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Jarred Harris's avatar

"White evangelicals are almost never okay with silence…"

I didn't know white evangelicals were CAPABLE of silence. Well, except when it comes time to speak out against injustice.

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Jane in NC's avatar

Or while listening to their orange god-king.

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David Graf's avatar

Not all of us have bowed the knee to Trump.

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Jane in NC's avatar

Point taken, David.

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Mishbich's avatar

But I bet you voted for him…

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David Graf's avatar

No.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

““So as a government, I need to be open to that, in my opinion,” Bengel said. “So to me, taking that form of speech away is kind of taking away a form of speech.””

No, it isn’t “taking away a form of speech”. It was not open to everyone, it was clearly biased toward one specific group, clergy, and it wasn’t about the citizens. This was closing a platform that should not have been available in the first place. There is opportunity for citizens to discuss their religion during the comments portion of the meeting if it pertains to their business, but a governmental meeting in a secular country is not the time or place for religion. You aren’t keeping people from practicing their religions, you didn’t shut down a church.

Thank you for abstaining, it was the smartest thing you did.

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ericc's avatar

Dude doesn't understand (or doesn't want to); time place and manner exceptions have been part of the 1st amendment for decades.

A government meeting with an agenda to get through in a certain amount of time, spending taxpayer dollars to run the meeting, and which is open to children, is *exactly* the sort of situation where all three of time, place, and manner restrictions should apply.

I'm a big 1a advocate but it just makes sense that in a city board meeting, public free speech should be limited to signing up to make comments. Those comments should be relevant to city business. They should be of a fixed time limit to ensure many members of the public get a chance to have their say (like, a few minutes). They should be kept relatively clean. If you want to pray for city board leaders to govern well, God can hear you from your house. Or make an appointment with that board member to pray with them.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

👆👆👆🎯

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John Roberts's avatar

"Tax the churches!" Frank Zappa-1980

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oraxx's avatar

Religious invocations have absolutely no business in our secular government. Their presence speaks to the depths of entrenched Christian privilege in this country. There should NEVER be any organized prayer in any governmental meeting, at any level. Based on the state of thing in this country, those prayers do not appear to have ever done any good.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

It's like watching a weird voodoo ritual, and if that is your thing, fine, but don't whip your dick out in public, or your religion.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

It's a fact: Christian governmental officials LOVE to hear Christian prayers and Christian invocations. The one thing they have zero tolerance for is COMPETITION, regardless if that competition is atheist, pagan, or some other alternative belief system. Confronted with the choice of either tolerating opinions and beliefs other than their own or silence, Oklahoma chose silence, which is a reasonable choice but not as good as: "The meeting will come to order; what business is before this House?"

It's possible that those in that governing chamber realized that fighting against those alternative beliefs would invite lawsuits and scrutiny, and it's just possible that they learned from previous experiences and opted for a reasonably benign solution.

One can hope, anyway.

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XJC's avatar

Hope vs. prayer: reality vs. God.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Thing is, hope without action is about as effective as prayer is. I would far rather take action if I can, rather than hope for a positive outcome. To me, hope all by itself is impotent.

As is prayer.

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XJC's avatar

Obviously. Lazy people hope. Or talk. Effective people act.

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oraxx's avatar

Apart from the psychological effects on the believer, I do not think prayer ever affected the outcome of anything.

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XJC's avatar

Mental masturbation.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I look forward to the follow up article where the council backtracks in a week because one of the local preachers let his congregation know about this and the community starts with the death threats.

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John Smith's avatar

Notice how Christians (followers of religion of love, yeah right) will quickly resort to violence if they (Christians) don’t get their way. Christians seem to think that everyone else should automatically give respect, deference, and obedience (especially obedience) to their religious dogma. We have to keep reminding them that they are not the rulers of the world (yet), and that their religious dogma doesn’t apply to non-members. I know in some case that would put some people into a very uncomfortable position, I stand by anyone who stands up for Human Rights and Civil Liberties for all people.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Death threats from the “Religion of Love.” A religion that is seemingly NEVER silent.

