Government Shutdown 2013-2014 My Civil Servant Brethern...what you think

 
My "friend girl" is from Canada. She's always so confused about the **** that goes on here.

Our process, the hoops we jump through for everything.... how unorganized our government is.

I swear, in Canada, the government is like the supreme cake boss. They do so much for their citizens it's ridiculous. Everything starts with, "In Canada they give us...."
+1 my girl is from Australia, lived there for a year. Free health care, money from the govt every month if you have a child(doesn't matter rich or poor),barley anything such as crime rate there, whole time living there only seen 10 homeless people on the street's max(lived in sydney biggest city in OZ), and every Aussie I meet said how "Lucky I was to live in America" they would we trade places with me in a heart beat. I just laugh and say in my head "If only they knew the real story".
 
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*sigh* more spin...we're gonna try this again.

why are employers delayed for a year and individuals aren't?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opin...exemptions-hyperbole-20131002,0,6344095.story

There's one answer. Yes, the Administration allowed large businesses to be exempt from the employer mandate until 2015, but the reason is due to those employers claiming they won't be ready to comply with the law until 2015 and the Administration not wanting those insured under large employers' plans to lose coverage. There are also answers in the article to the myth that Congress is exempt, and that unions got the waiver they wanted.
 
congress gets a 72% subsidy

and thats more then enough reason to delay da bill for everyone else...as ya can see da entire process has been a complete crap shoot thus

far.
 
Ninjahood,

where do you work?
not the actual place (if you're not comfortable), but what industry?
 
I think ninja is right that eventually Obama gets the blame. Most Americans don't know why the house even IS. How can they blame them?

Especially if you thinking 60 years from now. No way in hell average people gonna be talking about John boner

But it honestly doesn't matter unless you talking about ego, legacy etc.

Either way big business with smack fire out of the tea party if we default. Koch and the like will stop funding them and thongs will go back to normal establishment lines

Literally no polls and surveys agree with this assessment. Every poll I've seen says that the public finds fault with the Republican party. I posted actual news articles from relevant sources a couple pages ago.



all those sentences...yet nothing is presented..why would i want obama to fail?

meanwhile nothing substantial has been put forth on why do businesses and unions get a one year delay and everyone else doesn't...

I would think simple logistics would make it harder for businesses and unions, which generally consist of hundreds-thousands of people, to make the necessary changes, as opposed to single individuals or families, which are significantly smaller.
 
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Polls have nothing to do with how people think years from now. Polls are an immediate snapshot.

Even if republicans are more to blamed by 20 points. The house is too gerrymandered for it to be relevant.

The closer we get to the debt ceiling fight the media will start with the whole "both sides are to hardened in their position. Both sides need to work with each other". The same stuff that's been happening through all these mini fights. A few guests already have been saying that on msnbc. It's been a huge problem for years.

For example mainstream media will report something like this

"democrats say sky is blue. Republicans disagree"

Instead of "the sky is blue, one side is wrong"
 
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congress gets a 72% subsidy

and thats more then enough reason to delay da bill for everyone else...as ya can see da entire process has been a complete crap shoot thus

far.

Is this supposed to answer the article that explains why Congress and large employers are getting temporary exemptions/waivers?

Like Fantastic4our said above me, there's a big difference between an individual going on the exchanges and purchasing a policy, and a large employer offering health plans for its employees that fit within the parameters of the law.

Again, "they're getting a temporary waiver so I should get one too" is not an argument. The GOP does not want to DELAY the ACA they want to GET RID of it. Why should Obama and the Dems believe the Republicans when they say the ACA will destroy America that they merely want to delay it for a year to iron out the kinks?

The GOP has backed itself into a corner by allowing the Tea Partiers to control the party. The shutdown is already viewed as a manufactured crisis due to the GOP's intransigence when it comes to a LAW.

This is what happens when you lose an election that you convinced yourself you were going to easily win.
 
I would think simple logistics would make it harder for businesses and unions, which generally consist of hundreds-thousands of people, to make the necessary changes, as opposed to single individuals or families, which are significantly smaller.

this had been explained and gone over countless times in this thread, i may have even been the first to give this answer but Ninjahood continues to look right over it.

everytime someone gives this answer Ninjahood comes back with "but years from now people wont remember...."
 
