Episode 150 – AG Bill Barr to Resign. Dominion Voting Systems FLIPS Votes, Report Says. CCP Members Infiltrate Multiple Consulates. The Rising Exodus From Democrat States.
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Summary
Bill Barr is stepping down from the Department of Justice, and Jeff Rosen will take over as acting attorney general. Matt Gaffetz reacts to the news, and takes a look at the legacy of Bill Barr's tenure at the DOJ.
Transcript
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Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news. Attorney
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General Bill Barr set to retire from the Department of Justice a second time. He served as Attorney
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General previously before President Trump nominated him. December 23rd will be his last
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day and Jeff Rosen, the current Deputy Attorney General, will take over the job of acting Attorney
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General. Jeff Rosen has worked in Republican administrations, but he's also been promoted
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in Democrat administrations. He seems like someone who knows Washington well. We'll put it that way.
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Attorney General Barr will largely be remembered for the success he's had in concluding the
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nightmare Mueller investigation. Before Bill Barr, you had Jeff Sessions over at the Department of
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Justice who really lost control of the agency. I don't know that he ever had control of the agency.
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He had largely handed that off to Rod Rosenstein, who famously joked that he might wear a wire on
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the President of the United States to invoke the 25th Amendment. Yeah, he says it was a joke. It was
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probably what they were planning to do. At the Department of Justice, there are people who
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resented Donald Trump and his allies so much they were willing to break the law, bend the law, discuss
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efforts that look more like a coup than like justice. So Bill Barr comes in and much to his credit,
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he cleans up the Mueller investigation, he releases the full Mueller report, and we were all able to
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see what nonsense that was. There were other matters, of course, of great significance that
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were before the Department of Justice. I was grateful to see during his tenure that Attorney General Barr
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was a real advocate for free speech and religious liberty. If you look around the country, the Civil
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Rights Division under Bill Barr's leadership was aggressive in ensuring that during these pandemics,
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activities that were faith-based, activities that were not treated negatively in comparison to
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similar activities that were not faith-based. And I know how many Americans appreciate that effort by Bill
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Barr as well. There were rumblings of pushback against big tech, there have been antitrust lawsuits
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filed, and one thing I'm glad about is that A.G. Rosen actually had a great deal of input into that
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technology-based litigation to change the way that consumers interact on these digital platforms so
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that there is fairness, so there is not censorship, so that the terms of service for a tech company do
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not come more important than the United States Constitution. We would have liked to have seen more
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from Bill Barr pushing back against China. We asked that he work with us and law enforcement agencies to
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ban the use of DJI Chinese drones. And while we got a lot of bipartisan support on that, even working
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side by side with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, no, we did not successfully persuade the Attorney General
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to have the pushback against China that I believe was necessary at the time, and that frankly is
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still necessary. Also, when it comes to HR, I'm not sure that Bill Barr really cleaned out the
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Department of Justice in a way that is needed, badly needed. You see, every agency in Washington works
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hard to help their friends and punish their enemies. It's just how they gain power, and every agency in
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Washington is growing more powerful. The Department of Justice, we like to think, is some exception to this
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rule, that they're above the partisan fray and that they don't engage in politics. The truth is,
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the Department of Justice may be the worst agency when it comes to engaging in politics. The setup of
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Michael Flynn, the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference that was perverted into an
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investigation to destabilize and delegitimize the presidency of Donald Trump. Time and time again,
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we saw the Department of Justice not acting in the interests of justice, but acting in the interests
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of politics. And no matter what the leadership is of that agency is moving forward, we hope that is
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The conditions in Syria are terrible. Syria is a place where during the Obama administration, you had
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US, Russian, Iranian, domestic, sectarian interests all running into each other, trying to de-conflict and
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not start the next world war over this godforsaken patch of sand. And the United States was pouring
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hundreds of millions of millions of dollars into programs in Syria that sucked, that were just
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abject failures. One of the people who designed and managed those programs is now Joe Biden's
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potential nominee to lead the Defense Department, General Lloyd Austin. And there's a great piece in
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The Washington Post written by Josh Rogan, General Lloyd Austin has a chance to fix his legacy
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on Syria. And frankly, the piece is a very rosy, opportunity-laden essay on how Austin can fix his
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failures. But the piece also highlights the failures themselves. Most notably, General Austin led an effort
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that cost 500 million dollars, that trained only four or five fighters that survived the first battle.
