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avis piscivorus's avatar

It was the second year in a row they raised this flag. For the supreme court this is enough to talk about a long standing tradition.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

"But as he desperately explained all this to his colleagues, it became clear they didn’t get it."

That part needs some proof reading amd editing.

"But as he desperately explained all this to his colleagues, it became clear they didn’t give a fuck if tax payers money is wasted in lawsuits."

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

BINGO!

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Donrox's avatar

Damn! You can even edit English!

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Señor, no entiendo.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Verstehen Sie nicht? Das ist Schade!

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Maybe even Ten! 😂

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Ich verstehen nicht.

No translator, just consonnants comparison verstehen = understand, nicht = no, das = that etc. It's how I can read Portuguese and Italian when I never learned these languages.

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wq4z's avatar

Wow, Hartford is one of the last cities where I’d expect this to happen. I spent my 20’s in CT and lived in Hartford nearly the entire time. Having grown up in the rural south, I loved that no one there ever asked which church I went to or ever casually talked about certain people going hell. For such an educated blue state, wtf is wrong with these council members?

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

I think one or more of 'em managed to catch that virtue-signaling bug that's been going around. 😝

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Linda Bower's avatar

I grew up in CT right near Hartford. The problem is people there haven’t been paying attention or don’t think it will affect them.

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JerryBier's avatar

You need to remember, there are religious zealots in every city, town, and village. They are emboldened by their “king” and it shows.

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Joe King's avatar

𝐺𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑦. 𝐻𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑝𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑢𝑝 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑔 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑤, 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑡.

The seven who voted for the resoluition are taking a page from the trump playbook. If you're the top executives, you get to ignore laws you don't like. I would really like to see their mental gymnastics trying to force the Protestand Christian Flag into the categories listed.

Is Christianity a sport's team? Well, they do like cherry-picking and goalpost-shifting. Is Christianity an event or ceremony? Christians have events and ceremonies, but the First Amendment is pretty clear about direct connection of government and religious things. Is Christianity a nation with diplomatic ties to the United States? The closest thing there would be the Vatican, and they have their own flag. It's not th one Hartford flew.

So, Connecticut taxpayers will be on the hook for government stupidity. It's too bad the seven who voted for this can't be forced to pay the settlement out of their own pockets.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

A prime example of zealots in power. The Christian Nationalist movement, not religious, is to get lawsuits against zealot legislation to be considered by POTUS knowing that the zealots on the bench will rule in their favor.

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James's avatar

Oh they are very definitely Christian.

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SeekingReason's avatar

Joe, I agree. The 7 should pay, on the other hand, it wouldn’t create as much public pressure as when everyone must pay.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Ummm ... guys? Seriously? What happened to "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion?" Did you just forget about that ... or did you choose to IGNORE IT?

In any case, congratulations. I would heartily suggest you fasten your seat belt, because there is very likely going to be a world of hurt coming down on your heads from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists, and the ACLU, at minimum. In all likelihood, there are many hundreds of nonbelievers in the Hartford area who will not look upon your actions here favorably, and at least a few of them will have no compunction about saying so, loudly and publicly. Whereupon your taxpayer dollars will be wasted in a lawsuit which, as Hemant himself said, you will most likely LOSE.

So make sure that seat belt is TIGHT. You're going to need it.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

The illegal shenanigans of the AnusMouthPantLoad in charge has given the religious zealots more confidence in their idiocy and induced them to “go criming” like their cult leader.

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Joe King's avatar

The Satanic Temple needs to send a flag to Hartford and ask for equal representation.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

"All names belong in the hat, Ben."

-- Jubal Harshaw, a.k.a. Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

OT: News Bulletin - Pope Francis dies at 88:

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/pope-francis-death-04-21-25/index.html

The only question now is: just WHO will the Vatican saddle the world with NOW???

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Joe King's avatar

It's not really saying much, but even with the homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny that he espoused he was about the best they had to offer. Next Pope will be a shitshow.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

And the pedophiles in the clergy will be praying for someone sympathetic, that's for sure.

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Joe King's avatar

There is a distinct chance that the Papal pick will be one of those pedophiles.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Worked with Benedict, whose job was hiding them when he was working in Germany as arch bishop of Munich.

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Kay-El's avatar

Yep, was thinking the same. Francis pissed off a good many in the church, they’re not going to want someone similar or more enlightened (if that’s even possible)

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Guess we now know the reason for that spin he took in the popemobile through the piazza yesterday.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Someone "traditional." IOW, not good.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Entirely too likely, considering how relatively progressive (if we can call him that) Frankie was. Thing is, just how far will they swing the other way?

