2020 presidential election
Trump Advisor Compares Joe Biden To Well-Known Villain ... Mister Rogers
'You Can Never Go Down The Drain,' indeed.
October 16, 2020 11:00 AM
Sometimes people get mad
And they feel like being bad.
But the very same people who are mad sometimes
Are the very same people who are glad sometimes.
It's funny, but it's true.
It's the same, isn't it for me, isn't it the same for you?
Last night, during the debate, Trump advisor Mercedes Schlapp decided to totally own Joe Biden by comparing his town hall to an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, perhaps the most universally beloved show in American history.
Well @JoeBiden @ABCPolitics townhall feels like I am watching an episode of Mister Rodgers Neighborhood. https://t.co/bC8fIZPxHR— Mercedes Schlapp (@Mercedes Schlapp)1602807330.0
<em>What do you do with the mad that you feel</em><p><em>When you feel so mad you could bite?<br>When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...<br>And nothing you do seems very right?</em></p><p><em>What do you do? Do you punch a bag?<br>Do you pound some clay or some dough?<br>Do you round up friends for a game of tag?<br>Or see how fast you go?</em></p><p>The fact that Mercedes Schlapp thought that this was a real sick burn really says a lot more about her than it does about Joe Biden. Of course, she did spell Mister Rogers's name wrong, so maybe she has never actually seen the show — and that could certainly explain some things. Perhaps she never <em>did</em> learn what to do with the mad that she feels.</p><p>Mister Rogers had a certain way about him that made everyone feel better, that still makes people feel better, or calmer or even sad, but in a good and cathartic way. Saying someone is like Mister Rogers is just about the nicest compliment you can give. </p><p>The tweet was particularly ill-advised given that Biden's town hall was in Pennsylvania — Mister Rogers's own home state, and the state that is currently most likely to decide the election. People there may not take kindly to his name being used in a disparaging manner. </p><p>It also served as a way to remind the public of what Joanne Rogers, Mister Rogers's widow, said when President Trump came to their hometown in Pennsylvania. </p><p>Via <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/515121-mister-rogerss-widow-on-trump-i-think-hes-just-a-horrible" target="_blank">The Hill:</a></p><blockquote>"I think he's just a horrible person," she <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-in-mr-rogers-neighborhood-and-freds-widow-is-none-too-happy" target="_blank">told The Daily Beast</a> on Thursday. "This man is pathologically ill. Mentally ill."<br><br>She blasted Trump for telling lies when asked why she considers him "horrible."<br><br>"I think maybe the fact that Mr. Trump seldom tells the truth," she said. "If he does, it's just a fluke, I think. But the fact [is] that I can't believe anything he says, not even the simplest thing."</blockquote><p>Mister Rogers's whole thing was loving everyone and finding the good in them no matter what. If someone who lived with that man for however many decades can't find anything good about Donald Trump, I think that certainly says something. </p><p>It may also serve as a reminder to many people across the country who did grow up watching Mister Rogers that they can always put away the meanness and the bitterness that Donald Trump brought out in them and decide to be nice people instead. I know It probably won't, but it's a nice thought all the same. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p><br></p><p><span></span>[<a href="https://twitter.com/mercedesschlapp/status/1316895508267401221?s=20" target="_blank">Mercedes Schlapp Twitter</a>]</p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Conspiracy Theories
Quaint Sexting Scandal Turns To Flaming Wreckage As QAnon News Anchor Self-Destructs
Anchor down in Anchorage.
October 15, 2020 02:15 PM
Ethan Berkowitz, the Anchorage mayor who is the highest ranking Democratic official in the state of Alaska, stepped down this week after it was revealed that "several years ago" he had an "inappropriate texting relationship" with local reporter Maria Athens.
In simpler times, this would all be a fairly standard political scandal. A rather quaint one, really, given that as far as we know, nothing actually happened in person. We might even ask ourselves questions like "Why is this even a thing? Should he really resign over something like that? Are we really still pretending we care if politicians cheat on their spouses? And, really, do the Republicans have room to criticize an Alaska mayor for not stepping down over that kind of thing when they elected Donald Trump? Don't they kind of have to shut their mouths about that kind of thing forever?" before forgetting about it and both of them forever.
But it's 2020 and things are rarely that simple anymore.