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Now, by any measure, that's failure. The problem we have at the Defense Department is that we don't
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really fail fast and cheap to get on to the next opportunity to succeed, like you see oftentimes in the
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startup world, the startup world, the entrepreneurial world. Instead, what you have at the Defense Department
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is often a desire to fail very slowly in the most expensive way possible. General Lloyd Austin represents
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everything that is wrong with military thinking that doesn't prioritize strategy or solutions or results.
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General Austin is a process. General Austin is a process guy. And the process was a bad one during the Obama
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administration. It kept American troops deployed in places that they didn't need to be for missions that were
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unrealistic. Like this notion that we were going to roll into Syria and hustle up a bunch of Arab rebel groups and
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get them all to fight under a common theory of an offensive against the Assad regime was ludicrous.
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It didn't work. The people who designed and execute the strategy were never held responsible. And now one of
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them looks like they might be up for a promotion in Biden land, whatever form that takes, whatever function it
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ultimately sees materialized. I am not a fan of General Lloyd Austin. I believe he would be the wrong person to
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lead the Defense Department because he has failed in Syria.
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A Michigan judge has allowed the release of a report of the forensic analysis of the voting machines and
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software systems in Antrim County, Michigan. And oh, my gosh, is it a doozy. This report
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concludes that the Dominion voting systems actually flip votes, that there is a purposeful design to this system that
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allows votes to be moved from one candidate to another. And in the report, it doesn't just highlight how this happened in the
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presidential race. There are even school board races where the failure of the software system resulted in
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different vote tabulations. Now, the Michigan attorney general has shot back saying that it's misleading and
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inaccurate, but Michigan fought pretty hard to keep the report sealed. State officials in Michigan didn't want you to
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see that there is a forensic report that shows that the software system that they used and that was used all over the
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country was designed to create opportunities for fraud and that it resulted in the changing of vote
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tabulations. Now, the supervisor of elections in Antrim County has said this is the result of human error. But as a
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consequence of this report, I think that is that is very hard to believe. And these are some highly trained
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experts. They know what they're doing. We're going to post the Antrim report. You take a read. You be the judge. My
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assessment is that this requires a full scale review of software systems that were involved in vote tabulation
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and in the reporting of results. Because after reading this, I just don't trust what politicians and elected officials are
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telling me. I want to see what the science says and what the data says. And if even one vote was changed, because a system was
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designed to do it, that ought to really call into question the validity of the 2020 election, and we should do something
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about it. We shouldn't just accept faulty election results. These reports, this evidence requires action.
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Even before coronavirus, there was a major trend in the workforce in the United States of America. People are able to
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live basically wherever they want and telecommute into work based on the proliferation of technology and
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just the changing nature of enterprise. That trend has been dramatically accelerated by coronavirus, as you
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might expect. And there is a story that we pick up from Bloomberg Opinion. COVID is accelerating the exodus from
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New York and California to cheaper states. So if people can live anywhere and do high end jobs, why would
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they live in expensive places, particularly when those expensive places are embracing lockdowns? I mean, the
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reason people might be willing to pay a little extra in taxes to live in a metropolitan place like New York or
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Los Angeles might be that they enjoy the features of metropolitan life. And those features have largely
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been closed due to the reactions of state and local politicians. In this piece, there is a study of the San
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Francisco Bay Area and New York City. And, you know, you've seen people in those areas tolerating just eye-watering
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expenses and cramped apartments and other disadvantages because they had the entertainment, the sports,
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the art, the culture. Now that the pandemic has hit, there's a real diminished experience in those
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places. And so folks are moving where it's cheaper. And that means a real windfall for places like
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Arizona, Texas, Florida, where you've largely seen Republican policy put into place at the state level,
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that's created less of a burden on cost of living and more opportunity for our people. So if you're
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trying to flee from New York or California or Illinois or any other place that's not letting
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you live your best life under the best economic conditions, come on down to Florida, Texas, Arizona,
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but leave any of your left-wing politics behind in your old state. Only freedom-loving patriots, welcome here.
