MCCONNELL REJECTS CRUZ, LEE OBAMACARE TACTIC

Monday evening, GOP Minority Leader announced that he would oppose a proposed filibuster from Sens. Cruz and Lee to block the House Continuing Resolution from reaching the Senate floor. McConnell's opposition was echoed by John Cornyn, number 2 in GOP Leadership, and Sen. Cruz's colleague from Texas. The move by McConnell and Cornyn virtually assures that the Senate will begin consideration of the House bill later this week. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs the support of 6 Republican Senators to defeat any filibuster undertaken by Sens. Cruz and Lee, assuming he has the votes of his entire caucus. The decision by McConnell and Cornyn to vote against a filibuster ensures that Reid will have the Republican votes he needs to move forward with the bill. 

The expectation is then that, after a period of debate on the CR, Sen. Reid will file another cloture motion to cut off debate and proceed to amendments. By holding a cloture vote before amendments are considered, Reid will be able to add amendments to the bill by a simply majority vote. He will likely block any Republican amendments and off language to restore ObamaCare funding. The final resolution could then pass the Senate by a simply majority. 

It is unclear if McConnell or Cornyn would support a filibuster against Reid's controversial procedure to handle amendments. Under the Senate's regular order, amendments require a 60-vote threshold for adoption. It is possible the Republicans could still fight that rule change. 

The nuance of Senate procedure is lost on the general public, however. What the public sees is that just hours after Sen. Cruz began his fight to defund ObamaCare through the House CR, the top 2 Republicans in the Senate announced their opposition to his plan. 

The fight to defund ObamaCare may have ended Monday night. 

Via: Brietbart

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[CARTOON] Starbucks and Guns

Via: California Political Review

Over 500,000 children could go without healthcare under ObamaCare!!!

WASHINGTON — A “family glitch” in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.

That’s unless Congress fixes the problem, which seems unlikely given the House’s latest move Friday to strip funding from the Affordable Care Act.

Congress defined “affordable” as 9.5% or less of an employee’s household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the “error” was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn’t provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.

That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all.

“We saw this two-and-a-half years ago and thought, ‘Has anyone else noticed this?’” said Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics. “Everyone said, ‘No, no. You must be wrong.’ But we weren’t, and that’s going to leave a lot of people out.”

Via: USA Today

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Morning Bell: 6 Reasons Why the National Debt Keeps Rising

Out-of-control spending by Congress and the Obama Administration has once again maxed out the latest debt limit—a nearly $17 trillion burden that harms job growth, gives special interests a pass, and lowers American families’ personal income.

Inspired by Dave Ramsey’s recent post “6 Reasons People Stay in Debt,” we compiled six reasons why Members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and others in Washington avoid the path to financial stability in favor of big spending…

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1. They want to keep up appearances.

The truth is, ever-growing entitlement programs drive ever-greater government spending. Everyone knows it. Some leaders in both parties have even worked together on first-step solutions agreeable to both sides. Yet rather than risk Warren Buffett’s taxpayer-funded benefits decreasing, politicians pretend America’s national budget can handle all the extensive promises they’ve made over the past several decades.

Via: The Foundry

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Worst Obama approval ratings in two years, just 30% of independents support

President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped to their lowest in two years, driven by the public’s view that the nation is fast heading in the wrong direction and the desertion of his core support groups --- blacks, youth, women and independents.

Pollster John Zogby tells Secrets that the president has tumbled to a 43 percent approval rating, his worse since September 2011. Obama’s disapproval rating has hit 54 percent, his highest in two years.

And just 29 percent of the 1,000 likely voters polled September 17-18 said the country is heading in the right direction.

Zogby said that Obama is suffering from the bad debut of Obamacare and his fumbling of the crisis in Syria. Plus, he said, the president is at the mercy of a deeply divided Republican Congress that has even worse approval ratings.

But as has been the case for months now, Zogby’s polls have found a steep decline in support from the groups that helped to re-elect the president. Among blacks, Obama won 93 percent of their vote in 2012, but they now give him an 81 percent approval rating. Support of younger voters has dropped from 61 percent on Election Day to 47 percent. Hispanic approval has gone from 71 percent to 61 percent.

