UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

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https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

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spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs
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7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

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pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

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10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.

It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.
 
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Labour want the rich out of the country. Starmer and Stalin have the same end goal, just differing on the methods. Stalin was able to outright genocide and exile millions, Starmer couldn't do that by force, so instead he makes life so uncomfortable that they will either die through lack of resources (taken from the Mao playbook) or exile themselves (see the millions of people able to leave the UK, leaving in droves).

That pakis and niggers would be sent to the ultra-rich areas, isn't surprising. Commies hate those richer than they are and remove them at all costs.
 
Funny how it's national news when it's a few tents in a large London park while other cities have full on shanty towns which nothing is done about.
It's one of those spaces that is embarrassing for Sadiq and easy headlines. The "marble arch mound" was in the same street. It's probably just a couple of reporters who pass it on the commute to work and have found it's a really easy story for any slow news days to just report how it's still shit. How anyone can mismanage throwing tens of millions year after year into a street corner by a park and still have it look so utterly shit I've no idea.

 
Why isn't there a limit to how many times someone can run for mayor, especially in London? I feel like this Paki is going to be running for years.
 
Funny how it's national news when it's a few tents in a large London park while other cities have full on shanty towns which nothing is done about.
Get the London look:

Poverty.

Why isn't there a limit to how many times someone can run for mayor, especially in London? I feel like this Paki is going to be running for years.
He is looking to leave office by 2028.

He got his Knighthood and 'good boi' points - next up will be another vacuous crud-type like Dawn Butler.


Oh no, won't somebody think of the poor Sky CEO's.... boo hoo!
 
Woman and 15 year old girl die in house fire

Another week, another fatal house fire. Nothing to see here. Stop nooooticing.

Prisoner officer stabbed, needs emergency surgery

West Mercia Police said initial investigations suggested there was a disagreement between an inmate
A source has told the BBC the knife used was "not a prison-made weapon" and that it had "somehow been brought in".
The Category A men's prison houses more than 600 inmates, including men convicted of terrorism offences
West Mercia Police said the 22-year-old inmate remained at the prison and the investigation was ongoing.

So I guess we're back to not naming people's age, race, nationality, favourite hobby, house price and what they had for breakfast?
 
R8 me L8 M8's and hit me with them rainbows...
Whats happened with Gladio these days? Budget cuts? They really are phoning it in. Long gone are the days where they'd show a bit of creativity.

Keep an eye out for this load if you're on the M25 on the evening of the 27th.


 
The government will use "piracy" as an excuse to censor the internet more like they did with the online harms bill or whatever that law was that blocked KF in the UK.
Guess that he's never heard of VPN's, Proton or even the Dark Web?

As with everything else Labour do, it'll backfire.

Some news:


I'm sure that this article might be of particular interest to @Otterly

Also:


Illegal immigrant who robbed £250k off Jenson Button's wife in London jailed and 'will be deported'.


'Runaway Rayner' scared by pro-Palestine activists in Scotland.


Pub owner and GB News regular Adam Brooks concerned over Government's suppression of free speech (of course, when even the Police are now not attending such incidents or declaring NFA's in such cases, what is the point?)


Two arrested after body found in Exmouth, Devon.


and another 'Liverpool event' this time in Leicester.


£1m bill for wall rebuild in Nottingham.
 
and another 'Liverpool event' this time in Leicester.
This sounds like the usual Islam vs Sikh shenanigans that has been boiling up there for a while now.

I'm not shocked that it hasn't made the headlines. Brown-on-brown action is pretty commonplace in whatever urban hellscape you care to choose across the UK, but apparently its only Whitey that is the thorn in the side of multiculturalism.
 
These mongoloids never learn, they did the same shit to Trump and look what happened. The thing is, when you spam the word, it loses all meaning. Christ, it's a season 6 episode of South Park. These people are the most uninspiring bunch. No wonder their spouses put up with them, because they are so creatively dense. I could find more inspiration from a tub of Dairylea.

Who in the ever loving fuck (totally not Sweeney) thought the seethe conference was a good idea. The press unifed and gang raped you, funnily enough it was in one of the rape gang areas. This guy thinks people are functionally Pakistani incest children because he thinks we cannot see his spending. NIGGER you spent 22 billion on borrowing in fucking April alone.

