162 Comments
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RAO's avatar

Love you guys! I don't care what you cover. It's always illuminating and always entertaining.

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Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Word up.

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MikeL's avatar

Same here. You guys are the best. This alone makes Racket worth it.

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Max West's avatar

“Food insecurity” is a rhetorical way to expand the victim class by pretending that the fear of hunger is as bad as hunger. It's like racism fakery. The demand exceeds the supply so additional victims have to be invented.

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Substack Reader's avatar

And we never hear about, say, "car-jacking insecurity" where the fear of being car-jacked bleeds over into all other aspects of life and takes away the possibility of happiness.

I don't see how NPR maintains any kind of audience whatsoever. I guess it's the misery loves company thing. The thought of listening to today's NPR literally makes me feel ill.

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Bently's avatar

I've got mine, I'm doing just fine. To hell with you neighbor.

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

Why has this show completely abandoned any discussion of America’s involvement in the Ukraine war for essentially months? The last discussion was when Ukraine hit Russian strategic nuclear assets. Now we have a shambolic “peace deal” which nobody agrees with and which nobody takes authorship of.

Trump was elected campaigning on being the ultimate “deal maker.” The only difference between Biden and Trump is Trump makes fake gestures at peace deals more often while never following through. His “peace deals” never address Russia’s stated core objectives and concerns despite the fact that Russia is winning the war, something Trump has acknowledged previously. He provides only the facade of negotiation, the circus is meant to make you believe he’s actually trying to “end the war” but in reality, his policies and acts are a continuity of agenda from the Biden admin.

As Trump continues to arm Ukraine, backs harsher sanctions against Russia than the Biden admin, goes further than Biden in the open support of Ukrainian deep strikes into Russian territory with U.S. made weapons (weapons Putin himself say cannot even be targeted without DIRECT UNITED STATES INVOLVEMENT,) will this show ever be returning to this topic?

Perhaps the show avoids the topic because it avoids criticism of Trump, and one cannot assess the current situation rationally without stating that Trump is making the exact same mistakes as Biden did and going even further in many cases. Despite this, not one criticism of Trump has been made on the same grounds as were made against Biden for the identical handling of the same issue.

Can either of you address this?

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badnabor's avatar

You're complaining about a small, reporting outlet not covering a (apparently) pet subject of yours. Considering their small staff and limited resources, I would posit that they have brought some great insight and information forward on a variety of issues. Their choices of subject matter, I'd wager, are greatly influenced by audience response (simply because their income is directly tied to audience interaction). Substack was never meant to cater to the consumer of all encompassing massive news outlet. It, instead, tends to be an outlet for reporters and writers that have gained an amount of trust and following by publishing viewpoints that weren't allowable in traditional media. Personally, I have considered the subscription well worth the cost. I suggest, if that isn't your experience, just cancel.

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

It isn't a personal pet subject, it is a topic they covered with glee when they could rag on Biden, and since Trump has taken over they won't touch it. Wonder why? Maybe because king deal-maker lied to everybody and has not ended the war and isn't even actually trying? Sorry, the show is called "America this Week" and when the show refuses to address this topic when it had no issue previously, I can only come to the conclusion it is because they are unwilling to criticize Trump.

I pay a year subscription at a time and my sub renewed before I realized how much of a partisan clown show this podcast has become. I am simply pointing it out . Don't like it? Mute me.

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tpc7829's avatar

It's like clockwork with Walter "Walter Kirn" Kirn's Trump defending. No matter what, if there's a critique to be made, you can count on him for the defense.

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Chuck Campbell's avatar

I intentionally renewed my subscription to ridicule these pompous morons. Also to like any comments shining light on their ineptitude or mocking the slew of apologists for the Zionist maga shit bags. Thanks for your comment.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

So touchy….