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So parenting is often a reactionary enterprise. You're always trying to ensure that no matter what
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challenges your children face or what opportunities may present themselves, that you react in a way that
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creates a nurturing environment. And sadly, during the coronavirus, the reactions haven't always been
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positive. Public health officials, school officials, reacting not by engaging in focused sanitation and
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protection, but instead in wide-scale shutdowns and lockdowns that very negatively impact young people.
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We pick up from fee.org reporting from a Cambridge study showing that children's mental health has
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deteriorated substantially during this lockdown period. And under the new University of Cambridge paper,
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we see the first longitudinal study to trace the mental health effects of lockdowns and social
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isolation on young children. One of the collaborators from Stanford quoted as saying that focused protection
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is an approach to the pandemic and that instead of doing that, we have been requiring young people
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to bear the burden of this disease, even though they face little to no risk. This is entirely backward
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from the right approach. And in this longitudinal study, you see the long-term effects of social isolation,
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of the restricted development for young people. And that's why it's so important we fight against these
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lockdowns and that we advocate for the right data-based response to the virus.
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China is devious and determined and aggressive. The United States better be ready for the challenge
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that they present. The latest coming from FoxNews.com's Julia Musto leaked Chinese Communist Party records
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show CCP members employed in senior specialist and advisory positions in consulates in Shanghai.
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That's right. China has a dedicated strategy to recruit people loyal to them and place them into consulates
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for Western countries. So in this report that we get from the Australian, we also see that Britain,
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Australia saw their consulates infiltrated in Shanghai. And this is a, you know, an effort that the Chinese
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Communist Party has engaged in over an extended period of time is as much as a decade. And they do all they
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can to try to collect information so that they can exploit it for their benefit and realize what what
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frailties or weaknesses we might have or other Western countries might have that they want to exploit. Now,
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we learned this information because there was a leaked database of millions of CCP members.
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And when we were able to cross check those members against people working in consulates,
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it was remarkable to see how many had infiltrated and had used their positions for China's benefit,
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not ours. This is a warning sign that China takes competition seriously. They're not our friendly little
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competitor. They're willing to cheat, lie and steal to get ahead. And we've got to confront
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that devious approach with aggressive action. We should be kicking out Chinese spies from our country.
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Every opportunity we have to find them, locate them, isolate them and remove them. And when the United States
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is engaged in mission abroad, we need to become far more resilient against the Chinese threat.
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Should public schools be required to have feminine hygiene products in the bathrooms? We pick up the
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story from floridapolitics.com's Drew Wilson, state Senator Lauren Book, actually a good friend of mine,
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a Democrat from South Florida. She has filed legislation that would require schools to provide
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the products. She calls it the Learning with Dignity Act. Here's my hot take. This is a slippery slope.
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What's next? Are we going to require deodorant in the bathrooms? Are we going to require for oral hygiene,
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toothpaste and toothbrush? My sense is that schools ought to be in the business of educating kids and
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that getting them ready, getting them hygienic, getting them learned up for life doesn't necessarily
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require the public education system as much as it requires good parenting. And for those who would say,
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well, you know, some parents just aren't any good and the school has to step in. I think that's a
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dangerous thing to do. I think that only parents can parent. I think that young people who are going
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through the changes of puberty have to learn as part of the responsibilities of that,
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the preparation to ensure that you have what you need. So I think it's interesting that, you know,
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the more you get women into public life, the more you get these types of debates and discussions,
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and probably that's a good thing. Probably it'll be a good educational experience to go over what
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the legislation would require, but count me out for additional mandates on public schools
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to do anything other than teaching the kids. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt
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Gates. This podcast is written, directed, and produced by a team that includes myself,
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Luke Ball, and Joel Valdez. Give us a hand, subscribe, perhaps give us that five-star rating
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