<p>As it turns out, the only reason we even know about any of this is because Maria Athens, the news anchor in question, is a QAnon/Save The Children believer who now thinks everyone is a pedophile and did not just accuse Berkowitz of having an affair with her, but also of being a pedophile, based on a story from another QAnon weirdo who was wrong about a thing, and her accusations against Berkowitz involved a ranting voicemail that got super anti-Semitic and involved death threats. Because, again, it's 2020. </p><p>Let's start from the beginning! Ish!</p><p>Several years ago, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz began a textual relationship with reporter Maria Athens. As far as we know, it never went further than that. At some point, he sent her a picture of his butt or some other unclothed part of his body. </p><p>Fast forward to last Friday, when Athens was interviewing the owner of a cookie shop, who is apparently the sister of a guy named Andy Kriner who owns a diner in Anchorage that's gotten into <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/08/09/city-seeks-contempt-of-court-hearing-against-kriners-diner-owners-and-attorney/" target="_blank">a bunch of drama</a> with the city due to their insistence on staying open during the pandemic. The subject somehow turned to Mayor Berkowitz and what the cookie shop owner thought of him. She said she wasn't sure and then asked if he was short. </p><p>Athens says yes and then Cookie Shop Owner says that her daughter used to be a non-sexual escort in Anchorage and they have a whole conversation that results in Athens calling up Mayor Berkowitz and leaving this message on his voicemail.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p><br></p><blockquote>Ethan, it's Maria Athens from Fox/ABC/CW/News Net National Alaska. Uh, I just learned through my g- my, eh, ah ... Emmy-award winning journalism, you're also a pedophile and like little girls and children, and there's a website. I'm so fucking exposing you. I'm gonna get an Emmy. So you either turn yourself in, kill yourself, or do what you need to do. I will personally kill you and Mara Kimmel my god damn self, you Jewish piece of living fucking shit. You have met your match, motherfucker. You have met your motherfucking match. I can't believe- I am such a good person, and thought I loved you. I fucking hate- I don't even hate you. I will pray for your Zionist fucking ass, you piece of shit loser. And, I'm putting this on the news tonight. Bye! Have a great Friday, you motherfucker!</blockquote><p>After that, she went to the station to record a video teaser alleging that "Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has his male genitalia posted on an underage girls' website." <br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p>Athens then physically assaulted station general manager Scott Centers, who was also reportedly her boyfriend, and was arrested. </p><p>So what exactly was the conversation that prompted this? Well, when Cookie Shop Owner heard that he was short, she decided that he must be the same man who "worked for the state of Alaska" who her daughter, the non-sexual escort, said was her favorite client. The daughter found out about it and implored her mother to tell Athens that Berkowitz was never her client, according to a text message she (the daughter) posted to Twitter.</p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
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</p><p>Her daughter <a href="https://twitter.com/angelbbx2/status/1315011951366303744?s=21" target="_blank">has since explained</a> what she believes occurred during the conversation (the rest of her Twitter is very NSFW, just FYI):<br></p><blockquote>So for a bit of back story, I was an escort in Alaska in 2018. I would get paid to go on dates with men or to keep them company (I never did anything sexual or was paid for sexual favors)<br><br>She was obviously still very upset at the idea of her 18 year old daughter escorting. She started asking me questions about who I would work with, and all I told her was that my favorite person I worked with was a man that worked for the state of Alaska.<br><br>All I told her about this man was that he worked for the state of Alaska, and that he was short. That's IT, okay? I didn't say any names, nothing.<br><br>Fast forward to 2020, my mother owns a cookie business that's doing somewhat successful, and a local news station asked my mom if she would like to do a story about it. My mom said yes and went to the interview.<br>The interviewer was Maria Athens, who (according to my mother) asked her about what my mom thought about the local anchorage Mayor, Ethan Berkowitz. <br><br>My mom asked if he was short. After learning he was short, my mom decided that Ethan Berkowitz was the one I was an escort for.