How Fences Star Denzel Washington Lives out His Faith in Hollywood

Denzel Washington, one of Hollywood’s finest leading actors, has succeeded in the business by any standard. He’s received three Golden Globe awards, a Tony award and two Academy Awards. But as he recently told T.D. Jakes there are more important things in life than being a movie star.

From his relationship with God and his family, to the life he now wants to lead, Denzel spoke with Jakes about keeping his priorities straight. (See the full interview with Denzel and others from the cast of his new movie Fences below.)

Jakes was curious how Denzel and his wife of 34 years Pauletta have survived so many years in the spotlight. “By the grace of God. Really, I’m not taking credit,” he replied. “And a great wife. A strong, strong, strong (woman) … she has done the heavy lifting. She has been the consistent one. She has given daily religious instruction. She makes breakfast, she took them to school. I was out killing the lion, bringing home the meat, you know, providing.”

Even though the actor has a hectic schedule and is frequently shooting films far from home, he insists his family has always come first. “I don’t want that regret,” he said, when talking about raising his kids. “I don’t care how many Oscars and all that stuff, I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be the one that did the best I can for my children.”

Denzel not only stars in Fences, but directed as well. Mykelti Williamson, best known for his role as Bubba in Forrest Gump, plays Gabriel in the film and has nothing but praise for Denzel as a strong, Godly leader: “Everyday this leader, Denzel, brings the Word. On Broadway we would circle and have a word of prayer, we would cover one another, and he was serious about it, every single day. ‘Alright, we’re about to bring the Word,’ and Denzel was waiting for you and you’d better be on time.”

Denzel added, “When we’d have our circle — cause there’s a young girl in the film too — so the young girl, sometimes we’d let [her] lead. Of course, out of the mouths of babes, you know, so we’d go out there together unified with a purpose.”

It wasn’t just the cast members who prayed with Denzel during the movie shoot. Two neighborhood women who watched the filming from their homes each day became his “prayer warriors,” he said. According to Christian Today, these ladies touched Denzel’s heart. “A woman on the corner, she was watching me. She made her house a quiet place of prayer for me, and I’d go in there when things were getting overwhelming and just take a breath. Sometimes I’d just have a prayer with her.”

He explained how the second woman approached him. “Even before we started shooting I met her and I came and said, ‘Oh thank you for coming out.’ She said, ‘We’ve been watching you for a long time.’ I said ‘Well, pray for me.’ [And then] she said, ‘Denzel, I’ve been praying for you for 35 years, my family and I,’” he said. “‘We’ve been watching, we know how hard it is.’”

As this point in his life, Denzel says he’s content and ready to serve others. “You know, I’m in the service business now. I’m fine. I’ve done well. I don’t need anything else. I don’t need watches and jewelry and all that. So I’m here to serve. I’m here to serve God, I’m here to serve my family, I’m here to serve.”

Denzel Washington directs and acts in the movie Fences, which was released on Christmas Day.

Here’s the full interview on the T.D. Jakes Show:

(For more from the author of “How Fences Star Denzel Washington Lives out His Faith in Hollywood” please click HERE)

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What You Need to Know about the Process Republicans Are Using to Repeal Obamacare

There’s a lot of talk about the procedure Republicans are using to dismantle Obamacare, but what exactly is reconciliation and how does it work?

Reconciliation is a budget tool used for legislation that changes taxes, spending, or the deficit. The procedure is especially powerful in the Senate, since a reconciliation bill only needs 51 votes to pass.

This year, GOP lawmakers are taking a crack at repealing the health care law through reconciliation, and the Senate took the first major step toward dismantling the law Thursday.

After a lengthy voting session, the upper chamber passed a budget resolution for 2017 that instructs four congressional committees to start writing the repeal bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised his Senate colleagues for taking “an important step” toward repealing Obamacare.