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Someone just to the left of Torquemada?

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

We can hope they're not THAT stupid, but the way things are going these days, I am taking no bets.

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avis piscivorus's avatar

I hope far enough to cause a new schism that will make the parts of this archaic institution that still remain after the implosion completely irrelevant.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

The Catholic Church has been sucking for a major schism since before the Boston Globe pulled their pants down with their reporting on priest sexual abuse of kids. If the Vatican decides to put a reactionary pope in place, I fully expect to see the feces hit the rotary blades big-time!

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

There is already sign of it in Germany.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Germany moving to the right is NOT a good sign. 😖

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Joe King's avatar

That kind of schism might affect us here. Not all the Catholics on SCOTUS are part of the Nazi wing.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Oh, I have no doubt but that there'd be an impact in the US, on BOTH sides. There are Catholics who want to see the Church become more liberal, as surely as there are those who want to see it go back to the days of Urban VIII!

You remember him. He's the one who clobbered Galileo for actually KNOWING something.

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Richard S. Russell's avatar

No, Sotomayor seems to be sane. But the other 5½ Catholics are busily interpreting their own favorite "C" document. No, not the Constitution, the Catholic Catechism.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

Lord hear our prayers.

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wreck's avatar

I bet seeing VP JDivans' butthair face made him lose the will to live.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

𝘕𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 deserves such torture in their final hours- not even the head of the Roman Catholic Church!

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Imagine being forced to be in the same room with a guy famous for being a couch molester!

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Richard S. Russell's avatar

I'm reminded of when he ascended to the papacy and hopeful Catholics worldwide were trumpeting what an enlightened leader he'd be, about which Bill Maher remarked that now the glass was all of ⅒ full.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Compared with Wojtyla and Ratzinger, Bergoglio was positively progressive, which is probably why he pissed off the Curia as often as he did, and at that, by OUR standards, he was barely conservative. What I wonder about now is whether the Church has the balls to continue on that path or react to it.

I suspect the latter a LOT more than the former.

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Richard S. Russell's avatar

Francis himself seemed to be a pretty decent guy, but the institution he headed is the world’s leading bastion of sexism, authoritarianism, mammonism, superstition, homophobia, transphobia, and pederasty, and AFAICT he did nothing in his dozen years in office to ameliorate any of that. So no, I don’t foresee any improvement. The Vatican will just plug in a replacement part and return to its regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

There are a whole hell of a lot of people in this country who don't have any understanding of why the Founding Fathers created a secular republic. 250 years ago the Colonies were full of religious groups who had fled the persecutions visited upon them by the Crown and the Church of England. These people of low understanding seem hellbent on restoring that era. I'd like to see some of their faces when the new Inquisition shows up and tells them they are guilty of blasphemy and apostasy for holding unacceptable religious views.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

I'm always reminded of the Roman Empire in 380 CE, when Nicene Christianity (Catholicism) was made the state religion. Christians who were not of the Nicene stripe soon found themselves branded heretics, losing their legal status and having their property confiscated by Rome.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

What goes around comes around.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

-- George Santayana

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Joe King's avatar

Those who supress memory of the past 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 to repeat it.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

No shit. How many Nazis and sympathizers want to suppress the Holocaust, so they can take a second crack at it? DAMN!

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

all of them.

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Claudia's avatar

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Penguin Atlas of World History is an excellent tool for learning all kinds of history......

:-)

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Wow. I thought you were talking about a flag pole where there would be a couple rising from the ground so that it would be under the A̴m̴e̴r̴i̴c̴a̴n̴ United States flag.

This really can only be viewed as a challenge or as a form of protest and theological statement about ultimate loyalty of the council.

That anyone entering the building must walk under this flag bracket is terrifying—and I’m a Christian. My country and state should not be my spiritual judge.

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Joe King's avatar

A couple of old dead white guys named Tom and Jim would agree with you.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Well put.

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Thanks.

I like the idea of the Satanic Temple requesting their flag be flown. Equal opportunity.

I really need to see if the Satanic Temple will allow me to be a member.

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Claudia's avatar

Plus of course the flag for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Not a member myself, but TST tend not to be very judgmental, for what I've seen. Why not ask?

