sure, is Iran a threat? Yes. But do they
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actually have the power to annihilate the United States? No, absolutely not. I'm sure there will
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be further updates to come. Interesting diplomatic days in which we're living, if you can even call
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them that. OK, now for something a little bit closer to home. You guys all know at this point,
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at least something about the Russian collusion story deal narrative thing that's been going on.
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And if you haven't been following every single detail, that's OK. Honestly, neither have I. Who
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the heck has the time when there are other things going on that actually affect your everyday life?
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Nevertheless, I try to follow at least as much of this as I can so I can relay an overview to you
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guys so you can feel adequately in the know. There's really no reason for you to know every detail.
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But the latest in this drama series is the heavily redacted release of the Carter Page FISA warrant.
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OK, what in the world does all of that mean? Who is Carter Page? What is a FISA? And why do you need
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a warrant? So if the FBI wants to surveil someone, they have to get a warrant. They can get a warrant
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under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a.k.a. FISA, at a FISA court. They are at the FISA court.
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They present their case to the FISA court, say, hey, here's why we think we should surveil this
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person. And the FISA court will decide whether or not the surveillance is justified. And the case
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of Carter Page, the court's answer was, yeah, sure, go for it. Carter Page was a low level aide on the
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Trump campaign, and it was thought that he might be in cahoots with Russian intelligence to help Trump
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win the election. The FBI became interested in Page when they began investigating into Russian collusion
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with Trump's campaign in 2016, when they found out that another campaign aide of Trump, George
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Papadopoulos, had been offered by Russian agents dirt on Hillary Clinton. A few months later, the FBI
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started paying attention to Page, or they shifted their attention to Page, and the FISA court granted
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the FBI's request to surveil him. But the question has been in all of this, on what grounds did the FBI
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and the FISA court agree that Page should be surveilled? What evidence did they have to support Page
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was working with the Russians? Was the warrant granted based on the infamous and unverified dossier
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that we all know about? A Democratic-funded dossier by Christopher Steele that alleged a number of
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things related to Trump and Russia, most infamously that he had Russian hookers pee on him, aka the
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golden showers. I'm sure you've heard about all of that. So Republicans and Trump have wanted to know
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if the FBI is violating Page's rights by surveilling him based on extremely thin partisan unverified
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evidence. If so, that would be a problem because we already know that members of the FBI, like Peter
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Strzok, we talked about him last week, have shown serious bias towards the president. So a lot of
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people on the right are, and maybe rightfully so, worried that this is all part of a partisan scheme
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to tear down Trump. But all along, the FBI and the DOJ have claimed that they have had ample reason
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to believe Page is actually guilty, might even be a Russian agent. But in order to know whether or not
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the FBI and the DOJ is actually telling the truth, we need to see the warrant granted to the FBI by the
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FISA court that would demonstrate the court's reasoning. And that's what was released over the
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weekend. So the version we saw of the warrant was heavily redacted, which means that a bunch of
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parts were taken out because of the classified nature of some of the material. But we still
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learned of some of the motivations behind the warrant, some being the key word. What we learned
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is that the salacious P-tape dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and compiled by spy Christopher
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Steele was used at least in a large part to obtain the warrant. But what we are still not sure
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about, and this is what makes the big difference, I think, and why there's still such a debate,
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is what other facts about Page were used to corroborate the dossier. If there were other
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facts that made Page a justified target of surveillance, then fine. But if not, if the
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dossier was basically all they used and they didn't verify the facts using some other legitimate
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source, then yeah, that's a problem. And it would make it look like the whole thing is politicized.
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But so much of the information is redacted that we don't really know. The FBI believed Page,
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like I said, to be a Russian spy, and so they wanted him surveilled. There isn't much evidence
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that that was a partisan attack. But the fact that the salacious Steele dossier was so central
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to obtaining the warrant might give some confidence to the people on the right that say that this is
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all a deep state plan to stop Trump. OK, now moving on. So to our cultural stories, the unearthing of
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the tweets to ruin people's lives. So director James Gunn was fired from Gardens of the Galaxy 3.
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I have never seen the first and second one. Didn't even know what those were. Whatever.
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After some offensive tweets from a long from a really long time ago, like 10 years ago or something
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like that, I think, resurfaced. And yeah, they were really bad jokes, really, really in bad taste
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jokes about pedophilia, rape, 9-11, the Holocaust, like things that you don't really need to be joking
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about. Really bad. Gunn was and is a really big critic of Donald Trump and of Republicans. So he was
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targeted by conservatives for these really distasteful jokes. People on Twitter asking, you know,
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why does this guy still have a job? There's obviously a double standard here. And I get it
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that that's a kind of a legitimate question. Like Roseanne got fired for what was perceived
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as a racist tweet immediately. But people on the left don't get fired for saying disgusting things.