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Stan Duffner's avatar

I'm glad you put quotation marks around Religion of Love because many christians only practice the love part to their fellow christians with the same beliefs. Christians do not always believe in the same christ and do not act towards others in the same way. Many hate others who are not exactly like them.

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Robot Bender's avatar

Yes, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." I call bullshit on that. Humans can't do that no matter their religious beliefs. I've been around for almost seven decades and was a church attender for a while. I never saw anyone abide by that. They quickly turned to hate, sometimes in the same sentence.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

And sin doesn’t even exist outside the believer’s house of worship, home and head.

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David Graf's avatar

When I see that, it makes me wonder how much they understand of the faith they claim to believe. Nothing says love like threatening to kill your neighbor. Sigh.

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ericc's avatar

You're probably right. "Now before this week's moment of silence, Pastor Bob has asked to say a few words..."

Well, if they want to reserve the meeting room for prayer at 5-10 minutes before the meeting has it reserved, I guess that would be an okay way to do it. Kinda rude to the folks show up early to get a seat, but that way at least follows the rules.

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Vanity Unfair's avatar

The UK parliament is opened with (Christian) prayers each sitting day. If the MPs do not want to take part then they do not have to. This is fine unless there is an important debate, announcement or such for which an MP has to get in early to reserve a seat then (s)he has to attend Prayers. There are more MPs than seats available for them.

In the Lords, peers also have to contend with twenty-six C of E bishops who have membership as of right.

And it is all constitutional. There is no Constitution.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Why do Christians want to slap Jesus in the face by praying in public when he quite specifically told them NOT to?

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Joe King's avatar

They forgot to cherry pick that verse.

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Len Koz's avatar

It doesn't allow them to piss on the wall so they didn't like the taste.

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Len's avatar

Purposely forgot.

Virtue signalling is their favourite passtime.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Because their blend of hateful behavior, doesn't follow him in any way?

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Doosh Dooshenberg's avatar

Thanks FA. That's a start, fighting back against theocracy. Come on city councils, school districts, state legislatures. Deal with your long lists of fact-based issues, and get out of the faith-based business.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

OT- I just can't help but notice the absolute cacophony of cricket noises from all of the "𝘣𝘖𝘵𝘏 𝘱𝘈𝘳𝘛𝘪𝘌𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘌 𝘫𝘜𝘴𝘛 𝘢𝘚 𝘣𝘈𝘥!!" people in lefty spaces around the interwebs since yesterday. It's almost as if they've all of a sudden realized how badly they fucked the rest of us, and don't want to face the music until they've figured out how they're going to shift the blame. Funny, that.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

They'll never admit fault, one was whining on Paul Krugman's 'stack about why he didn't vote, and just being a "no one is good enough" fucking purity pony. I told him I hope you get what you voted for...very hard!

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I still fail to see anything on the left that roses to the extreme violence on the right. Even folks who are cancelled never lose out too much. Is really that terrible to use they/them? Or acknowledge black people are people? Or maybe even try not to poison our water, air, and food supplies? The extreme left is trying to make the world a better place for everyone, and it’s like being in a concentration camp for them.

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Matri's avatar

Mostly I see it’s about the Gaza thing. “Harris didn’t do anything so therefore Trump is better”.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

That’s the most recent thing, but they’ve been flinging that shit for decades.

And seriously!?! At least she was listening to folks who had concerns, she wasn’t great but she also hadn’t dug in her heels on the most heartless and cruel option. I think that was just an excuse so they didn’t have to say they don’t think women should be in positions of power, would rather vote for the spawn of Satan (their idea not mine) than a woman.

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cdbunch's avatar

Yeah, I'm pretty sure misogyny and transphobia got Donnie elected. Both times he won he was running against a woman.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

That's the feeling I'm getting, too. They don't love him in spite of how awful he is- they love him 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 of how awful he is.