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

ADHD. Social anxiety. But I just wrote it in my list of things to do this week.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Hey, be easy with it. When your comfort level allows, take your best shot. No need to force ANYTHING if you're not okay with it.

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Thanks friend! It is a hard time to be an anxious person who wants to stand up and be counted.

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Maltnothops's avatar

I’m a member of TST ( and a monthly contributor). I don’t think they ask anyone to agree to terms of (non) belief.

They are MUCH stricter about who gets to be a minister. This isn’t 90 seconds on the ULC website.

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Nice. And thanks!

Knowing that TST is much more than what many think it is, I won’t make a joke about how it’s harder to become a minister than a cabinet member.

The more I look into this, the more I’m excited by the prospect of a third place full of smart and questioning people. It’s half the reason I love my (second?) space, my reconciling church.

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John Roberts's avatar

"American flag" Which America flag? There are 35 American countries including the Untied States. Playing into the MAGA ideology and the ad populum misnomer that America is a country. God Bless America?

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Are you saying that MAGA invented the flag we all pledged to in the 80s? I’m really confused by that idea.

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John Roberts's avatar

Sorry not saying anything, only pointing out there is more than one American country each having their own American flag.

IMO other American countries do not want anything to do with the United States and MAGA imperialism. (Gulf of America?) If more people recognize and understand what America is. The misnomer and ad populum fallacy of America on its own is not a country, the less tensions there will be between the United States and other American Countries.

Amerigo Vespucci, in God We Trust?

Thanks

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Pluto Wolnosci's avatar

Oh fuck yes! I’ve said for ages that we need to focus on the “US” instead of “America”!

I gave up this year as even Canada has been using the term to say they will never be the 51st state and aren’t part of “America” in the US sense.

I will try harder to remember to say US flag instead of “American flag.”

Thanks for the reminder.

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Charles Newman's avatar

IMO not many have a clue how America orginated. Recently groups like MAGA and different agencies have been using it to mislead and cause confusion. Part of their dividing strategy.

Yes, Canada is an American country and technically

Canadians are Americans. Thanks

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Time for those 7 who voted to defy Hartford's own ordinance to be the ones that have to pay through the nose for any and all lawsuits. Leave the taxpayers out of it.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Considering that virtually 100% of such lawsuits are frivolous, I think a bill should be passed to that very effect. The wording would be difficult in properly defining "frivolous," but it would make for a great deterrent to such nonsense.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

Frivolous is an adjective describing a marvelous game on the Friv website.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Ooooooooooooooooookay, then! 🤪

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Stephen Sepaniak's avatar

I'm no vexillologist, but a cross on a white flag seems to indicate that Christianity is surrendering.

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Die Anyway's avatar

Don't we wish?

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oraxx's avatar

American Christians never stop trying to mark their territory in the public square, owned by everyone, then cry persecution any time they are prevented from doing so. That flag isn't going to turn anyone into a better person, it's just amounts to Christians attempting once again to assert their dominance. I can't help but think these people's heads would explode at the mere suggestion the city fly a flag representing another religion.

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Claudia's avatar

There have already been suggestions that there should be requests for the city to fly the flag of the satanic temple.

And I've just added a request for the flag of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

What's sauce for the goose, should certainly be sauce for the gander.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Never mind sauce for the rigatoni! 😋

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Claudia's avatar

That made me laugh - thank you!

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

May you be touched by his noodley appendage.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Sauce be upon him.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

May his pasta never run dry.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

Yep, territorial pissings everywhere. They really need to be potty trained, or neutered.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

Church of Satan, Catholic Church…hmmmm, which one does the most harm?

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Once again, Christians feel privileged to not only violate secular law and disobey secular authorities but to also violate scripture that TELLS them to OBEY all secular laws and secular authorities.

By all means, Christians. Tell us yet again of your alleged persecution in a country where you have the dominant religion.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

I'd bet money that among the bible verses LEAST cited from any pulpit is Romans 13:1-5.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

That, and Matthew 6:6.

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Old Man Shadow's avatar

Ill behaved cats spraying on the Commons insisting it really belongs to them.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

And knowing that their Constitution breaking ways will only be rewarded.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

I suggested the same in a slightly more vulgar prose.

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Bagat's avatar

BREAKING: NY Times reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive military info, including flight schedules for US strikes in Yemen, in a Signal chat with his wife, brother, and lawyer.

Straight to El Salvador.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

"BuT hEr EmAiLs!!!!1!1111"

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