But fox news tells me its the democrats that don't want to talk or negotiate.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/10...ns-to-White-House-meeting-nearly-all-decline#

i wonder how many people actually watch these fools? i heard something like their main demographic is 65 and older...people on their way out. same for rush limbaugh.




anyways i wanted to post some information amid all this back and forth.



First, here are things the GOP have demanded over time in exchange for not shutting down govt.

1. A balanced budget amendment [Link]
2. Approving Keystone XL [Link]
3. Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood [Link]
4. Medicare privatization [Link]
5. Tax reform, as outlined by Paul Ryan [Link]
6. The REINS Act, which would require Congress to approve significant federal regulations [Link]
7. Means-testing Social Security [Link]
8. Defunding Obamacare [Link]
9. Allowing employers to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control [Link]
10. An expansion of off-shore drilling [Link]
11. Preserving all the Bush tax cuts [Link]
12. “Trillions” in budget cuts [Link]
13. Slashing funding for food stamps [Link]
14. Protecting mountaintop strip mining [Link]
15. Stripping the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases [Link]
16. Loosening regulation on coal ash [Link]
17. Delaying Obamacare implementation by one year [Link]
18. Repealing a tax on medical devices [Link]
19. Eliminating Social Service Block Grants [Link]
20. Expanding drilling on federal lands [Link]
21. Restricting the child tax credit [Link]

almost the whole list would have terrible implications to middle and low income families, it reiterates the sexist and anti feminist rhetoric the GOP continue to spew, and completely ignores the environmental issues facing not us as a country but as ************* planet.






if you want to understand the healthcare law, here is some information to get you started.

1. Will Obamacare end up costing me money?
It depends, but probably not as much as you’ve heard on the news. If you already have insurance through your job, Obamacare probably won’t directly affect your monthly premiums — and could actually end up saving you money in the long run by eliminating your co-pays for preventative care, like regular check-ups and STD screenings. If you don’t have insurance, on the other hand, you’ll be eligible for a plan on Obamacare’s new marketplaces and you’ll have to pay a premium for it. That’s more expensive than paying no monthly premium, but arguably cheaper than going uninsured and having to pay out-of-pocket for all of your health services, plus the penalty for not getting insurance. Depending on your income (and whether or not your employer offers an insurance plan), you could receive federal subsidies to help cover part of that premium.
There’s been a lot of talk about “rate shock” in reference to the marketplaces, but multiple studies actually project that the new Obamacare plans will be cheaper than expected.

2. What if I already have health insurance?
The big changes under Obamacare mostly affect the Americans who don’t already have insurance. If you already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, or Medicaid nothing about that will change. You’ll continue to have the same plan and it will continue to be administered in the same way. (You should receive a notice from your insurance company explaining whether or not your plan is compliant under Obamacare, and notifying you about the new exchanges opening next month.) If you’re self-employed and you buy your insurance on the individual market, you might want to compare your current plan to the new plans that will be offered on Obamacare’s marketplaces — you could be able to choose a cheaper option.

3. If I’m keeping my current health insurance, does Obamacare benefit me?
Yes. Even if you’re not enrolling for one of Obamacare’s new programs, the health law has some benefits for you. There are two major things that fall into this category:
>>1. Before you get sick. All of the stuff that qualifies as “preventative care” will now be available to you at no out-of-pocket cost. That means no copay on a whole battery of tests including blood pressure screenings, vaccinations, and STD/HIV screenings.
If you’re a woman, there’s a lot in this part of the law for you. Birth control — of all types — is now available to women without a copay. Not only does that mean you don’t need to shell out cash to get the pill, it also means you can get an intrauterine device (IUD), the most effective form of birth control, without paying anything out of pocket. If you want to have a baby, you’ll also feel the benefits of the law. More maternity care will be covered by the new law and, when your baby is born, your insurance company will now cover the cost of a breast pump.
The preventative care aspect of the law also provides women with HPV vaccines, mammograms, STD screening, and domestic violence counseling. An estimated 27 million women are benefiting from these new provisions.
Note: Some individual plans, called ‘grandfathered’ plans, will be exempt from this provision.
>>>2. If you’re ill or hurt. People who already have suffered a major illness or accident know that insurance companies can be terribly unforgiving. But Obamacare mandates insurance companies aren’t allowed to deny you insurance if you have any pre-existing condition. That means, no matter what your medical history looks like, you’ll be able to sign up for it. The law also eliminates lifetime caps on healthcare spending. So, you’ll be able to get all the essential care you need if you get sick, without worrying that your insurance company will cut off the money you need to get better.
Note: ‘Grandfathered’ plans will be exempt from the pre-existing condition aspect of this part, but not the lifetime limits.