Dude, you have lost the red wall for a generation now, and that is such a large portion of your voting base annihilated. Your party knows you cannot do London votes because it will be Arab independents that will cannibalize your voting share. The investors will back Farage because he at least has an economic policy developing and the butchered green areas fucking dispise you. Christ, a Labour member cannot even set foot in Lincolnshire, they are openly abused en masse and good.

You have destroyed the maneuverability of your policies to the point that you are the Tories. You cannot go further left because the businesses and centrists will fully back Reform. For someone that won't shut the fuck up about growth you have no clue, you are destroying the SME's and that is where your growth is from. You will in fact get the contraction and shrinking for your civil service hellscape you want.
 
Labour want the rich out of the country.
The fucked up part is I can see why they'd want the rich gone-gone.
The millionaires and billionaires are the biggest funders of their opposition.

Who are the big Conservative and Labour donors?​

This article is more than 11 months old
Bankrolling Britain’s July election are names from finance, retail and the arts – plus the unions


The Conservatives and Labour have amassed huge war chests for the election, funded by the rise of megadonors giving millions of pounds as individuals or through their companies. Over the past year, the Tories have significantly outdone Labour, bringing in £44m, while Labour have drawn £24.6m – excluding public funds.

However, in the first quarter of this year, the fundraising was more evenly matched. The Conservatives brought in £8.48m, while Labour raised £7.38m – excluding public funds. The Lib Dems brought in £2.48m in donations during the quarter, and the Greens raised £400,000 but Reform UK, now led by Nigel Farage, got just £25,000 in that period.


These are some of the biggest and most significant donors who will be bankrolling this summer’s election:


Conservatives

Two new megadonors​

Frank Hester and his company, TPP, are together the Conservatives’ biggest ever donor for an election campaign, giving £15m. The party has faced calls to give the money back after the Guardian revealed he made comments in 2019 saying looking at Diane Abbott made you “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot”. Hester apologised for his remarks and for being rude but said he abhorred racism and his criticism “had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”. The healthcare tech entrepreneur, who is worth an estimated £371m, according to the Sunday Times rich list, is sole owner of TPP.

Mohamed Mansour was the first to give a £5m donation to the Tories before the election. The ex-minister in the government of Egypt’s former autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak is also a billionaire businessman behind the sprawling conglomerate Mansour Group, of which private investment company Man Capital forms a part.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ng-and-donations-what-are-the-rules-in-the-uk

Retailers​

Amit Lohia is nicknamed the Prince of Polyester on account of his family’s yarn business, Indorama, where he is a director. Lohia gave a first donation of £2m last year. Bobby Arora is a British billionaire and retail director of B&M, who gave £250,000 to the Conservatives last December.

Richard Harpin, the founder of repairs business Homeserve, has given about £2m since the last election, and recently lent his helicopter to Rishi Sunak during the campaign, while Sir Peter Wood, founder of Direct Line, gave £500,000 this year.

Property developers​

Graham Edwards runs Telereal Trillium, one of the UK’s largest property firms, and is the party’s treasurer. He has contributed £3.5m since 2018, including a £2m donation last year.

Others include Westcombe Homes, which has given £400,000 since the last election. Another firm, Thakeham Homes, gave almost £1m until 2022, but its founder, Rob Boughton, recently appeared at a Labour event saying he was now supporting Keir Starmer’s party.

Entrepreneurs​

Christopher Wood is the founder of Medannex, a biopharmaceutical company that develops cancer and autoimmune disease treatments. Its website describes Wood as a “serial entrepreneur who has founded and managed a number of successful biotechnology companies”. He has given £2m to the Conservative party since the last election.

Bassim Haidar is a Nigerian-born Lebanese-Irish national IT billionaire who recently said he was leaving London over the non-dom tax changes, and gave £500,000 to the party across this year and last year.

Selva Pankaj, who owns the higher education institution Regent College London and sponsored last year’s “blue room” for Tory VIPs at the party conference, has given more than £750,000 to the Conservatives since 2015. He told the Financial Times this week that he was currently donating £250,000 a year regardless: “Whether it rains, or if the sun is shining, I’m a steady Eddie.”

Financiers​

The scale and pace of hedge fund and banking donations appears to have dropped off in recent years. But Alan Howard, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management, made a £1m donation in May 2023, having funded the party since 2018. Sir Henry Angest is the banker behind Flowidea, which has given more than £750,000 since the last election, while Michael Hintze is a hedge fund figure who has contributed millions over the years and £600,000 since the last election. More recently, Lord Hintze has been giving smaller sums to sponsor the campaigns of individual MPs.