Via: Washington Examiner

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AP: Lois Lerner, Official at Center of IRS Targeting Scandal, Retiring

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service says an official at the center of the agency's tea party scandal is retiring.

Lois Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012.

Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.

 Republicans in Congress have repeatedly called for her to be fired.

Via: Fox News

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For Those Who Don't Believe in Election Fraud

"Yes, the Rizzo-Royster race turned on vote fraud," admitted the Kansas City Star's Barbara Shelly in a crow-eating column nearly three years after it would do any good. For years the Star has routinely mocked anyone who dared suggest vote fraud was a problem.

Among those mocked was Will Royster, a retired Navy fighter pilot who seemingly lost in a northeast Kansas City Democratic primary for state representative in 2010 by the final count of one single vote. The seeming victor, endorsed by the Star, was neophyte J.J. Rizzo, the son of Democratic machine honcho, Henry Rizzo.

What follows is a letter from a young Democrat Nick Moreno who observed the process up close named. The letter details the various tools Democrats use to steal elections and kill would-be Democratic reformers in the womb. It is edited only for length and clarity.

Via: American Thinker

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Obama’s Beached Whale

ObamaCare, Debt Ceiling, Continuing resolution, Ted Cruz

ObamaCare—the Affordable Care Act—will not be defunded and the government will not be shut down.

ObamaCare is a putrefying beached whale, even if it is “the law of the land” as the Democrats keep telling us. Well, Prohibition was once the law of the land until it was repealed. Slavery, too, was the law of the land at one time. Even the Supreme Court said so.

The vast majority of Americans already hate ObamaCare and not a day goes by that it does not demonstrate that it is unaffordable, unworkable, and a cancerous law that kills jobs. Eventually it will kill people.

ObamaCare, passed without a single Republican vote, will become a Democratic Party poison pill. It was passed when the party controlled both houses of Congress and, by the following midterm election in 2010, the Democrats lost the House.

If the Republicans can manage to avoid doing something really stupid, the 2014 midterms will give them control of both houses. For now, though, the efforts of Sen. Ted Cruz and others are misguided and mistaken.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama facing pressure from lawmakers to stand ground against Iran

On the heels of criticism over his handling of the stand-off with Syria, President Obama is facing pressure from Congress to stand his ground with Iran -- in the run-up to the U.N. General Assembly session in New York where Hassan Rowhani will make his debut visit as Iran's president. 

Rowhani has sent signals over the last few weeks that he's willing to engage the U.S. in talks over his country's nuclear program. Obama revealed in an interview a week ago that he and the newly elected Iranian leader have been exchanging letters. 

The communication raised the possibility that Obama, or perhaps Secretary of State John Kerry, might meet on the sidelines of the U.N. session, and jump-start a new round of talks aimed at convincing Iran to abandon any pursuit of nuclear weapons and open up its program to inspectors. 

Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., though, urged Obama to tread cautiously. 

"Like you, we viewed the election of Hassan Rouhani as an indicator of discontent amongst the Iranian people and we have taken note of recent diplomatic overtures by Iran," they wrote. "However, whatever nice words we may hear from Mr. Rouhani, it is Iranian action that matters." 

They wrote that a "credible and verifiable agreement" would be welcomed but "we also recall, however, Iran's prior use of negotiations as a subterfuge for progress on its clandestine nuclear program, as well as Iran's continued financing of terrorist activities." 

Via Fox Political News

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The ObamaCare Disaster Finally Hits Front Page of New York Times

Lower Health Insurance Premiums to Come at Cost of Fewer Choices

WASHINGTON — Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.

From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

Some consumer advocates and health care providers are increasingly concerned. Decades of experience with Medicaid, the program for low-income people, show that having an insurance card does not guarantee access to specialists or other providers.

Consumers should be prepared for “much tighter, narrower networks” of doctors and hospitals, said Adam M. Linker, a health policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center, a statewide advocacy group.

“That can be positive for consumers if it holds down premiums and drives people to higher-quality providers,” Mr. Linker said. “But there is also a risk because, under some health plans, consumers can end up with astronomical costs if they go to providers outside the network.”

Via: New York Times

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10 COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT TOPPLED IN WASHINGTON

A stone monument of the Ten Commandments that sits on a street behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington and was the subject of controversy in the past has been toppled by vandals.