“The American people have called on Congress to act and finally bring relief from Obamacare,” McConnell said in a statement after the Senate passed the budget resolution. “I am pleased that the Senate took this critical step towards keeping that commitment tonight, and I look forward to our House colleagues passing it soon.”

The House is expected to vote on the budget resolution Friday.

Once both chambers have passed the fiscal blueprint, the committees that oversee the Affordable Care Act can begin working on the actual bill that will repeal Obamacare.

They have until Jan. 27—just one week after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration—to complete the legislation. (For more from the author of “What You Need to Know about the Process Republicans Are Using to Repeal Obamacare” please click HERE)

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Terrifying Moment Blonde Tranny Attacks Customers With Axe at 7-Eleven

It could be any night in a suburban 7-Eleven store – as CCTV shows customers queuing for milk and wandering though the aisles.

But this is Enmore, in Sydney’s inner west, on Saturday night – and two customers are about to be hacked in the head in a brutal and seemingly random attack . . .

And police allege that the attacker is Evie Amati, 24, a union organiser who is now in custody charged with two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent . . .

[He] asked the court to supply [him] with Progynova and Spiractin, which boost oestrogen production and reduce testosterone, respectively, and Zoloft – an antidepressant, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Officers say they arrested Amati on a nearby street with the axe in [his] possession, and later recovered a kitchen knife from the scene. (Read more from “Terrifying Moment Blonde Tranny Attacks Customers With Axe at 7-Eleven” HERE)

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13 Inconvenient Truths About Obama’s Legacy

According to President Barack Obama, the last eight years have been just swell. But his rendition of history leaves out a few important facts about the state of America following his two terms as president.

In two videos, we run through 13 facts about his administration’s domestic and foreign policy record he conveniently ignores.

On the domestic front, the national debt has almost doubled on his watch. He is responsible for an unparalleled expansion of the job-killing regulatory state. And his signature policy, the Affordable Care Act, has proven to be anything but affordable for many Americans.

His foreign policy and national security record also paints a bleak picture. By any objective measure, transnational terrorist threats are far greater today than when Obama took office in 2009. His policy of appeasement toward hostile regimes in Iran and Cuba have not made Americans safer or the Cuban people freer. And his refusal to adequately fund the U.S. military has threatened the readiness of our country’s armed forces.

Watch the videos:

(For more from the author of “13 Inconvenient Truths About Obama’s Legacy” please click HERE)

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George Soros Is “Renting” Christian “Mascots” to Stop Jeff Sessions’ Nomination

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a longtime student and teacher of both Bible and Constitution, will meet this week in confirmation hearings with the Senate Judiciary Committee, seeking approval as U.S. Attorney General. Like most Americans, including his fellow evangelicals, Sessions knows that lawlessness, open borders, crime and drugs destroy lives and weaken our nation.

George Soros will be at the hearings too. Not in person, of course, but in the form of evangelical and Catholic “mascots” who accept his funding and share in his agenda. Soros, an atheist billionaire, has also funded Ready for Hillary PAC, as well as activists for open borders, amnesty, Islamic “refugee” migrations to the West and many other culture-wrecking efforts in Europe and America.

Soros Knows how to “Rent-An-Evangelical”

The Soros network’s New America Foundation aptly refers to its sponsorship of religious mascots as “Rent-An-Evangelical.” Soros began funding Rev. Jim Wallis’s leftist journal Sojourners over a decade ago, to teach Biblical catchphrases and “the faith narrative” to previously secular Democrats, in the hope of peeling off Christian values voters.

In 2011, Wallis famously denied being on Soros’s payroll — until he was caught with the money. Richard Cizik, former policy head of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), admitted it. Wallis and Cizik are busy teaching a new generation to use selective Bible quotes and buzzwords to push a post-American, globalist agenda. Socialists have long beguiled Christian citizens with “faith” optics and words ornamenting their projects.