Labour

The Sainsbury dynasty​

David Sainsbury, a Labour peer since 1997 and scion of the supermarket dynasty, has given £5m to Labour under Keir Starmer. He previously donated to Labour under Tony Blair and served as a science minister, before contributing £8m to the Lib Dems during the Jeremy Corbyn era. Lord Sainsbury’s daughter, Fran Perrin, is also a major Labour donor in her own right, giving more than £2m to the party under Starmer’s leadership, including £1m this year.

Trade unions​

Labour still generates substantial income from trade unions, bringing in almost £7m from them so far in 2024 and 2023. Unite, the GMB and Unison all contribute about £1m a year each, making them major sources of funding.

Big business donors​

Gary Lubner, the former boss of Autoglass, the car glass repair company, has given almost £6m to the party under Starmer. He told the FT that he had wanted to put the party in power for a long time. Born in South Africa, he has said his political views had been shaped by being conscripted into the police during apartheid, and his grandparents having come to South Africa to escape Jewish pogroms in Russia.

Dale Vince, the founder of gas and electricity supplier Ecotricity, has given at least £4m to the party through his company since 2014 – including £1.6m this year. The donations have caused Labour some controversy, as he has also bankrolled Just Stop Oil in recent years, triggering a Tory attack on the party for being funded by an “eco zealot”.

City figures​

Martin Taylor is a hedge fund supremo who has contributed almost £5m in donations over the last decade to Labour, the thinktank Labour Together, and individual MPs. His most recent donation this year was £535,000.

Sir Victor Blank, the former chair of Lloyds TSB, has resumed making donations, giving £175,000 since 2020, much of which was used to fund staff for the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Sir Trevor Chinn has been continuously donating tranches of money since 2010, giving £1m in total since then. Stuart Roden, best known for his time as chair of Lansdowne Partners, has given more than £360,000 to the party last year.

Media and art world​

Waheed Alli, who made his money in TV production and is a Labour peer, has led the party’s fundraising efforts under Starmer. He has given £700,000 to the party over the years, including about £250,000 since the last election.

A donor who has started giving again is Grayson Perry, the artist and television presenter, who has given £180,000. He previously donated to the party under Ed Miliband. Transilluminate, a company owned by artist Brian Clarke, has also given £250,000 this year.
Labour have the odd virtue-signalling billionaire/millionaire but a quarter of their income as it stands comes from the unions so even if they force the rich to leave out of all the parties they still have the most guaranteed revenue stream from the unions. Tories have 104k members, Labour 403k. Conservative income in '24 was 60 mil, Labour was 59 mil. Conservatives only have one membership option/fee (£39) so the £5.9 million figure is likely accurate. Labour have 3 fee options so it's harder to get an exact figure, but they still inch over the Tories at the smallest at £6 mil (£15 a year), but at the reduced rate (£31) it's about £12.5 mil, and at standard(£63) it's £25 million! So regardless, it would appear that making the rich flee might be to hit the Tories' income, even if Labour take some damage too as a consequence.

In other news, this is finally becoming acceptable discourse. (Hopefully until will broaden to include 1st gen naturalised immigrants at some point)
Foreigners claim £1bn a month in benefits
1748697586538.webp
(Keep in mind it says "with foreign national", so it likely includes parents of new citizens able to stay on ADR because of a prescription from the NHS or something since a lot of places they're immigrating from don't have free healthcare.)
Benefits claims by households with at least one foreign national have doubled to nearly £1 billion a month in the past three years, government figures show.

Households with at least one claimant who is a foreign national received £941 million in March this year, up from £461 million in March 2022, representing nearly a sixth of the month’s Universal Credit payments.

The figures are likely to reinforce calls for restrictions on benefits for migrants, which Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, urged Rachel Reeves to consider in a leaked memo seen by The Telegraph.

Ms Reeves, the Chancellor, is already facing a growing backbench rebellion over her plans to cut welfare spending. Funding two months of benefits for households with foreign nationals cancels out the £1.4 billion the Government saved by axing winter fuel payments.

Experts suggested the increase reflected a surge in the number of asylum seekers being granted refugee status and in net migration.

Foreign nationals become eligible for Universal Credit and other benefits on the same terms as British citizens once they are granted either indefinite leave to remain or refugee status.

Writing in The Telegraph, Neil O’Brien, a former Tory health minister who uncovered the data, said: “The growth of benefit spending and the rate of migration are both much too fast, and the Government is doing far too little to change either trend.