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Chuck Campbell's avatar

ATW content is often a criticism of NPR or some other media outlet that Substack readers have long suspected is worthless. Andrew’s contempt is far more interesting than the pearl clutching of these two cunts. Maybe we should discuss, the FBI? Or the Kirk fiasco. Or the Epstein scandal. Or the Comey investigation face plant. Or the Mandani visit. Or the Syria president getting to play basketball ball with military personnel on fucking Veterans Day. See how I never even had to say fuck Israel?

NPR and MSM are feckless and gross. ATW is merely echoing the drivel we are trying to avoid. Your opinion sounds more like little bitch cope. Be better.

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Chad's avatar

I’ve come to realize the show’s main purpose is for Matt and Walter to settle scores with the liberal establishment that they feel betrayed them, rather than for objective reporting.

It worked in the listeners’ favor during the Biden administration because they were motivated to criticize it, which led to a lot of great reporting and analysis that was hard to come by elsewhere since being covered up by the media establishment.

Now that Trump is in office it’s a different show. All of Walter’s mental gymnastics that were used to conjure the worst interpretations of the Biden admin’s actions (usually deservedly so) are being used to make elaborate and often absurd justifications for every Trump action. And Matt is unwilling or unable to offer any contrasting takes that would at least make the show a little more interesting.

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tpc7829's avatar

"...that would at least make the show a little more interesting."

That's exactly the result -- the show has become predictable and thus, boring.

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The Wright Stuff's avatar

To be fair, Taibbi & Kirn have waded fearlessly into the Trump era, mainly to cheerlead Trump's scorched-earth policy of the week, witness their celebration of "the end of the censorship regime" of the previous administration, or their full-throated support of DOGE or Trump's hounding of his political enemies in court.

Come to think it, how has that been going? They've been silent on all three fronts? Might those be subjects they revisit? Perhaps Kirn will let Taibbi get a word in edgewise this week?

Here are some notes:

1) The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/charlie-kirk-purge-how-600-americans-were-punished-pro-trump-crackdown-2025-11-19/

2) DOGE was a massive and expensive failure. They never saved the taxpayer the trillions they promised. They compromised the security of various government systems. They stole your data. They never sent us all a check. That’s DOGE’s legacy.

3) The prosecution of Comey, which Taibbi promised was too hard for mere mortals to understand, aparrently is too hard for Trump's prosecutors to understand. DOJ Had Its First Big Hearing in a “Trump Enemy’’ Prosecution. The Judge Was Not Pleased.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/11/doj-comey-hearing-trump-enemies-list-judge.html

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WilliamD's avatar

There was no hearing on the facts, you misrepresenting moron. The hack judge determined that Lindsay Halligan was not legally authorized to bring these charges against Comey. It’s like all those election cases that were dismissed on “standing” or “stare decisis” grounds before any evidence could be presented, and then people like you run around crowing that the allegations that the 2020 Election was fraught with huge, perhaps decisive, problems are “baseless” and “without evidence” because the cases were dismissed. People like Comey should not be tried in a criminal court anyway, on charges like lying to Congress. He should be tried before a military tribunal for sedition, and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in an iron mine somewhere in The Mesabi Range in Minnesota. After a fair trial of course.

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Karen's avatar

What bullshit. Military tribunals for civilians is straight police-state persecution and thoroughly against every decent tradition of Anglo-American law.

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Slingblade79's avatar

Maybe if you weren't such a smug douchebag, they'd listen to you.

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Anne McKinney's avatar

🤣

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

Doubtful and impossible anyway, next.

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dancingtime's avatar

Kellogg is leaving....he is the problem with the advice that Trump was getting....Trump knows that he will end up with Istanbul + in the end. C&C as well as Don Surber do good jobs at analyzing the dance. On Urkraine, Alexander Mercouris is generally on but is shaking regarding interpreting Trump but he is correct, imho, about the problem being Kellogg....I think that it is difficult for someone who does not follow this SMO closely via altmedia to cogently discuss it. All the MSM get their info from the same source: Ukraine.