<br><br>She went off on a whole story about how I was an escort for Mr. Berkowitz, that he hired me for sexual favors, sent me pictures, etc. because she was receiving attention for what she was saying, and she wanted her five seconds of fame.<br><br>I was NOT an escort for Ethan Berkowitz, I don't know that man and I have NEVER met him. He has never sent me naked pictures or posted any on any of my websites, I have no idea who that man is. Maria Athens is running a fake story in attempts to ruin this mans life.</blockquote><p>So there's that! It also turns out that Maria Athens had been frequently posting on the Save Anchorage! Facebook group that is <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/anchorage/comments/ij9joc/save_anchorage/" target="_blank">reportedly focused on QAnon</a> and accusing random people of being pedophiles. <br></p><p>I'm not really sure what the moral of this story is here, but I don't think it would have happened were it not for all of the QAnon/Save The Children hysteria. Ethan Berkowitz wasn't the only person whose life was ruined this week. Maria Athens also ruined her own life, a life she worked pretty hard for. She went to Seton Hall, she worked in journalism all her life, and now it's pretty unlikely she will ever have a journalism career again. She ruined her relationship with her current boyfriend. Her life is now definitely more ruined than Berkowitz's is — he can come back from a sexting scandal that no one really cares all that much about anyway, but she can't really come back from losing her shit this publicly. </p><p>This is what these conspiracies are doing to people. We can say that oh, maybe she has psychological problems that have nothing to do with QAnon and Save The Children — and that may well be true. But lots of people have psychological issues. This crap, however, has a way of tapping into something in people that makes them go off the deep end in a way they probably wouldn't have done otherwise. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.anchoragepress.com/columnists/maria-athens-timeline-includes-andy-kriner-save-anchorage-facebook-group/article_eff2df62-0c3c-11eb-b3fe-f3cc079ccd93.html" target="_blank">Anchorage Press</a>]</p><p><span></span></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Class War
Weep, Weep (Don't Weep) For The Poor (Not Poor) White Supremacists (Definitely White Supremacists)!
In which Walker Bragman's rural poverty domestic terrorism chic is buried as it deserves.
October 15, 2020 12:17 PM
Last week, America was blessed with a tantalizing glimpse of the future. Black Twitter, farm Twitter, real estate Twitter, blue-check policy wonks, and trailer park Twitter came together as one. What for? To deep-fry Walker Bragman, whom I had never heard of before last week, for his ignorant assertion that white supremacist terrorism is caused by "economic circumstances."
Unfortunately for poverty tastemakers like Bragman, who once complained that Uber brings gross icky poors who sleep in their cars into his nice clean Hamptons, rural Americans use Twitter. They were quick to point out that building private armies to overthrow the government is a rich and middle-class man's game. Accordingly, this isn't the broken-down shack that Walker, East End Ranger thinks it is. It's messy because it was just raided by the FBI. The home is new, in good repair (as seen on its Zillow page), and owned, not rented. It's got a private dumpster. Those are costly: a de facto class marker in rural areas without trash service. Nearby residents complained Joseph Morrison brought large groups to use the whole neighborhood as their personal shooting range. In other words, the first people these men terrorized were their own neighbors — the very rural residents Bragman claims to speak for.
<p>Explaining away domestic terrorism as symptom of poverty is false, it's condescending, and it's weaponized rich white men's nonsense. It's the other way around. White supremacy <em>causes poverty</em>. Real live rural activists know this from experience. We build on work like unionizing the Tar Heel plant, the world's largest slaughterhouse, where traditional race-blind labor organizing failed again and again. That's because the plant's white leadership purposefully sowed racial hostility in its workforce, pitting local Black workers against immigrant Latino labor. Only when labor organizers laid their usual race-blind tactics aside and tackled racism <em>first</em> were they able to unionize the plant.