“Migrants know that if they can make it to the UK, they will be allowed to stay. As long as that is true, we’ll see more and more coming. Our soft-touch welfare state makes this worse.”

Graham Stringer, a senior Labour backbencher and former leader of Manchester City Council, said that such vast spending on foreign claimants should not be a priority.

He said: “Given the state of the country’s finances, everything has to be looked at and reassessed. This expenditure [on foreign claimants] in my opinion is not a priority.

“We have to be absolutely clear on what our priorities are and in my view these people are not a priority. It has to be judged against potential cuts in PIPs [Personal Independence Payments] and the winter fuel allowance and other benefits that may be cut for British citizens.”

The Telegraph revealed earlier this month that Ms Rayner told Ms Reeves to consider making it harder for immigrants to gain access to Universal Credit, by raising the fee they must pay for using the NHS and restricting their access to the state pension.

Ms Rayner’s memo warned that, because of the high rates of immigration in the early 2020s, there would be an increase in the number of people becoming eligible for indefinite leave to remain, entitling them to state benefits.

The data, obtained for the first time under freedom of information laws from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), shows that the amount of Universal Credit being claimed by foreign nationals has risen by nearly 30 per cent in a year, from £726 million to £941 million in March.

This accounted for 15.5 per cent of the total £6.05 billion payments of Universal Credit that month, up from 14.1 per cent in March 2022 but down slightly since when Labour won the general election in July last year.

The rising costs follow soaring net migration, which after Brexit reached a record high of more than 900,000 in 2023.
The DWP defines a foreign claimant as a non-Common Travel Area (CTA) national – someone who does not hold British or Irish nationality.

Its analysis only included payments to households that are made to “claimants who have a non-CTA nationality and have passed the Habitual Resident Test (HRT).”

HRT checks that an individual has a right to reside in the UK and is “factually habitually resident” in the UK.

The DWP said joint claims that include at least one non-British or Irish national will be classed as foreign, even if other members of the household are British nationals.

Sir Keir Starmer announced a crackdown on net migration earlier this month that included proposals to extend eligibility for indefinite leave to remain from the current five years to 10 years, effectively denying tens of thousands access to benefits for longer.

Under his plans, migrants will only be able to “earn” citizenship earlier if they can show a “real and lasting contribution” to the economy and society.

It comes as Reform seeks to capture its first seat in Scotland in a by-election in Hamilton by capitalising on its plans for net zero immigration and restoring the winter fuel allowance.

A government spokesman said: “We inherited a spiralling benefits system that was out of control. Since last July, we have reduced the proportion of benefit payments to nationals outside the British Isles.“

Refugees and non-UK or Irish citizens can only access these payments once their immigration status is formally verified by the Home Office, and they satisfy strict tests.”

This is the tip of the iceberg​

By Neil O’Brien

The soaring bill for Universal Credit payments to people from overseas is the tip of the iceberg. Universal Credit only accounts for about half of working age welfare spending, and the DWP is so far refusing to release the same data for other benefits.

And cash benefits are only part of the story. For example, around half of all the council housing in Greater London is occupied by households where the head of the household was born abroad. Of these tenants, around a half are in work, and a half are not.

Many of those who commute a long way into the capital, paying a fortune to stand on a crowded tube or train, wonder whether it is fair.

For those who have paid in their taxes, it is frustrating to see others who have newly arrived in the country able to access benefits and services without having paid in.

The growth of benefit spending and the rate of migration are both much too fast, and the Government is doing far too little to change either trend.

Keir Starmer promised to “smash the gangs”, but the number of people crossing the channel is up nearly a third compared to the same period last year. We recently saw a record smashed for the largest number crossing illegally in one day. Having promised to close migrant hotels, the Government has opened more.

Starmer was warned by experts like the former head of Border Force, Tony Smith, that simply trying to improve enforcement would fail, unless factors that pull migrants here are addressed.

Migrants know that if they can make it to the UK, they will be allowed to stay. As long as that is true, we’ll see more and more coming. Our soft-touch welfare state makes this worse.

Every week there is some new example of the abuse of human rights law to allow dangerous people to stay in the UK. A Ugandan murderer who clubbed a man to death in the back of a London ambulance wasn’t deported because it would be bad for his mental health. A Pakistani paedophile won the right to stay because he risks being persecuted for his crimes back home.

There are 17,428 foreign national offenders living in the UK whose deportation the Home Office considers to be in the public interest, but who have not been deported, and the figure just keeps rising.