Their technique, tempting not only to liberals, is to cherry-pick Bible verses while ignoring the whole counsel of Scripture. The Soros-Left then organizes its network to swarm an event or person, like Senator Sessions. Their large, subsidized media then dutifully parrots their divisive message. Think: Saul Alinsky for the Digital Age.

Expect the usual suspects chosen from Soros’s tame Christian groups to appear at or comment on the hearings:

Sojourners, Wallis’s journal. Its recent diatribes include: “Resistance is Patriotic — and Christian,” “NAACP President and Colleagues Stage Sit-In at Sen. Jeff Sessions Office, and this pro-Islamist critique of Christians in government.

Faith in Public Life (FPL), a putatively Catholic organization which, as Wikileaks revealed, was paid by Soros to try to influence Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S., and spin it as a win for pro-choice Democrats. FPL’s leader, John Gehring, has chimed in against Sessions here and here. See Rev. Robert Sirico’s worthy critique of “Soros’s Catholic Useful Idiots” here.

People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO), which also took Soros money to spin Pope Francis’ visit. PICO’s contribution to the Sessions debate was published here.

Members of the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), a public relations campaign, launched by the secular National Immigration Forum (NIF) of Soros, Ford, Carnegie and other foundations.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, one of the organizations which a Podesta email cited as part of a “revolution” Democrats hoped to support inside the Catholic church. This organization claimed during the election that “Trump-Pence is the Most Anti-Catholic Ticket in Modern History.”

The Bible is not Globalist or Open Borders

Thankfully Americans are waking up to the Progressive machine, fueled by Soros and friends. In 2016, thousands of Christians signed a “Call to Repentance and Renewal” to ministers advancing progressive chaos in our cities and nation. A short “must see” video followed, which documents Soros’s Formula.

Jeff Sessions is a faithful public servant who deserves our support against these heavily subsidized radicals. As a prosecutor in Alabama, Jeff Sessions worked to desegregate schools. He prosecuted and bankrupted the KKK. But leftists distort his record to pretend that he is somehow tainted by “racism.”

Nor are Sessions’ views on immigration in any way extreme or unbiblical, As Sessions wrote:

It is not mainstream, but extreme, to continue surging immigration beyond any historical precedent and to do so at a time when almost 1 in 4 Americans age 25 to 54 does not have a job. What we need now is immigration moderation: slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together.

Immigration laws are a necessary part of a just society. As we read the whole Bible, we’re taught to love ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our cities, as well as the stranger (ger in Hebrew) who comes lawfully as a blessing. What we see in the Bible is not open borders, but wise welcome.

Let us welcome Senator Sessions to the Trump administration. (For more from the author of “George Soros Is “Renting” Christian “Mascots” to Stop Jeff Sessions’ Nomination” please click HERE)

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Al Sharpton Makes Some Serious Charges Against Jeff Sessions. Here Are the Facts.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is organizing a resistance movement comprised of black civil rights leaders to protest the presidency of Donald Trump.

He showed up Tuesday at Sen. Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing for attorney general. In an interview with The Daily Signal, Sharpton rehashed allegations of racism against the Alabama senator, claiming they were “found to be substantial.”

Here’s what Sharpton had to say—and The Daily Signal’s examination of the facts.

(For more from the author of “Al Sharpton Makes Some Serious Charges Against Jeff Sessions. Here Are the Facts.” please click HERE)

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California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump

The California Legislature is hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to represent the state in expected fights with the new Trump administration over environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

But based on Holder’s track record, don’t expect to see California racking up legal victories.

Although nobody is questioning the skills of the attorneys at Holder’s firm Covington & Burling, hiring Holder as, essentially, California’s outside counsel seems like an odd choice given that the Justice Department under Holder (and continued under Loretta Lynch) has one of the worst records of any modern presidency before the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, losing far more cases than either of the Justice Departments of the prior Bush or Clinton presidencies.

Holder is also the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt by Congress for withholding documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the most reckless law enforcement operation ever conducted by the Justice Department. That operation has resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, as well as many Mexican citizens.