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Why the double standard? Plus, there's just so much hypocrisy from people on the left who fancy
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themselves so much more virtuous than conservatives, when in reality, some of them are immoral and
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disgusting. So I don't exactly blame those on the right who went after a gun in order to point out
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the blatant double standard that exists in Hollywood and in media and his own hypocrisy. But I do worry
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still that this is a battle that ultimately no side wins, that really just everyone gets hurt.
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A 22-year-old pitcher for the Brewers, Josh Hader, he's been in the spotlight for tweets that he put out
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when he tweeted things about white powers and the derogatory towards gay people.
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Now, these are kind of different than Gunn's tweets because Gunn was presumably kidding and
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Hader probably wasn't. But the question still stands. Do we not only judge people personally
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by what they said in the past, but do we seek to also ruin them professionally? And see, I just I
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don't know. On the one hand, people should understand by now that what you put on the internet lives
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forever. However, even I, knowing this fact, have probably said things I regret and maybe
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now would correct. It happens. We learn, we grow, we move on. We don't always delete every single
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tweet or post that we regret. I think it's the posture now that matters a little bit more than
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things that we said 10, 15 years ago. And even though everyone has the right to judge someone's
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character as they see fit, I don't see what good it does to seek to ruin someone's entire life based
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on something they tweeted 10 years ago. Would any of us like to be held accountable for what we said
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10 years ago? No. I just think that this creates a dangerous trend. People aren't going to even talk
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anymore for fear of the Twitter mob ruining their entire careers. I've kind of experienced something
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like this. I've almost been the Twitter mob. A few months ago, there was this guy who was on the
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board at Georgetown, followed me on Twitter. He always was tweeting me this rude and just really
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mean stuff. And I saw that he tweeted other conservative women, similar stuff, just always
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extremely biting, like spiteful, but whatever. It's the internet. Like if you can't stand the heat,
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get out of the kitchen. I'm used to it at this point. But one day he told me, he said something
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like wishing you a me too moment. Maybe then you won't be so heartless or something like that, which
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is an absurd thing to say. I have never been heartless towards victims of sexual assault.
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He just assumed that because I'm a Republican that I am. And even if I was heartless, wishing me a me
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too moment or that I would get sexually assaulted doesn't really help anything. So I screenshot it.
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I tweeted it and it ended up really blowing up. People contacted Georgetown, his employer,
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and he actually got fired and was asked to resign from the board. And even though that guy was in
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the wrong, even though a grown man should never say that to a woman, I still really regret how I
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handle that situation. I think about it all the time. I think about how that guy's life was ruined
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for saying something stupid on the internet. And even though he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't
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have said it. And maybe, maybe it even the fact that he got fired, stopped him or the fact that
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he deleted his Twitter, stopped him from harassing other people. Maybe he was a serious creep who
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needed to be fired from his job. Who knows? I still, I still think that I could have handled that
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situation with more grace rather than getting caught up in the moment and letting my anger get the best
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of me. Um, so that said, I worry about this trend. Should people be more careful about what they say
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on the internet? Yes. Is it ever appropriate to make pedophile jokes and jokes about raping your
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friend or tweeting out white power? No, not in my opinion. So maybe in these two cases, their
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punishment is somewhat justifiable, but I worry about when the Twitter mob is completely subjective
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in their judgment yet still gets their way. Like when Laura Ingram called David Hogg a bully and
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advertisers pulled their ads from her show, she probably shouldn't have called David Hogg a bully,
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but she realized that and she apologized. Was this worth losing advertisers over and people trying to
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get her fired? No. So what happens when the liberal Twitter mob is mad at me, for example, because one
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time I tweeted that Jesus is the only way to heaven, making me seem like a bigot or wanting me to look
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like a bigot. Are they going to be successful in ruining my future career? Are they going to spend
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something I said 10 years ago, something else I said 10 years ago to make it look like I'm racist?