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Bagat's avatar

The cruelty is the point. Now he ended birthright citizenship

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Matri's avatar

Plus, she was VP. They don’t have any power.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

👆👆👆🎯The progressive left has its share of misogynistic little boys, who refuse to grow the fuck up, the Incels aren't the only ones living in mommy's basement playing video games.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

As if any VP in history ever completely ran the show!

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

[coughCHENEYcough]

Sorry ... I think I'm coming down with something. 😝

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Forgot about him. point taken.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

I remembered Darth Cheney but I was away from the computer at the time so I didn’t get a chance to chime in.

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Bagat's avatar

An omnieverygoddamnedthinggod can be used to justify any atrocity against anyone. The kkkatlik church has spent 1700 years proving that.

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Matri's avatar

Funny though, that their omnieverygoddamnedthinggod has no power at all and requires humans to carry out its so-called “plans”.

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Matri's avatar

I wake up this morning (only an hour ago) to this absolute shitshow. ITS BEEN BARELY A SINGLE DAY AND HES ALREADY FUCKED MILLIONS!!

I just can’t anymore.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

You know it's gonna be a long four years when it didn't even take until dinnertime to get from the oath of office to mask-off Nazi shit.

*𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵- Which doesn't account for the very real possibility that it's going to take a good bit longer than four years to get these goose-stepping bastards back in the trash can of history where they belong.

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Matri's avatar

Not enough. They deserve nothing less than the incinerator.

Environmentally friendly incinerator, of course.

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John Smith's avatar

When Trump dies and his family has him cremated, I willing to bet that he will burn for months and the smell of old grease will be pretty bad.

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Matri's avatar

I pity the poor soul who’ll have to clean it, though.

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Joe King's avatar

“𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑠𝑖𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘, ‘𝑂ℎ, 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 𝑚𝑒.’”

The city council did the right thing for the right reason? Are we sure this is Oklahoma?

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Jarred Harris's avatar

I just chalk it up to the "stopped clock principle."

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ericc's avatar

It's spite. They'd rather nobody got the privilege than non-Christians get the same privilege they do.

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SeekingReason's avatar

That’s good. Even though there’s no real need for a moment of silence…they have work to do! Pray or have a moment of silence at home. Still this is a good option rather than invocations of any kind.

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Marianne Cromarty's avatar

I’m wondering how long it will last once the new administration starts changing all the rules?

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Maine Skeptic's avatar

"I’m wondering how long it will last once the new administration starts changing all the rules?"

Yesterday, the Great F*** Off implemented what they're calling "Shock and Awe" against the American people, so it didn't take long. The US is out of the World Health Organization, which is the GFO's revenge against science for telling the truth during the pandemic. We're out of the Paris climate accords, and DEI programs across the federal government are being cancelled. They've cut funding to the IRS for not 'investigating' everyone the GFO wanted punished for not kissing their asses.

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Robot Bender's avatar

If you read the statements put out by the Dominionists, Army of God (An American Hezbollah. Imagine that), et.al., you'll see it's on their list. Mandatory Christianity in everything. An American Iran.

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cdbunch's avatar

Businessman, huh? Cut the funding to your revenue generating department. No wonder the guy bankrupted multiple casinos.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

That and all the Russian mafia money-laundering, they eventually bleed the business dry like the parasites they are.

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Whitney's avatar

I wasn't aware of this destructive decision on Trump's part; but yeah, it looks like he got started on it immediately. Here's the release for anyone else who missed it:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/

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Kay-El's avatar

Can’t wait for the next pandemic to kill off more of their supporters? 🙄

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Tinker's avatar

I will not be surprised if an organized group prays loudly over the "moment of silence."

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Because they're spoiled children demanding their way.

If they do that? Have them removed and barred from any future attendance. They'll scream CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION!, of course. But since they freely and openly violated the "moment of silence" without regard, they'll have no legal recourse.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

They seem to want persecution. What they may wind up with is prosecution!

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NOGODZ20's avatar

If they went overseas to face the very real persecution Christians in other countries are subjected to, they’d run screaming back to the US.

They don’t want real persecution. They don’t even want mild inconvenience.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

That is why they scrape to find even a specter of it here, made up persecution costs nothing.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

But think of all the martyrbation they will enjoy over it! The practice they love best!