Meanwhile, spending on sickness and disability benefits is forecast to grow to £100 billion by the end of this parliament, double the rate of 2008.

Despite this, the present Government has abandoned plans to tighten the Work Capability Assessment, which means 400,000 more people will be signed off as unfit to work. The Government has also trailed plans to spend a further £3.5 billion a year removing the two-child cap on benefits.

Both the explosion of welfare spending and the surging numbers arriving in small boats are driven by the same rights culture. Sadly, we have a PM who is a human rights lawyer, who used to sign letters opposing the deportation of criminals. As long as he’s in office, the bills for those who play by the rules will just keep on rising.

Neil O’Brien is the Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and is a shadow education minister

I included the last part because it's at the end of the same article but it's also by a Tory MP and shadow minister, so it may also be proliferating sentiment within the Conservative party too, hopefully. I hope if they ever got into power again it doesn't just retroactively translate to "We need to be stricter on handing out benefits (to natives)! And slash immigration (by implementing more restrictions and not a cap)!" However by focusing on the small boats they're ignoring that legal immigrants drain a ton too so hopefully that becomes a focus as well sometime down the road. The year's still fresh.

Lowe's opinion on the subject. Since he's already been open to the idea of joining the Conservatives it might be why we're seeing more shadow ministers voicing similar opinions in sentiment, such as Jenrick a month or two prior regarding "culture".

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INB4 "All welfare scroungers are a problem regardless!"
We know that, but it's difference between "leeches" and "leeches²" — the former can be looked at once the more pressing latter has been dealt with. Also because the former also encompasses some of your potential voting base, it's better to go for the one least likely to piss off the people you need votes from. Also everybody, regardless on whether or not they personally benefit from benefits, gets pissed off at such cuts because regardless of who you vote for, there'll be an even more obvious thing to cut or raise money from instead of free money for people I.E. "Foreign aid!"/"Military!/"Raise corporate tax!" and so on.

Had to suppress a look of contempt as some geezer bought the last pack of 5 cold sausage rolls from Greggs today, and I had to try and not appear too happy when they brought out some more.
 
I'm sure that this article might be of particular interest to @Otterly
Yeah I saw this this morning.
. They have a history in Israel, and I think Johnny greenwood is married to an Israeli?
Like he says, they don’t like Donald trump very much either but they still play America. If you boycotted everywhere that had a shit government where would you play? Nowhere. Certainly not Britain either. Music is supposed to unite people.
The problem here is twofold; firstly both him and Johnny (who just got dates cancelled when Palestinian mobs had a tantrum) are probably nice guys who hang out with other nice well off people who are reasonable and can talk stuff out. I say that like it’s a bad thing but I get it. I’m a nice, professional ex academic and the people I know are a lovely rainbow of multinational multicultural intelligent people and if everyone was like that it’d all be kumbaya and world peace and we’d have cities in the clouds and paradise Trouble is, we are a minority.
Second issue: they don’t want to hear your opinion, they want you to share and promote their opinion. So if you put out a good faith statement that says ‘could everyone please stop bombing each other, dead kids aren’t good no matter what side’ you piss off everyone because they do not want nuance they want THEIR side supported and validated . So you give them a statement which is probably what most people think (stop killing each other and start talking for fucks sake) and both sides will go after you. Since one side don’t give a shit about killing anyone who doesn’t agree with total Islamic dominance, I don’t think this was the right thing to do, I think he’s right, but I’d have been much shorter saying it. Or maybe I wouldn’t have said anything at all. Because I’m a pleb and when I give my opinion in public I get smacked down hard for it.
The world has changed. He’s a little older than me but the causes when we were the age to be young adults were the war on terror and Sarajevo and save the whales and could the Chinese stop genociding Tibet and the aftermath of the industrial destruction if Britain (sure that didn’t hit him much but it did me.) . The counterculture were the lefter side of the spectrum and the right were in control and full ‘Jesus is my co-pilot let’s go bomb Iraq!’
The world has changed and not for the better. So Thom, lovely, you will not get any of them to listen, they want capitulation, not peace or nuance. Don’t kneel for any of them, just keep making music.
 
they want capitulation, not peace or nuance
This is, incidentally, why they ally with islam and promote islamic causes in places where they have absolutely no reason to even be mentioned. They see a desire in common, a demand for total submission, and think they can ride it to absolute power. Just like the communists in Iran..
 
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