That also reflects poorly on Holder’s legal judgment.

Some may say that California is just preparing to do what other states like Texas have done in successfully suing the federal government during the Obama administration. But those cases are very different than what California is apparently planning to do.

The states have been suing to stop unconstitutional conduct by the executive branch when President Barack Obama failed in his duty to “faithfully execute” the law or acted unilaterally in ways that improperly changed the law.

The president does not have the authority to change, rewrite, or ignore federal laws he does not like. And federal agencies do not have the power to issue regulations outside the bounds of the statutes authorizing their conduct.

Stopping that type of misbehavior is the opposite of states attempting to obstruct enforcement of federal law or force the federal government to act outside its limited power.

For example, 26 states were successful in obtaining an injunction against Obama’s immigration amnesty plan because no president has the power to alter federal immigration law to provide amnesty and government benefits that have not been authorized by Congress or to decide that he will wholesale not enforce the law.

But California is going to try to prevent the new administration from enforcing federal immigration law despite the fact that the Constitution clearly gives Congress plenary authority over immigration and imposes a duty on the president (and thus the executive branch) to enforce the law.

Similarly, one of the reasons for California’s economic decline and severe budget shortfall problems is that it has been rated as the worst state in the country to do business in for the past 12 years in an annual survey of CEOs by the Chief Executive Network because of its high taxes and burdensome regulations.

As one CEO said in the survey, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and in fact, their policies are getting worse.”

Yet the state is hiring Holder to start a crusade against any efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the severe federal regulatory burden that adds to the negative effects on businesses and consumers that California already imposes.

Furthermore, the news that the California Legislature is hiring Holder came only a day after Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, to be California’s new state attorney general.

Neither Brown nor Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the state Senate who was quoted in a New York Times article praising Holder’s retention, seemed to realize the complete lack of confidence retaining Holder shows in Becerra’s legal ability to carry out his role as attorney general—which is defending the state of California and its interests in environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

This is particularly humiliating for Becerra given that he had told the Los Angeles Times that he intends to protect California’s “progressive” policies on immigration, Obamacare, energy, and criminal justice.

Becerra has already challenged the federal government, saying that “If you want to take on a forward-leaning state that is prepared to defend its rights and interests, then come at us.”

Looks like he is not going to get that chance, however, even if he is confirmed as the attorney general. Those cases will instead be handled by Holder and an entire team of lawyers at Holder’s private law firm, Covington & Burling, a premier Washington, D.C., law firm not exactly known for its low billing rates.

There is little doubt that California taxpayers, who are already living in a state with high taxes and huge budget problems, are going to get soaked for a lot of legal costs in addition to the price they already pay for the Office of the State Attorney General, which has 4,500 lawyers, investigators, police officers, and other staff.

Apparently, however, the California Legislature doubts their ability to fulfill their duties of defending the state’s interests.

All of this illustrates that the California Legislature has made a poor—but no doubt a very expensive—choice that will hurt the state.

But it is hardly surprising, I suppose, that the state would hire a former attorney general whose Justice Department did everything it could to defend the mountain of new, out-of-control regulations issued by the Obama administration in order to try to keep those economically costly regulations in place.

Nor is it shocking that an attorney general who did everything he could to avoid enforcing federal immigration law during the Obama administration will now try to help California obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law during the Trump administration.

Holder’s goals seem to have stayed the same; it’s just the playing field that has changed. (For more from the author of “California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump” please click HERE)

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Don’t Let the Media Confuse You: Obamacare Is a Policy Failure

Leave it to the media, which spent the latter half of 2016 highlighting how outrageously expensive Obamacare premiums were becoming, to suddenly shift gears in 2017 and stress the health law’s many “pluses.”

Such was the case in a recent interview with Heritage President Jim DeMint, in which CNN anchor Carol Costello suggested that lawmakers would need to preserve the so-called benefits of Obamacare if they repealed it.