4. Health insurance is so hard to figure out. How can I even tell what’s in my plan?
Under Obamacare, health insurers will be required to provide you with a “summary of benefits and coverage” that explains — in plain English! — what’s included in your plan. Insurers will also need to offer a standard glossary that defines some commonly-misunderstood health insurance terms, like “co-pay” and “deductible.” The hope is that Americans will be better equipped to compare different plans, and decide which insurance option is best for them, when they understand the insurance jargon better.

5. Why did I get a check in the mail from my insurance company?
If your insurance company sent you a reimbursement check, it’s probably to make up for the fact that you’ve been paying for its administrative costs instead of your health care. Obamacare requires insurance companies to strike a balance in this area, devoting 80 to 85 percent of the money you spend on your insurance premiums to providing health care and just 20 to 15 percent of it to their own overhead and profits. If they spend more on that second category, they’re required to pay that money back to their customers. It’s called the “medical loss ratio,” and since its implementation in 2011, this Obamacare provision has saved Americans more than $1 billion.

6. Are dental or vision insurance plans affected by the new law?
Unfortunately, there is no dental coverage as part of Obamacare, unless you qualify for Medicaid. Some are pushing for the inclusion of vision in the new health exchanges, but it is not currently part of the plan.

7. What are the “exchanges,” and should people like me join them?
The state-level exchanges, one of the essential tenets of the health reform law, are marketplaces where multiple insurers will compete to provide health plans. Each state and the District of Columbia will have its own insurance exchange, and all of the plans offered within them will be required to offer a set of “essential benefits” to ensure they’re not too skimpy. Along with Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion, the exchanges are the vehicle that will extend insurance to the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured.
The important thing to understand about the exchanges is that they intend to provide coverage only to the people who can’t get it elsewhere — such as through their job, or through another federal program like Medicaid — and they’ll extend federal subsidies to help those people afford the cost of buying that coverage. Americans earning annual incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (in other words, up to $94,000 for a family of four) will qualify for federal assistance to help them buy plans on the marketplace. You can use this site to figure out whether you’ll get a subsidy based on your income.
The most recent projections say the premiums for these plans will be even cheaper than originally predicted. Among the Americans who are currently uninsured and will be able to purchase plans on one of Obamacare’s exchanges, an estimated 6 in 10 of them won’t need to pay more than $100 per month to get coverage.
Undocumented immigrants will be barred from purchasing plans on the new health exchanges, even if they have benefited from deferred action. Some immigration reform advocates are pushing to change that on the state level.

8. If I want to sign up for a new government-organized health plan, how can I?
The enrollment period for the new insurance exchanges begins on October 1 and goes until March 31. During that time period, Americans will be able to sign up for new Obamacare plans by either logging onto healthcare.gov, mailing in a paper copy of an application (to find out where to mail it, click here), or meeting with a “navigator” in person at one of the many enrollment fairs that are kicking off around the country. The navigators, who are specifically tasked with assisting Americans with signing up for health care plans, are available to answer questions for the people who are confused about what they should do. You can reach them by calling the hotline at 800-318-2596, and they’ll help you fill out an application if you’re having trouble with it.
There’s been a lot of confusion swirling around Obamacare, and the federal government doesn’t expect a rush of people to sign up for the exchanges right away. Enrollment will likely be a slow and steady process. After the initial enrollment period ends, another one will open up in October 2014. But if you want health coverage by January 1, you need to sign up before then.