Personally, I just as soon that Matt and Walter stick to domestic issues.

BTW, post thought: The US has not been involved in the Ukraine business for a few months. Try since 2014 with the US instituted color revolution and urging Zelensky to take on Russia...that it should be over in three months....

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Mattlongname's avatar

You get the like becauee your complaint about lack of coverage isn't about Israel-Palestine.

Its just so refreshing at this point that I would like a post complaining about lack of NFL coverage.

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BRetty's avatar

I no longer care about Ukraine. Like Mister Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, "Exterminate all the brutes!!!"

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

Okay… how does that eliminate the fact of growing US involvement in the war as a valid topic of discussion? I’m sick of Ukraine too, I wanted the war to end right at the start when they had the chance. But America This Week covered our involvement in Ukraine and the lack of U.S. vision and general incompetence, the risks involved, ect.

Since Trump has entered office this show has largely avoided discussion of the topic, and since this week we have a fake peace deal being bandied about I figured it would be as good of a time as any to ask Taibbi and Kirn about their lack of coverage on the topic.

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The Wright Stuff's avatar

alas, they’ve been too busy with the culture wars, covering Platner’s tattoo or Canadian ostriches, or that most important of all subject, the influencer Jennifer Welch.

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Debbie Mitchell's avatar

Walter, you called my circumstance. My eldest son stopped speaking to me a year ago on Nov. 8th, because I wouldn’t “finally admit” I was wrong for not voting for Hillary. I told him that I would not lie to him, and he replied “That’s why we can’t talk” and he hung up on me. Prior to that we spoke frequently, he turned me onto making sourdough bread, we shared images and experiment outcomes…. I dearly love his wife. I miss them.

His younger brother stays in touch and visits and we talk frequently for which I am eternally grateful. My Daughter lives in Chicago and had surgery in September, I stayed for two and a half weeks to help her. We are very close but politically wildly different. I love her and her husband and my one and only granddaughter that they are doing an amazing job raising into a magical being. Her husband broke his clavicle yesterday, and she is still in a brace from a fusion of 4 neck vertebrae . So now neither can pick up the 3 old and they are in financial crisis due to medical bills. It makes be understanding of their political perspective as it gives a point of blame for what is overwhelming. They just don’t have the political history. And actually neither does my eldest son.

But the hateful division, the left spews, the remarks from people I have known forever that if you support this person you are the problem, still shatters me.

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Audrey Pietrucha's avatar

Our family members run the gamut of political opinion but only one nephew and his wife, one of whom works for NPR and the other who was let go from the Department of Education at the beginning of the DOGE purge, refused to come to my daughter’s recent wedding because of their political animosity toward Trump and any relative who might have a kind word to say about him. Truly sad and more than a little psychotic, imo.

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Debbie Mitchell's avatar

So sad.

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Brick's avatar

It’s impossible not to love Kirn, especially when he’s holding forth on literature, but would it kill him to allow Taibbi to complete a thought or a setup once in a while?

The NPR piece on hunger in this episode is a prime example.

It’s frustrating for listeners and borders on rudeness toward Taibbi albeit likely unintended.

It’s odd too, given Kirn’s claims of growing up midwestern. I guess when the adults were trying to educate him as a small tyke, he was too busy interrupting to soak up the lesson.

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

It would, in fact, kill him.

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John Patrick Daly ❤️'s avatar

“It’s impossible not to love Kirn…”. No. It’s not.

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Brick's avatar

hahaha…

Okay.

I’ll speak for myself then

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Richard Pemberton's avatar

lol. These guys are angrier than anybody they denounce and ridicule. Kirn is most likely the angriest man in the United States.

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PaxAlto's avatar

Walter is nailing the purpose of Thanksgiving !