In Costello’s words:

For example, this is according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve in Dallas. Preventative care provided by Obamacare … saves money and health care costs overall. In 2015, the cost of health care services increased 0.5 percent. The typical price increase before Obamacare, it was around 3 to 4 percent. Obamacare will lower the deficit by $143 billion over the next 10 years. So, there are pluses to Obamacare. So, how do you keep the pluses and get rid of the minuses?

DeMint shot back that those “facts” could fall “under the category of fake news.” This set Costello off to correct him that the numbers had come from the Congressional Budget Office.

Well, here’s what the Congressional Budget Office actually said about the cost of preventative care in 2009: “Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.”

For Americans paying premiums, this year’s price increases speak for themselves. According to the Obama administration, on the exchanges, the average increase this year in the benchmark plan premium is 25 percent across the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform. Certainly this cannot be considered a “plus,” even by the law’s most zealous supporters.

It is true that the Congressional Budget Office did originally say that the law would reduce the deficit, but that analysis was always based on questionable assumptions and the double-counting of Medicare savings.

Indeed, in 2014, the Senate Budget Committee went back and used the Congressional Budget Office’s same scoring conventions and found that Obamacare would increase the deficit by $131 billion over the next decade.

Although the details of this year’s repeal bill are not yet known, the Congressional Budget Office’s latest score of an Obamacare repeal—based on the reconciliation bill passed by the last Congress, which repealed the law’s major spending provisions and tax increases—was projected to reduce federal deficits by roughly $516 billion over the 2016-2025 period, accounting for the economic benefits that would result.

But on CNN, Costello wasn’t finished. “So, all those 20 million people enrolled in Obamacare, they’re all going broke and it’s not working for any of them?” she asked. Actually, 20 million is a debatable enrollment figure, given that it is based on survey data that can be off by millions of people.

Using actual insurer enrollment data, which is only available through the end of 2015, there was an increase in coverage of only 14 million Americans from 2013 to 2015, with the vast majority (11.7 million) being pushed into Medicaid coverage.

Moreover, the actual net increase in private coverage during this period was only 2.3 million due to a decline in employment-based coverage, which offset the increase in the individual health insurance market.

Furthermore, Costello forgot about all of the people (over 10 million) who purchase coverage in the individual market and receive no Obamacare subsidy. These people have been getting hammered by premium increases caused by Obamacare every year and have to pay the full cost on their own.

Costello asked, “How do you take care of people much better than they’re taken care of now?”

Considering that many Americans are now facing fewer insurer options, higher insurance deductibles, and higher premiums than prior to Obamacare, the need for real cost relief is immense.

The first step in providing relief is to quickly repeal the law and then do the legislative work that will allow for patient-centered reforms. (For more from the author of “Don’t Let the Media Confuse You: Obamacare Is a Policy Failure” please click HERE)

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God’s Relentless Pursuit: One Woman’s Journey From Darkness to Light

The story of Yvette Castillo is a testament of God’s love and pursuit of his children — even children who, like Yvette, have struggled with drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, abortions, suicidal thoughts and even a pact with the devil.

Lasting Pain and a Pact with the Devil

Yvette was 3 years old when she was molested. As Yvette tells her own story on YouTube, her alcoholic father and “disappointing” mother failed to protect her, and the act of selfishness that took her innocence set her up for a life of self-destruction, Yvette said in her testimony on YouTube.

One day, alone in her bedroom, Yvette invoked satanic power. “I said, ‘Give me the power to hurt everyone, to stop people from messing with me. … I didn’t know that I was making a pact with the devil. I knew who I was talking to, but I didn’t know how serious it was.”

Her life spiraled downhill from there. She began cutting, using drugs, fighting at school and disrespecting teachers. Given multiple opportunities to change, she refused each time. At 14 years old she gave birth to her first child — but being a new parent couldn’t change her. “Not even my child stopped me from doing bad things,” she says. “It was a force that had taken over me, and nobody could stop me.”