The 3-foot-by-3-foot granite monument weighs 850 pounds and sits out front of the headquarters of Faith and Action, a Christian outreach ministry. The group installed the tablets in a garden outside its offices in 2006, and the group's president said the tablets were angled so that justices arriving at the high court would see them.

The Rev. Robert Schenck, who heads the organization, said the damage to the monument happened sometime between Friday night and Saturday night. A minister who works in the area alerted the group to the damage around 9 p.m. Saturday.

The monument had been pushed over so that the words of the Ten Commandments are now face down. Vandals bent a steel rod that secures the monument to a thick concrete base to an almost 90 degree angle. The monument itself is not damaged, Schenck said.

"Whoever did this was determined to get it done because it's not something you could easily do," Schenck said, adding that the vandals also installed a "For Rent" yard sign by the monument and that the vandalism was reported to police.

Officer Anthony Clay, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said Monday that the case remains open.

Schenck said he did not know how much it would cost to bring the tablets upright, but the organization plans to reinforce the monument and install a security camera that monitors the area. He said they also plan to ask a neighboring organization and the U.S. Supreme Court for their security footage during the time when the monument was vandalized.

Schenck said that he wasn't angry about the damage and that, in a way, the vandals had helped the organization convey important messages: "We all violate the Ten Commandments" and "We all violate God's rules."

The group bought the stone tablets at a charity auction in 2001. They were one of four removed by a federal court order from the fronts of public schools in Adams County, Ohio.

Via: Breitbart
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Obama hides aid for criminals in immigration bill

The White House is trying to hide unpopular provisions in the Senate’s immigration bill that would allow immigrant criminals to stay in the country and would increase the inflow of low-skill refugees from war-torn countries, says a top White House official.

“The bill has a number of other important provisions that have stayed under the radar, and we’d actually like to keep them under the radar,” said Esther Olavarria, the White House’s director of immigration reform.

“We haven’t played [them] up because we want to be able to maintain them as we go through the legislative process,” she told about 50 attendees at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, on Sept. 19.

At the CBC foundation event, Olavarria described the sections in the Senate bill that she’s trying to hide from the public and the GOP.

The first section reverses parts of the 1996 immigration reform, which allowed law-enforcement authorities to deport long-term residents who have committed crimes.

The Senate bill “redefines ‘convictions,’ it redefines ‘sentences,’ to make it more realistic, so individuals who get suspended sentences would not be found inadmissible or deportable under these new provisions,” she told the attendees.

The liberal pre-1996 rule “was a very good provision,” and its revival in the Senate bill will “allow long-time residents who committed minor crimes to be able to stay here,” she said.

By accepting criminals and increasing the inflow of poor refugees, “they’re putting non-citizens in a higher position than native Americans,” said D.A. King, who runs the Dustin Inman Society, which seeks to reduce the annual inflow of legal immigrants.

Via: Daily Caller

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Gingrich: Obama's big debt limit deception

(CNN) -- As a historian and a former speaker of the House who negotiated successfully through two government shutdowns, a successful welfare reform bill, the first tax cut in 16 years and four balanced budgets, I am offended and a little frightened by President Barack Obama's deliberate dishonesty about the debt ceiling.

On Wednesday, speaking to the Business Roundtable, Obama said:

"You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."

This is just plain false, and he knows it. That he would say something so factually false in a prepared text is very worrisome.

First of all, issues such as Obamacare don't have "nothing to do with the budget" and the idea that it is unusual for Congress to bring them into the debt ceiling debate is absurd. Far from having "nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt," Obamacare is a major part of the budget, and it is now projected to cost twice what the president promised.

The president's historical claim is completely wrong, as well. Let's set the record straight.

Debt ceilings have been used since President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s to enable conservatives to put limits on government spending.

Via: CNN

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'OBAMA EXPRESS' GROCERY STORE CAUGHT IN FOOD STAMP TRAFFICKING

After Obama's election in 2009 a small grocery store/convenience store in Florida changed its name to the Obama Express. Several other stores across the country did the same thing. One of those was a location in Baltimore, Maryland. Now, in 2013, the Maryland outlet is under investigation, accused of illegally trafficking in food stamps.