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Mark's avatar

Can you please push the 11-21 ATW to Apple podcast? It’s still not there. … the paid version is still not there

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KYNationalSecurityBulletin's avatar

I'm an Iraq veteran, my wife is a veteran, our son is active duty and I think Mr. Kirn was very wrong in his comments on the military and the issue of illegal orders. I'll be on WVLK 590 AM tomorrow morning at 9 (the Jack Partie Show) and Ill explain why I think that. Simply too long to post here

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Mattlongname's avatar

I think Walter misspoke, or rather left out some obvious reference to initial training. Edit: I caught it around the 30-40 minute mark thinking "no way he meant for it to come out like THAT"

That'll happen when trying to sneak in an extra thought every time Matt stops to breathe 🤣 But to be fair, he warned us early that he was furiously done with the BS and it showed.

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Enticing Clay's avatar

"Simply too long to post here"

But not too long for radio? That is completely absurd. It sounds more like this is an advertisement and you are just going to make this up as you go along.

If you had ideas and arguments you would post them.

If getting people to listen to advertisements on AM radio is more important than whatever it is you have to say, then so be it.

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

Bullshit

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John Duffner's avatar

Respect but I am active duty and I think he’s pretty much right.

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Rilie J. Morgan's avatar

Thank you for your service and your wife's service to our country. Respectfully, when President Obama gave the orders to execute an American Citizen without trial and his innocent son via drone, should that order have been followed? As a veteran, can you think of any orders you were given that could have potentially not been obeyed? Do you think the video released will have any influence on our members of the Military?

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Glitterpuppy's avatar

All hot air talk about disobeying orders. Impossible to run a military operation without discipline. The founding principal being orders. They are not called “ suggestions “ for a reason. The left will find some hapless 2nd lieutenant who will go along with this bullshit. It will ruin his career, if he ever had one…. I was in an airborne unit in combat and would never dreamt of not doing exactly what my orders were. Can’t think of a better way to get yourself dishonored. Those pussies that are talking that shit would have been fragged or shot by their own men. Total lunacy and total bullshit

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Ministryofbullshit's avatar

I have it on good authority (a family social worker) that some parents sell SNAP cards for street drugs. It’s a sad world out there. Kids are always the target for scumbags.

No U.S. welfare transfers should be cash equivalent and without ID.

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Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Same as it ever was.

It’s hilarious that a large percentage of the population seem to think that being a parent magically means they’re good people…

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Nonurbiz Ness's avatar

Or having a baby makes them a parent!

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Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Apparently. Puns!

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John Duffner's avatar

In Appalachia they use SNAP to buy soda which is then traded for drugs, or at least they used to. https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/white-ghetto-kevin-d-williamson/amp/

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Ministryofbullshit's avatar

The best journalists IMHO are the utubers that go into the hood and interview the young men on the ground. An observation from the guys on the street was “why are all the halfway houses (NGOs) next to the drug dealers?”. Indeed.

NGOs, Narco and human, sex trafficking Cartels, grant paychecks , no id cash equivalent payments….Democrats

It’s so easy to observe by looking around that an illiterate ex con can see it.

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Debbie Mitchell's avatar

Removing a day of gratitude insures the stability of the SSRI prescriptions.

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Richard Harris's avatar

Ordinarily I'm totally on board with Walter's skepticism and cantankerousness, but I was perplexed by his unqualified defense of Trump's response to Slotkin, et. al. as guilty of sedition. He asked what else could Trump have done; maybe say their post on illegal orders is, shameful, unacceptable, irresponsible, incendiary and has no place in our public discourse because it undermines the military. If you want to defend the Brandenberg decision on free speech, this is allowed. Trump sounded like John Adams with the Alien & Sedition Acts. Matt started to push back on Walter & I wish he had done so more forcefully. Slotkin, et. al. were cynical and reckless and should have been called out forcefully...Trump just was feeding the beast.

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John Duffner's avatar

I think the original video was somewhere between useless and cynical (leaning hard towards the latter), and Trump’s response is bad in multiple ways, not just because it turns the perpetrators into victims.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

Loved your discussion about Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone here has a good Thanksgiving.