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Jane in NC's avatar

Geez, next you'll be telling us that elected officials started their meetings by getting right down to business! What is this country coming to, I ask ya!!

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xenubarb's avatar

A "moment of silence."

This reminds me of the raging kerfluffle about which people can use which bathrooms. The obvious solution is single-use bathrooms, like you have in your homes.

It's another simple solution that will shut up any controversy from hateful, bigoted a-holes. A single use bathroom is for everybody. As is this moment of silence. Well done!

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ericc's avatar

I dated a girl whose college dorm had one big bathroom for both sexes. Rows of sinks, showers, stall, with the showers and stalls having regular inside-bathroom stall and shower doors (i.e. not floor-to-ceiling).

It took a little getting use to, walking into the bathroom and seeing some stranger of the opposite sex in a towel brushing their teeth. But after a few days of mental/social readjustment, I got used to it. Then it just was no big deal. Everyone behaved like adults.

That solution may not be for everyone, but really, we humans can be a lot more socially and mentally flexible than we might sometimes want to admit. It ain't gonna kill anyone to learn a new bathroom habit.

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Dianne Marie Leonard's avatar

Back in the day, I lived for a while in what could best be described as an off-campus dorm. The bathrooms and communal (not private) showers were open to everyone, residents and their guests alike. I remember going to take a shower on my first day there, finding a guy in the communal shower, and asking where the women's shower was. He gave me an odd look and replied that there was a bathroom & shower just like that one up on the second floor, too. Oh. Not a problem. I took my shower and so did he. I've not understood why this was a problem since then--almost 50 years ago.

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larry parker's avatar

If you only use a bathroom once, you're going to have to build a lot of bathrooms.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

My employer just built a new building, we moved in in December, and the boss was working with the architects to address the bathroom situation. He wanted to make all the bathrooms single use, but the architects were trying to convince him to do the multi use stall type bathrooms. He said the costs of doing either of them were the same, we would have the same number of toilets, it would take up a similar amount of space, and the single use was more private and allowed for more flexibility in use (the ladies room gets lines where the men’s room doesn’t). So now we have plenty of bathrooms (even one with a shower) and no one has to worry about who is walking in on us. Not that anyone here has an issue with the trans woman who works here. Or the non binary folks, or any of the queer people.

I’m just glad we’re not all fighting for the two toilets for 30+ people that are often both down at the same time. Yes, we had to leave work and find a public restroom at the gas station down the street, and still wait for access.

Single use bathrooms are not outrageous for large capacity buildings open to the public. Having multiples of them on top of the stalls is even better.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

That’s some good army thinking right there.

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cdbunch's avatar

The management would be at ground level, employees would have to climb down to be shit upon, management isn't going to put in the work to climb up.

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xenubarb's avatar

No, I mean in addition to the usual boys n' girls rooms. Do you not watch South Park? :)

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Elia's avatar

Well, a little good news is always welcome in the morning!

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

After yesterday (🤢🤮), I'll take anything I can get!

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

The play I’ve been working on, and is opening on Friday, is being changed because of what Elon did yesterday. We had a bit satirizing him, but apparently it is no longer satire and the actor who was supposed to be him doesn’t feel comfortable with the bit. I don’t blame her and we now have to change the end of our play. It was a rough rehearsal last night.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

The madness over there is only getting worse ... and I don't find it funny in the slightest. I doubt you do, either. [sigh]

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

I think I know a video graphics editor who is refreshing his resume, 'round about now! 🤦‍♂️

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Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

I'm thinking someone's kid was messing around.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Maybe so, but if that went out on the air, SOMEONE will get their panties in a bunch for sure!

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Mr.E's avatar

most fox viewers can't read.

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John Smith's avatar

Most redneck can’t read, can’t spell, can’t use proper punctuation and grammar! Remember, rednecks see knowledge, expertise, and common sense as “woke” (what ever that means) and anti-Christian.

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Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

They had to move their headquarters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca

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