On September 17, WBAL reported that nine retailers in Baltimore County had been arrested for illegally redeeming food stamps for cash and kicking back a portion to food stamp recipients. The retailers did not sell them any merchandise or food.

One of those indicted was one Abdullah Aljaradi who allegedly obtained $2 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cash from Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards.

Abdullah Aljaradi, age 51, of Baltimore; Second Obama Express and D&M Deli and Grocery, 901 Harlem Avenue, Suite A and B, respectively. From October 2010 through July 2013, Aljaradi allegedly obtained more than $2 million in payments for food sales that never occurred.

The office of the US Attorney, District of Maryland, has further information on the charges:

The indictments allege that the defendants exchanged EBT benefits for cash, in violation of the food stamp program rules. The indictments allege that the defendants typically paid half the value of the EBT benefits in cash. To avoid detection, the defendants often debited the funds from the card in multiple transactions over a period of hours or days. As a result of unlawful cash transactions, the defendants obtained more than $6,898,000 in EBT deposits for transactions in which the stores did not provide food.

If convicted, the nine retailers could get 20 years each in jail.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama calls for 'transformation' of nation's gun laws at Memorial Service

WASHINGTON -- President Obama called Sunday for a "transformation" of the nation's gun laws, saying last week's deadly shooting at the Washington Navy Yard echoes too many other killings across the United States.

"Our tears are not enough," Obama said during a memorial service for the victims and their families. "Our words and our prayers are not enough ... We are going to have to change."

Gun violence in America "ought to obsess us," Obama said.

Acknowledging that a gun control package he proposed earlier this year has stalled in Congress, Obama said the change won't come from Washington, but has to come from the American people themselves.

During a 21-minute eulogy delivered at the Marine Barracks Washington, Obama also warned that Americans must fight "a creeping resignation" about mass shootings, the notion "that this is somehow the new normal."

But "there is nothing normal about innocent men and women gunned down where they work," Obama said. "There is nothing normal about our children being gunned down in their classrooms."

Via: USA Today

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Sunday Show Roundup Cruz and Lee continue their push to defund Obamacare

Leaders of the effort to defund the health care law pointed to Friday’s vote to defund Obamacare as a legislative victory and provided additional insight into their plan if the legislation does not succeed in the Senate on Sunday.

“If Harry Reid kills this bill in the Senate, I think the House should hold it’s ground and should begin passing smaller continuing resolutions one department at a time,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said on Fox News Sunday.

“Start with the military. Fund the military. Send it over, and let’s see if Harry Reid is willing to shut down the military just because he wants to force Obamacare on the American people. I think that would be a very perilous decision for Harry Reid to make,” Cruz said.

The House passed the 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill, a separate bill to fund the military, in late July.

Cruz’s statement showed that the senators leading the charge do not intend to back down despite concern from Republicans and political analysts.

Via: WFB

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A Nation Built for Immigrants

In a single generation, between 1980 and 2007, more than 10 million people migrated, legally or illegally, from Mexico to the U.S. Today there are more than 12 million Mexican-born people in the U.S. and millions of American children who are their offspring—amounting to almost 10% of the nation's population. That is exponentially larger than in 1970, when there were less than one million Mexican-born people in the country, or 1980, when there were two million. The Mexican migration, and the similarly large migration of others from the rest of Latin America, has in just one generation reshaped the nation. Hispanics have replaced blacks as the largest officially recognized minority group.

Needless to say, this transformation hasn't gone unnoticed in our politics, especially in the border states most affected by the influx. Groups like the "minutemen," self-appointed guardians of the U.S. border, may no longer hold the spotlight, but the issue remains tense, as suggested by the iffy prospects on Capitol Hill of the latest attempt at "comprehensive immigration reform." Many Americans still worry that, with the profound shift in the country's ethnic composition over the past several decades, the U.S. is well on its way to flying apart.

None of this should come as a surprise to a student of American history. But for perspective, it is helpful to recollect that the conflicts produced by previous surges of migration resulted in much worse strains. More than that, in the process of dealing with these strains, Americans have developed a capacity and a habit of accommodating and uniting citizens with very serious and deep differences. Going back to the Founding Fathers—with their formula of limited government, civic equality and tolerance of religious and cultural diversity—each new surge of arrivals has been greeted as a crisis without precedent, only to disappear with unexpected speed as the nation faced new challenges.