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Are they going to win? See, this just doesn't indwell for people. I don't have really a solution or all
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of the answers because maybe some people deserve to be called out, but I'm just not sure this back and
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forth of who can dig up the worst, oldest tweets and try to ruin the other person's life more serves
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any good purpose. OK, next thing in crazy culture news, Judge Jeanine. She is a Fox News host, as most
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of you know, who has been highly supportive of President Trump. I know I'm kind of late to discuss
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this. It happened last week, but this is the first time I'm doing a podcast since it happened. So we're
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going to talk about it. She went on The View last week and she got in a tip with Whoopi Goldberg,
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who most of you know, loathes Donald Trump. And here's what happened.
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Listen, I don't have Trump derangement. Let me tell you what I have. I have a lot of I'm tired
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of people starting a conversation with Mexicans or liars and rapists. I'm tired of people starting a
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conversation about this country. Listen, I'm 62 years old. There have been a lot of people in office
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that I didn't agree with. But I have never, ever seen anything like this. I've never seen anybody
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whip up such hate. I've never seen anybody be so dismissive. And I and clearly you don't watch the
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show. So you don't know that I don't suffer from that. What I suffer from is the inability to figure
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out how to fix this. That's my issue. But one of the things that you talk about a lot and I'm curious
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about it is the deep state. How long has the deep state been there and who's running it?
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Well, I want to answer your question because you get your opening statement, which is how horrible.
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It is that Donald Trump is talking about. You said, you know, you said that when it was going to be here
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or end up murdering the children of American citizens. You know what's hard? What's hard when
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the president of the United States whips up people to beat the hell out of people. Say goodbye.
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But apparently that was not all. They went backstage and more went down. Here's what
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Judge Jeanine told Sean Hannity last week about what occurred backstage.
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It didn't end there, Sean. What happened was I realized the segment was over. I got up and I just
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started. I left the stage going downstairs and I saw her and I had to walk by her. And I said,
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Whoopi, I fought for victims my whole life, something like that. And she started cursing at me.
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What did she say? Tell everybody what she said without saying it.
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She said, blank you, F you, F you. And I said, Whoopi, did you just say F you? I mean,
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I was, she was right here. And then she said, get the F out of this building. And she yelled at me
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again, get the F out of this building. And I, I felt like I was less than dirt.
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Now, since then, Whoopi has said that Judge Jeanine is lying, that this isn't what happened,
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that Judge Jeanine actually called everyone backstage a name that she couldn't even repeat
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on television, that Judge Jeanine was rude to Anna Navarro, who was taking the place of Joy
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Behar that day. And then it was actually Judge Jeanine that was causing all of this conflict
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and this chaos. Who's telling the truth? We'll never know for sure. Uh, it's a game of she said,
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she said at this point, all we know is what we heard in the clip from the view. And from that clip,
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it definitely seems like Whoopi was the one who was losing her temper. She wouldn't even let Judge
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Jeanine talk, who was a guest on the show. So she invited her on the show and then wouldn't even
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let her defend her own position. And Whoopi did admit to telling Judge Jeanine to get the F out of
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there. And she didn't even feel bad about that. And see, here's the thing. Here's, here's my problem
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with all of this. It's not just that they got into a fight on television, whatever that's going to
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happen. People like drama. Um, what bothers me is that people on the left don't feel badly about
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being mean to Trump supporters or conservatives because it's justified to them because they lump
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all Trump supporters and conservatives into the same category. And that is racist Nazis. It's okay
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to be mean to racists. It's acceptable to be mean to a Nazi. No one cares about civility or politeness
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toward a racist Nazi. In fact, the less civil and polite you are, the braver you are. You stood up to
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a Nazi. You're a hero. You're sticking up for justice against these evil racist bigots. Uh,
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when you consider your political opponents to be morally depraved for their political positions,
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you automatically become a vigilante, a virtuous, noble person above reproach in every regard.
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And when you fancy the other side, the heartless enemy and yourself a vigilante,
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all forms of fighting are justified and are even expected. The more harsh, the more crass,
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the more mean you are towards the enemy, the more courageous and heroic you'll be.
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The problem with that is that's not an accurate portrayal of reality. Your political opponents
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are not morally bad because of their political opinions. They might be bad people, but their
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politics don't necessarily indicate that they're completely immoral human beings. So painting the
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other side categorically as a villain and you as a hero, is it real? It's not true. And because it's
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not an accurate reading on reality, it only exacerbates division. So when everyone starts
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living in their own imaginary bubbles of reality with other people who share the same imaginary
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interpretation of reality, you have echo chambers and you have tribes and you have identity politics.