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A.'s avatar

Bit slow here just now, so I will add this link to a National Post (Canada) article today on the man who wrote and published the "Son of Hamas" book some years ago.

"'Son of Hamas' warns about Islamism's creeping hold on West:

Mosab Hassan Yousef says anti-Israel protesters are ‘taking advantage of Gaza’s tragedy ... using your freedoms to destroy your freedoms’"

https://nationalpost.com/news/son-of-hamas-warns-about-islamisms-creeping-hold-on-west

His story always struck me as very similar to the story of the eldest son of Jim Jones of the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. They were both the heirs to their psychopathic fathers' totalitarian plans. They both awakened against the odds, despite having been raised in this kind of environment. They both walked away. I call it having the courage to become an individual, as opposed to remaining a member of a hive-mind being driven by a cruel disturbed leader and his herd.

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A.'s avatar
Nov 24Edited

From the words of the "Son of Hamas" author:

-- What I’m trying to tell you is that the entire region is ruled by tribalism. This is not only unique for the Palestinians. It’s a death culture. They just find in Israel a common enemy, because they are Jews. But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other.

-- He called Islamists “savages” that cannot be negotiated with. He said they perpetuated an “inverted narrative” that used projection to accuse Israel of genocide and colonization, but they were guilty of those very crimes.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Actually, I have been discussing the detailed concepts of tribalism on this Substack over a long while.

Tribalism was an earlier form of human development, before a newer and better development set-in about 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia under a particular enlightened ruler, Sargon of Akkad. He put tribalism aside, recognizing there was no empathy in this stage of human evolution -- just continual hatred and killing.. And that there might be a better way. Previously, anyone outside one's tribe had been considered "the other" and therefore the enemy.

This is the way that cults and totalitarian political groups still behave....they have gone backwards in evolution to the no-empathy stage.

After Sargon introduced the concept of human empathy to his people, it took hold. This eventually spread to Judaism and then to the emerging Christianity (which had similar values). In fact, there is a theory that a move to the idea of "practicing empathy" actually helped to build a new function in the human brain to reflect this.

Most of the Middle East then, and now, has stayed in the no-empathy stage. Might explain why the values throughout so much of the ME (except Israel) will never tally with classic Western values.

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A.'s avatar

"But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other."

Didn't we see that. as soon as Trump's peace agreement was signed? Hamas executions in the street..... of other Palestinians.

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Gloria Spielman's avatar

this is exactly right. Most people in Western Society cannot wrap their head around the fact that Tribal people do not think like us, they do not have the same priorities. They see reality differently and approach problems differently. To us, their perspectives seem appalling and so it cannot be true that they are THAT different and opposed to who we are. conquer others, use violence, children and women are for use and sexual satisfaction... it's horrific and is completely incompatible with Western society and certainly is anti-Constitution. They will steamroll over us if we don't recognize what's happening and refuse to allow it here.

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A.'s avatar

Tribalism is the basis of what we now call totalitarianism. Especially when the tribal leader is a dark Cluster-B personality. You see this in the WOKE-folk....gone back to the dark side of tribalism.

If we allow Western civilization and values to be lost, we lose mankind's most important evolutionary leap to date. Massive tragedy.

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Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Spot on.

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Christina Jonsson's avatar

Don't you think Hillary has paid audience cheer leaders or a cheering sound track?

There can't be that many believers in the toxic garbage Hillary is spouting.

Get the hook and pull her off the stage.

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Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

She’s absolutely frightening. Imagine if she had actually become POTUS😳

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Rick S's avatar

Yes I wonder who would even show up? Those that persist in resistance to 2016??

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dancingtime's avatar

Preceded by throwing rotten fruits and vegetables....then the hook...

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Ann Fan's avatar

Thanks, guys! Happy Thanksgiving!

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