<br></p><p>Unlike Bragman, who handles rural poverty at a discreet kid-glove distance, rural activists like me can't escape how white supremacy drives poverty. I live 20 minutes from the Tar Heel plant in Bladen County. Yes, <em>that</em> Bladen County, home of the infamous <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/north-carolina-ninth-district-fraud-mccready-bishop/597412/" target="_blank">NC-09 election fraud</a> scandal. Ballot fraud targeted poor rural meat plant workers, who are disproportionately Black and brown. Now Tar Heel workers get to try and live through a pandemic in a workplace that's one of the main hotspots for COVID-19 in our whole state. If terrorism were really about poverty, Bladen County, North Carolina's soggy trailer parks full of broke, sick Black and brown meat workers would be ground zero.<br><br>I used to do food safety checks for farms in rural southern Michigan. These weren't government inspections. Farmers ordered and paid for them. Even so, one client skipped a lot of basic public health measures, like storing tools indoors where rats can't get to them. He thought we were a diploma-mill. He became so enraged that I actually did my job and docked points that, afterwards, he tailed me down the road and tried to run me off it. I saw his truck coming up in the rear-view mirror and gunned it. Like last week's arrestees, he preferred femicide to meeting basic responsibilities to public health. He peeled off when we hit the town limit, too chicken for vehicular homicide in front of witnesses, I guess.<br><br>Just last month, another farmer in southern Michigan got in the news for <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-farmer-racist-attack-video-1531000" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">yelling the N-word at a Mexican farmworker</a> on camera. (For those keeping score at home, yes. He 1. yelled racial slurs at staff and 2. can't keep his slurs straight.) Neither man behaved this way because they're poor or powerless. In fact, both own a lot of property. Both already have a lot of control over other people. They use violence to <em>stay</em> in control. That's what drove last week's arrestees too. Rural desperation is real — and it's not what drove these men to plot a coup. That's just basic thirst to dominate.<br><br>This is what the rural poor are up against. The rural upper class, from meat plants all the way down to the petty bourgeoisie, rules by violence both public and intimate. It's almost always white men dominating those they deem inferior: women, men of color, and laborers. There's an <a href="https://twitter.com/MegRaeB" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">entire wing</a> of farm twitter dedicated to ending this behavior. We live here and we know exactly where rural poverty comes from: white male violence. That's why the loudest voices shouting "Poverty causes white supremacy" aren't working people in rural areas. They're well-heeled racists who desperately need to sell white supremacy as the (white) people's choice.<br><br>But as we saw last week, most people already know this. That's brought Americans from all different walks of life together to bond over one poverty-splaining buffoon from the Hamptons. And that's a common bond that we can build on.</p><p>Wonkette is ad-free and funded ONLY by YOU. Help us pay the writers, please, if you are able! </p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Media/Entertainment
MSNBC Hosts Agree: F*ck NBC News And Its Dumb Trump Town Hall
Good on them.
October 15, 2020 11:10 AM
A lot of our favorite TV hosts work for NBC News. We cannot say the same about a lot of our favorite TV executives.
There was supposed to be a presidential debate tonight, the second one, the town hall one. After Donald Trump inhaled a bunch of COVID off a Big Mac-flavored doorknob and got the entire White House sick — or at least that's our theory of how it happened — the debate was moved to a virtual format. Trump threw a temper tantrum and noped out. So Joe Biden said fine, and ABC News announced it would have a town hall with Biden the same night. At least one candidate was going to show up for what he had agreed to do.
But then Wednesday, out of the blue, and apparently after Trump allegedly tested negative for the Covids, NBC News announced that it would ALSO TOO be doing a town hall tonight, with Trump, at the exact same time as the Biden town hall. Because apparently NBC News execs have been feeding at the same "both sides" trough of bullshit where Chuck Todd gets his sustenance.
Immediately, everybody was pissed. Because for real? Trump is the whiny-ass authoritarian telegraphing on a daily basis that he's trying to steal this election, who refused to abide by the rules of the last debate. You're going to give him the reward of a competing time slot with Biden because he was the one who blew everything up? Gonna let him crow about his ratings? Fuck you.
Also, you're going to make voters choose which one they want to watch? By doing them at the same time? You couldn't put it an hour before or after? Fuck you again.