9. Why am I hearing so much about October 1? What does that date mean for me?
October 1 has been all over the news because that’s the date when Obamacare’s state-level exchanges officially open for business. Starting on that date, Americans will be able to purchase one of the plans offered in the new insurance marketplaces. But in reality, the date itself probably doesn’t mean that much for you. It’s a big symbolic day for the Obama administration, but Americans aren’t required to take any action on October 1. If you want to sign up for a plan in the exchanges, you have until March to do so. If you already have insurance through your job or through another government program, you don’t need to do anything at all because the exchanges don’t affect you right now.

10. What if I can’t afford any health coverage?
If you can’t afford health coverage right now, Obamacare hopes to change that for you. There are two main ways the health reform law could accomplish that.
First, if your income falls below 138 percent of the federal poverty line (for reference, that’s about $15,415 for an individual and $26,344 for a family of three), you could be eligible for expanded Medicaid coverage under the law. But it depends. Although Obamacare initially intended for the Medicaid expansion to be universal, the Supreme Court ruled that it should be optional — so now, not every state is participating. Check this map to see if your state is going to expand Medicaid.
Second, you could be eligible for federal assistance to afford an insurance plan in the new insurance marketplace in your state. Thanks to the federal subsidies available to help Americans buy plans on the newly-created marketplaces, most of the options will be relatively inexpensive. About six in 10 people will be able to buy one of those plans for less than $100 per month. You can find out whether you’ll qualify for a federal subsidy by using this calculator.

11. If I don’t want to get insurance, am I going to have to pay?
You will have to pay a penalty if you don’t sign up for health insurance. Why? Because taxpayers will be fronting the cost of your care if you wind up getting sick or hurt and need to go to the hospital, and that will be a lot more expensive than the penalty you’re paying. In 2014, the tax penalty for an adult will be $95 or 1 percent of your family income. For a child, the cost will be $47.50, with a total family cap at a $285 fine. By 2016 and beyond, it will cost you 2.5 percent of your family income, or $695, whichever is higher. Again, there is a cap on how much you’ll have to pay: $2,085 for a family.
Realistically, though, the law creates enough options that you shouldn’t forgo care because of cost. If you don’t think you can afford to get health care, look into the Medicaid expansion. If you don’t qualify there either, and you really can’t afford it, you should know that there are financial hardship exceptions from the penalties. There are also penalty exemptions for the undocumented, the incarcerated, and people with religious objections.

12. What happens to my insurance if I change jobs?
Should you quit or get fired and don’t have a new job you’re going to right away, you can go into the exchanges. COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, will also still exist, but for most people it will be the less advisable option. That government program is meant explicitly to provide health insurance for people who have reduced hours, are transitioning between jobs, have lost their jobs for any reason, or are coping with death or divorce. But it requires you to cover the entire cost of your monthly premiums, which is much more than most people are used to paying for employer-based insurance. The exchanges will probably be cheaper.
If your income level is low enough, you could also qualify for Medicaid under its new, expanded definition.
The process of changing insurance with a new job will look a lot like it does now. If you want to go into the health exchanges instead of take insurance from your new employer, you’ll be able to do that. People who have the option of getting qualified health coverage elsewhere, like through an employer, won’t qualify for any federal subsidies to help them buy a plan on the exchange. But if you do want to try a new employment opportunity that doesn’t come with stable insurance benefits, or start your own business, the exchanges could give you better options for your coverage than you had before.