Via: WSJ

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$3.39T Quantitative Explosion: Fed Owns More Treasuries and MBS Than Publicly Held Debt Amassed From Washington Through Clinton

(CNSNews.com) - The same day that the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee announced last week that the Fed would continue to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and $45 billion in U.S. Treasury securities per month, the Fed also released its latest weekly accounting sheet indicating that it had already accumulated more Treasuries and MBS than the total value of the publicly held U.S. government debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington though Bill Clinton.

Since the beginning of September 2008, in fact, the Fed's ownership of Treasury securities and MBS has increased seven fold.

As of the close of business Thursday, the Fed said, it owned approximately $2,052,055,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities and approximately $1,339,771,000,000 in mortgage-backed securities—for a combined total of about $3,391,826,000,000 in Treasury securities and MBS.

Via: CNS News

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One Weird Trick to Expose the Truth About ObamaCare

There's every reason to believe that ObamaCare will ruin America's fine health care system; weaken our already shaky economy; cause more people to go without health insurance; and is widely unpopular.

Even though most citizens seem quite uncertain of all its provisions, surveys repeatedly show that it is unpopular and grows more unpopular as the time for implementation of more of its provisions nears. And the law opens the door for -- completely foreseeable -- widespread abuse, some of which is already starting.

It passed without a single Republican vote. It is the Democrats' baby and remains so because the party's leaders refuse to acknowledge the need to substantially amend it. Probably because the same people who passed it without reading it, still haven't bothered. But also because it includes enormous giveaways to themselves, the Democrats' favorite constituencies, and donors while punishing those not within that growing class. (The drafters accidentally forgot to add labor unions to the list of exempted cronies, but now that AFL-CIO President Trumka bellowed about it, the Administration seems to be working behind the scenes to correct that oversight.)

Via: American Thinker

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Why Liberals Use Law for Control, While Conservatives Use Law for Protection

The Purpose of Law is to Prevent Injustice From Reigning – Bastiat

An end run is being done around the traditional American approach to legislation and change. The result is a kind of tyranny by unethical strategy, or as Friedreich Nietzsche described – a Will to Power. But one important point escapes the minds of the leftists who seem to believe all power is self-justifying. Once principle is tossed aside in a mad dash for power, all players, including leftists, are then at heightened risk for being crushed under the wheel of the abuse of power. A cursory gloss of the Nazi and Russian Revolutions proves this point.

Liberals pretend to inhabit a pure land of enlightenment and political genius which cannot be improved. Therefore, they have no patience for any who disagree with their positions because these represent not humbly held opinions, but transparent truths. And any who disagree with obvious facts do not deserve to be treated respectfully. For example, for daring to disagree with ObamaCare, an activist wished a horrible death upon conservative kids – (see CA dem to Sen. Ted Cruz aide: I hope your kids ‘die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases’ after vote against Obamacare)

The main insight anyone needs to understand the difference between the left and right is their approach to law. Conservatives want fewer laws which exemplify principles which defend the rights of the average person so that they might be more productive and express as much liberty as possible. Liberal progressives, on the other hand, demand the law be used to create an equal society where each person can receive economic justice and equal status. Yet, much like the French Revolution, this liberal dream is destined to create a fiery end for all involved if not abandoned.

Via: Canada Free Press

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President Barack Obama owes world explanation about why he supports al-Qaeda

If ever there was a terrorist attack that cries out the name “President Barack Hussein Obama!” the massacre at Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi is it.

The Somalian terrorist group, al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the slaughter of at least 68 people, including Canadian diplomat Annemarie Desloges and an as yet unnamed other Canadian. Annemarie’s husband, Robert Munk was injured and has since been released from hospital.

Imagine this horrific scene: Terrified shoppers hid behind counters as the gunmen went on the rampage using guns and grenades. (Daily Mail, Sept. 22, 2013)

Today 10 to 15 hostages are still trapped in the shopping center as security forces lay siege to the building, from which Armed police managed to lead about 1,000 people to safety.

Via: Canada Free Press

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