<p>CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/media/nbc-trump-town-hall-biden-abc/index.html" target="_blank">reports:</a></p><blockquote>NBC is "giving Trump exactly what he wants," in the words of one exasperated senior staffer: a made-by-TV rivalry between the president and Biden.</blockquote><p>And before you accuse the Trump campaign of demanding the same time-slot as Biden, it appears this was actually NBC's doing. The AP <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/nbc-faces-backlash-after-agreeing-to-trump-town-hall/2020/10/14/6e12d9e0-0e92-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html" target="_blank">reports:</a></p><blockquote>NBC said in a statement that "the Trump campaign did not dictate or request the time slot nor express any preference."<br><br>The network considered it important that Trump be given the same format, day of the week and length of time that Biden had on NBC last week — although he will have a different moderator.</blockquote><p>Thanks, NBC News!</p><p><span></span>So it was to our immense joy when we saw how MSNBC's night-time hosts felt about the it. Surprise, they are mad just like you! </p><p>As Chris Hayes handed off to Rachel Maddow for the 9 p.m. Eastern hour on Wednesday night, Hayes announced that they would not be having a show the next night. That's it. Period. No explanation. See you next time, though! Maddow proceeded to laugh her ass off and refer to Hayes's comments as a "suggestive pause," and a "diplomatic statement from a wise colleague." Hayes also laughed, because there they were on TV, using their words and their facial expressions to talk about what a fucking idiot-ass thing their bosses had done.</p><p>This Twitter user posted the exchange:</p><div id="29585" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a586f643bdb078c9bb69661ecaeca11d"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1316550914698809344" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Oh, snap! Apparently the @MSNBC anchors can't address the NBC/Trump Town Hall directly, but there is innuendo.… https://t.co/bHzfDMZQdi</div> — Kathy L Tobiassen (@Kathy L Tobiassen)<a href="https://twitter.com/ktwolf/statuses/1316550914698809344">1602725173.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Later in Maddow's program, she was interviewing Senator Kamala Harris, who by all appearances will be the vice president-elect starting three Tuesdays from now, and asked Harris if she was as "mad as everybody else" about what NBC News had done. Harris proceeded to laugh HER ass off and say, "I'm not touching that!" But she knew. And Maddow knew. And we all knew. <br></p><div id="b6571" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c1a6c962fc5e08a6a3900469a44aaf73"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1316549047910576128" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">>> @Maddow: "Are you as mad as everybody else is that NBC is doing a town hall with President Trump tomorrow instea… https://t.co/cx2SzB9TJD</div> — Brian Stelter (@Brian Stelter)<a href="https://twitter.com/brianstelter/statuses/1316549047910576128">1602724727.0</a></blockquote></div><p>We didn't see the handoff between Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, but the AP reports on what happened toward the end of Maddow's show:<br></p><blockquote>In a second reference to the town hall as her show ended, Maddow spoke as the words "Apparently They Are Not Kidding" were shown on the screen behind her.</blockquote><p>Nice. Maddow and Hayes have a shitload of power at 30 Rock. Good to see them using it. </p><p>They're not the only ones pissed either:</p><div id="1bc2e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="53f4c5ab0dbc2ecffedbe6efaa2e0d93"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1316351283490705408" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The point of a news organization is to serve the public. This is the opposite. @NBCNews could literally run this an… https://t.co/RfXjYkCVxG</div> — Vivian Schiller (@Vivian Schiller)<a href="https://twitter.com/vivian/statuses/1316351283490705408">1602677577.0</a></blockquote></div><p>If there's any silver lining to this at all, it's that Trump will be in front of an unfriendly audience outside the safe space of his beloved Fox News, and will be sure to fuck himself in the ear, and that will take up all the airspace. Of course, the flip side of that is that Biden, who will be on ABC and thus not have the benefit of being on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC <em>at the same time</em>, will be drowned out, because yet again, President Authoritarian Yapmouth is taking up all the airspace.</p><p>The Joe Biden town hall airs on ABC News at 8 p.m. Eastern. It will be 30 minutes longer than Trump's town hall, but if you want to flip back over to MSNBC to watch Maddow at 9:00, that is acceptable. </p><p>All other watching of networks with peacocks anywhere in the logo is hereby banned, at least for today. </p><p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Oh, NBC News, you idiot:</p>
<div id="53757" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="308bb63f7d8b8885920d94c7b001db96"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1316800538072285185" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Trump tells the crowd he's doing his NBC town hall tonight. He says NBC is "the worst" and repeatedly insults them… https://t.co/JWQdTlxwKn</div> — Felicia Sonmez (@Felicia Sonmez)<a href="https://twitter.com/feliciasonmez/statuses/1316800538072285185">1602784687.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br></p><p>[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/nbc-faces-backlash-after-agreeing-to-trump-town-hall/2020/10/14/6e12d9e0-0e92-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html" target="_blank">AP</a> / <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/media/nbc-trump-town-hall-biden-abc/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>]</p><p><strong>Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/evanhurst" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE!</a><br></strong></p><p><strong>Wonkette is fully funded by readers like YOU. If you love Wonkette, WE NEED YOUR LOVE GIFTS TO KEEP US GOING.</strong><br></p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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