She became involved with an abusive boyfriend — and says she felt like she deserved every hit. She had two abortions; then one day her boyfriend kicked her out and she became homeless. Pregnant once again, Yvette continued to use drugs and drink alcohol. She ended up in a crack house where she was raped. “I was trusting the drugs instead of trusting God to make me happy. I thought it was an easier solution, but it wasn’t.”

No Heart

“I no longer had a heart,” she says. “I couldn’t love my kids, I couldn’t love myself. I was so drained.”

A new boyfriend accepted Christ and began attending church. He asked Yvette to go with him. For a while she went, but became disenchanted with “older Christians whose lives she thought didn’t align with Jesus’ teachings.” She left the church and Christianity — saying, “God I’m sorry, but this is not going to work.”

“Little did I know that this was the enemy messing with me. I ran from God for five years.”

Yvette returned to her partying ways, but soon experienced depression, anxiety and panic attacks. She began hearing voices. At one point she heard the devil laughing: “This is where I wanted you. We’re going to destroy you and your children.”

‘You and God are Good’

In this moment of desperation Yvette cried out to God. She returned to church, initially thinking she would just drop off her teenage daughter, who was also struggling. Convinced by friends to stay, Yvette ended up walking to the altar following the service for prayer. Out of the blue, the preacher came up to her and said, “God just wants you to know that you and Him are good. He doesn’t hold anything against you.”

Those words broke through the hardness of her heart and tears rolled down her face. “I felt so much lighter. It was crazy. Something awoke inside of me that God spoke to me and said, ‘I love you.’” She cried out, “I’m sorry God!”

But a real moment of surrender came on a Thursday morning as she walked in a park. After years of struggling with drugs and praying for deliverance, she felt the atmosphere change. “Something spoke to me: ‘Worship God. Lift up your hands and worship God.’ That voice kept coming and got so overwhelming.” She looked around and felt embarrassed, but did it anyway. “As soon as I lifted up my hands, something began to happen. I started to cry and couldn’t stop crying. I started feeling the presence of God, his holiness, his love, his mercy. It was like I wasn’t even at the park. I was in front of His throne. It was God.”

A New Creation

She says God’s forgiveness and mercy were beautiful to her then, that God truly made her into a new creation. “God told me: You are no longer bound to sin, to addiction, to anxiety. I have rescued you from darkness.” She envisioned Jesus descending and wrapping her in His robe. “When I saw that, I was in tears because I knew that God had made me clean,” she said, “It was such a beautiful experience.”

Yvette went home and threw out all of her drugs. She had no desire for them anymore — in fact, they made her nauseated. “Never am I going to put that inside of my body again. I’ve abused the temple of the Holy Spirit. God delivered me. God brought me back even stronger.”

“His grace … I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve His love, I didn’t deserve His grace,” she says. “Even though I walked away from God, God loved me so much that He brought me back again.”

(For more from the author of “God’s Relentless Pursuit: One Woman’s Journey From Darkness to Light” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Land Grab Will Not Stand. I Will Fight It.

When I questioned Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at her confirmation hearing, she promised me President Barack Obama would not designate a national monument unless there was widespread support from the local population.

Unfortunately, Obama ignored that promise and designated a monument in San Juan County yesterday.

But this is no time despair. This is a time to double our efforts and make San Juan County great again.

I pledge to you today that I will do everything I can to work with Congress and the incoming Trump administration to undo this monument designation.

But I am not going to stop there. I am then going to do what I can to repeal the Antiquities Act so that future President Obamas can not do this to rural communities ever again.

But I am not going to stop there. I am then going to continue our fight to return power back to the American people. Everyone suffers when we allow power to accumulate in the hands of the few.

This is not the end. This is just the beginning. We will fight this battle together, and we will win. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Land Grab Will Not Stand. I Will Fight It.” please click HERE)

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