13. Is Obamacare still at risk of getting repealed or defunded?
Republicans would like to think so, but it’s nearly impossible at this point. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted 42 times to dismantle the law, but hasn’t succeeded once. The Democratic-controlled Senate won’t agree to get rid of the law in its entirety. Most recently, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) performed a sham 21-hour “filibuster” in an effort to force the Senate to agree to defund the health law. But that ultimately won’t work either — the money designated to fund Obamacare’s most important provisions has already been appropriated, and can’t be removed unless the law is totally repealed.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a strong opponent of Obama on most things, recently said on the Senate floor that it’s time for Republicans to move on. “I don’t like it, it’s not something that I wanted the outcome to be,” he said in reference to to health reform law. “But I think all of us should respect the outcome of elections, which reflects the will of the people.”
Even though Republicans haven’t been able to completely repeal Obamacare, they are successfully slowing the law’s implementation on the state level. Anti-Obamacare lawmakers have rejected the law’s optional Medicaid expansion, slashed the budgets for outreach efforts to teach Americans about the law, enacted a whole lot of red tape to impede Americans from easily signing up for new plan, and ultimately confused the public about the nature of the law. That type of sabotage is impeding health reform in some ways, but it’s not doing away with it completely.

14. Is it true that Obamacare keeps getting delayed?
There has been a lot of news about individual Obamacare provisions getting delayed. Some people may assume that means the health law is being slowly dismantled, or put off for an additional several years. Republicans typically seize on this type of news to make the case that Obamacare isn’t working, and call for additional delays. Don’t be fooled, though. The Affordable Care Act is an extremely complicated law with a lot of moving parts, but ultimately, the biggest provisions are still moving forward. So far, the administrative issues along the way have been relatively minor in terms of the scope of the entire law.
There will likely be more hiccups along the way. As the enrollment period opens for Obamacare’s new exchanges, industry experts predict there will probably be other issues that need to be ironed out — but that doesn’t mean the whole law is collapsing.

15. Who will wind up benefiting most from the new law?
There’s no clear-cut answer to that question. People who can’t afford insurance right now will obviously benefit a lot, because they’ll gain more options for getting coverage. A lot of people who have been locked out of the insurance market because they have a pre-existing condition, or because their medical care has become too expensive and insurers won’t keep paying for it, will also gain affordable coverage that wasn’t available to them before. And people who already had insurance through their employers will gain an expanded pool of benefits, like preventive check-ups and cancer screenings, at no additional cost to them. Women definitely stand to benefit, since insurance companies will no longer be allowed to charge them more for the same care that’s offered to men. Young adults no longer have to worry about going uninsured right after graduating from college because they can stay on their parents’ plans until the age of 26. Seniors on Medicare are getting cheaper prescription drugs.
Find out more about how the health law specifically impacts you here.

16. How do gay couples factor into Obamacare?
The law itself mandates that insurance companies can’t discriminate against gay couples. So, if you are already on or are signing up for a private insurance plan and you want to get coverage for your same-sex partner, you can — just as long as your plan includes some form of spousal benefits.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, the government now recognizes same-sex couples for federal benefits. That means that if you and your same-sex partner are in a state that recognizes your marriage, you’ll be able to join the exchanges as a family unit. If you are eligible for Medicaid, the government is also working on creating a system that recognizes your legal marriage and treats you as a family unit.

17. Is it true that Obamacare will force me to switch doctors / force my company to cut my hours/ end employer-run health insurance as we know it?
Many of these “downsides” to the law are being pushed by people who don’t like it for political reasons, but that doesn’t make them true. No, your doctor is not now going to be forced to ask you about your sex life. The new government-run plans aren’t going to put all your personal information at risk. And all the buzz you’re hearing about having to switch doctors because of the law is overblown. It is possible you might have to switch doctors in the coming years, but that has more to do with the state of the health insurance industry than with the specifics of Obamacare. As the LA times explains, forcing patients to switch doctors “has been happening anyway because insurers are under enormous pressure from big customers to cut costs.”
Obamacare is also becoming a scapegoat when it comes to the prospect of your employer potentially cutting your hours or moving people from full- to part-time. Any employer you hear about that is cutting people’s hours is just pretending Obamacare is the reason so they don’t look like the bad guy. Very few employers have cut hours citing Obamacare, and many actually say they’re planning to hire more workers just in time for the full Obamacare rollout.
And, in terms of Obamacare ending employer-based insurance, there’s no need to panic there, either. Yes, the law will provide more options than we used to have. It will probably gradually shift people away from employer-run plans, too. But even generous predictions estimate that the vast majority of people will still get insurance through their jobs over the next decade. One potential impact of the law is that more people will have the flexibility to look for a new job now that they know they won’t be tied to their employer-provided insurance for coverage.