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All of this is made by and made worse by this crazy idea that if you disagree with me politically,
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you're not just wrong, you're a bad person. This is how Whoopi Goldberg feels. This is how the woman
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who threw out Sarah Sanders at the Red Hen restaurant felt. That is how these miscreants who show up at
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Mitch McConnell's house feel. This is how Michelle Wolf feels when she compares ICE to ISIS. This is how
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all of Hollywood feels when they make horrific jokes and comments about Trump and his supporters.
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Their incivility is justified because everyone who disagrees with them is trash and it's okay to kick
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around trash. So that's that's my take on that and what is creating this crazy culture of tribalism that
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we all seem to be getting sucked into and it's not good. Okay, I have time for one more thing and I've
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already addressed this in a blog post, but I just wanted to touch on it here just in case some of you
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didn't read read my post that I posted a couple days ago and that is the subject of this viral blog post by
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the transformed wife that went around last week. I was kind of late to even hearing about this, but the blog
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post was titled men want debt-free virgins without tattoos. Wow, like that's a lot. That's a really bold
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claim. First of all, let me just say that this random blog post I've never even heard of this blog before this
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ran a blog post didn't provide any data or any evidence that men actually want this. So we don't
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actually know if this is true or not, but this woman whoever she is decided yes, I'm going to make
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this statement and I'm just going to say it's true because I want it to be true. I have heard various
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Christian takes on this. Some people are down with it. They're like yeah, what's wrong with having
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standards? Other people are half okay with it. Other people like me just are not down with it at all.
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And here's why I am not okay with this article. And you guys know me. I am not one of those
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Christians who's like, oh yeah, do whatever you want to do because grace. I'm not that type of
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person. So you can just get that out of your head if you're thinking that I am trying to promote some
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kind of free for all for sin because of grace. The reason I have a problem with this article is
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because being a debt-free virgin without tattoos does not make you holy. It does not make you godly.
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It does not make you righteous. So if these are your qualifications for a spouse, I would tell you
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to look a little deeper. There are Jesus-loving women who had sex at one point, who have sleeves
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of tattoos and who have $100,000 of student loan debt. And there are women who have never had sex,
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who don't have tattoos, and who are debt-free and yet are not sold out to Jesus. So if as a Christian
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man who is following Jesus, which I guess that would go together, you would choose the second
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woman, the woman who looks perfect on paper but doesn't have a heart for Jesus, then I would say
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that that's a problem. Being a tattoo or debt or sex-free doesn't make someone holy. Jesus does.
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The person who is a believer yet has debt, has had sex, and has tattoos is clothed in a righteousness
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and a purity that the person with none of those things yet is not a believer does not have.
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Therefore, being tattoo or debt or sex-free doesn't make someone more worthy than anyone else,
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at least not in the eyes of God. And I'm not sure if any of us, people who are dead in our sins apart
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from Christ, have the right to view someone differently than God sees them. Now, I'm not saying it's bad to
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have preferences and things you're attracted to. Sure, maybe you're completely unattractive to
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tattoos. That's fine. Maybe you just prefer not to deal with debt. Okay, maybe you would really like
00:26:53.160
it if the girl or guy you married is a virgin. Whatever. I guess those are all acceptable
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preferences to have. Sure. But they are not priorities for the person who is following Jesus.
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The only priority a Christian should have is that they find someone who is seeking Christ right now.
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And every other preference is subject to that priority. Yes, the Bible calls us to sexual purity
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and financial responsibility. It does. But these things aren't good because they make us more
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attractive to a potential spouse. They're good because they give God glory. So it is not our goal
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to be pure or financially responsible out of debt or not get tattoos just because we want to make
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ourselves attractive to someone else. We are obedient because it gives glory to God. And I will also
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just note that the New Testament doesn't say anything about not getting tattoos. And so a lot of people
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after I posted this blog post were really confused about that. They wanted me to clarify. No, most
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Christians are actually okay with tattoos. And while God does call you to sexual purity and financial
00:27:56.580
responsibility, again, the focus there is not on making yourself more appealing or alleviating the burden
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for a future spouse. The goal there is to actually glorify God. So my concern with a blog post like
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this and with people who are promoting ideas like this is that you're going to have all of these
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insecure girls who are running around trying to be something just for a guy who may or may not exist.
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By the way, I think it's important to know that God doesn't guarantee that you're ever going to get
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married. So why would you waste your time trying to create a persona that's going to be attractive
00:28:28.740
to someone that may not exist when you could spend your time seeking after Jesus first, which is what
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we are called to do. Okay, that's it for today. I hope that you guys have an excellent Tuesday and I will
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see you here on Thursday. Thanks for tuning in.