18. What happens to my spouse’s coverage under Obamacare?
Spouses will not lose coverage when Obamacare rolls out. A few big companies have captured headlines by announcing they want to move spouses off of insurance plans and into the newly-created exchanges. In those very few cases, spouses may have to switch plans, but they aren’t losing coverage, they are just changing providers. Either way, in the vast majority of cases, employer based insurance will continue as it always has.

19. What’s the timeline for rolling out all of these features? What’s already happened and what are we still waiting for?
Believe it or not, a lot of Obamacare has already gone into effect. The first provisions took place way back in 2010. In June of that year, Obamacare closed the so-called “doughnut hole,” and Seniors who fell into that gap in Medicare coverage received a $250 check in the mail. That was the very first provision to be rolled out, but it’s far from the last. The majority of the law will go into effect by 2014, when the exchanges are set up. The very last aspect won’t roll out until 2018, when certain “Cadillac” insurance plans — top-of-the-line health plans that cost tens of thousands of dollars — will get an added tax. The White House has a fairly comprehensive timeline of dates for Obamacare’s rollout here.

20. Where do I go to ask more questions?
There are a ton of options for where to get information on Obamacare, but a great place to start is at www.healthcare.govwww.cuidadodesalud.gov for Spanish-speakers — or at www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform. The Kaiser Foundation, too, can give you more specific guidance if you still have any questions. And, on top of all that, another neat aspect of the new law is that your state is now required to employ people called “navigators,” whose sole job is to help you navigate the massive new law.





GOP Agenda as per healthcare law:

"By the time it was fully formed, the Confederacy had eleven member states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and the territory that is now Oklahoma.

This, with the exception of Arkansas, is also a partial list of those states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. As the New York Times points out in today’s must-read story, the direct result of this is to block millions of Americans from access to health insurance. And while Southern states don’t comprise the majority of those that aren’t expanding Medicaid, the majority of people who will suffer are poor, black, and in their borders. These are some of the most vulnerable people in the country—with terrible outcomes on most measures of well-being—and Obamacare won’t help them."

(http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...d-health-care-for-those-who-need-it-most.html)




Finally, GOP want to slash social benefits for the poor, such as food stamps and welfare, aka the less fortunate, aka ninjahood's neighbors. This is a great read btw.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/09/why-food-stamps-matter.html







Racism plays a role in Obama's presidency. It is a big reason why he's had so much trouble making progress with congress, specifically republican led House of Reps. The desire to slander his reputation and ruin his legacy is strong with the conservative base. if you have the time, maybe on the commute home, give this a read on your phone.


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/09/2730651/how-racism-caused-the-shutdown/





Feel free to add information. I don't cosign with every single thing Obama has ever done, but im no fool, and i think its important we keep things in perspective with real talk. And no i don't regret voting for him.


ib4 the retaliation....
 
Remember when Obama was against raising the debt ceiling. Both parties should do everyone a favor just publicly kill themselves.
 
my boy Boehner look like he been crying. 

Tea Party told that man they got his family tied up somewhere in Baltimore. 

Eric Cantor is that dude you just want to punch in the face just because. I hate the way this guy looks. Biggest ******g dbag I've ever seen. 
 
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The sad part is that it's the people at the bottom feeling the effects of it, while the guys on top are just enjoying the paid time off. Horrible
 
This how you know that Presidents are just puppets. However remember when Congress actually paid for their bills they approved? Instead of using it as a negotiation technique.
 
Well well well, it appears as though the letter from the Koch Brothers finally sunk in for Boehner and Co. and made them realize the error in their ways.  Maybe the Koch Brothers should send a letter to ninjahood as well.
 
Yall just let me know if HUD has to shut down

NEEXXXXXXT!

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death benefits just smacked obama in da face...house passed da bill and as soon as news hit senate did a complete 180 and signed

da bill...they tried to play a pawn game and got caught in da cookie jar.
 
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