Saturday, July 30, 2016

Putin Loves Hillary!


Putin Loves Hillary!

By Julio Severo
Some conservatives, panicked after recent headlines on Donald Trump appealing for Russia to reveal Hillary Clinton’s crimes, are appealing to dishonesty, accusing that “Putin loves Hillary” because of information that the Russia President Vladimir Putin made business with Hillary.  
Putin and Hillary
To prove their point, they post pictures of Putin and Hillary together, as if a picture of a smiling Ronald Reagan with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were enough evidence that both were allies. Actually the pictures were taken when Hillary was U.S. State Secretary and, whether such secretary is Democrat (socialist) or Republican (conservative), chiefs of state, including of Russia, have to welcome him.
Ronald Reagan smiling with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Putin, as all the other rulers, makes business with anyone, even with Trump, who has companies that have business in Russia.
If they followed the logic of anti-Russia activists all the conservative media should also publish headlines “Putin loves Trump,” because Trump has business in Russia and also because Putin openly praises Trump and vice versa.
In fact, one can also accuse that “Trump loves Hillary” because the Trump family and the Clinton family have a decades-old friendship and there are records of Trump often supporting Hillary. And if anti-Russia activists love so much pictures to prove their points, there is no lack of pictures of a smiling Trump with Bill and Hillary Clinton. For this reason, if anti-Russia activists have ethics to say that “Putin loves Hillary” they should have the same ethics to say: “Trump loves Hillary.”
Donald Trump smiling with Bill and Hillary Clinton
This has nothing to do with ideological differences, but merely love of money. Anti-Russia activists seem not to have enough grey matter to understand it or they have more than enough dishonesty to reject reality.
While these activists live and make a livelihood of a passion for dreams and nightmares of the long-gone the Cold War years, the richly recorded history of Trump shows that he is not moved by ideology, but solely by business interests.
While Obama and his leftist administration launch boycott after boycott against Russia after Russians passed a law banning homosexual propaganda to children and teens, Trump has been, in an astonishing contrast, making positive gestures toward Russia.
If anti-Russia activists are so serious about their obsessions against Russia, the right idol for them is the Muslim Kenyan launching boycotts against Russia, not the business candidate waving friendly to Putin. Those many waves are a remarkable contrast with the sullen faces of these activists and with the sullen face Obama shows in his pictures with Putin.
If an obsession against Russia is the most important thing for these activists, then it is obvious that at heart “they love Obama.” Following Obama’s line, Hillary promises to keep the U.S. policy of imposing the homosexual agenda on the whole world and also to keep boycotts against Russia. More anti-Russia than this, impossible. How to deny that actually Hillary is the ideal candidate for anti-Russia activists?
While in a Trump administration these activists would need to sweat very much to convince Trump to boycott Russia, in a Hillary administration such sweat and sacrifices would be unnecessary. Hillary is going to keep the Obama’s anti-Russia boycott policy.
Different from Obama, who is alienating Russia and demonstrating a deep friendship with the Vatican, Trump is doing the reverse: alienating the Vatican and demonstrating publicly a wish of partnership and friendship with Russia.
Trump has openly called Pope Francis a “shame,” a derogative term he has never used for Putin.
The answer from U.S. Catholic constituents has been to boycott candidate Trump. Catholic author Christopher J. Hale wrote a forceful essay in Time magazine titled “Trump-Pence is the Most Anti-Catholic Republican Ticket in Modern History.”
Most American Catholics are with Hillary, whether because she supports boycotts against Russia or because she promotes the homosexual agenda around the world or any other reason. Even though it is very suspicious and dishonest to say that “Putin loves Hillary,” it is perfectly understandable to say that “most American Catholics love Hillary.”
Most anti-Russia activists are Catholics moved by a 1,000 year war between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. It is a religious hatred that today is masked as political and ideological hostility, because Russia is the largest Orthodox Christian nation in the world. Trump does not seem to care about this disguised millennial hatred
The case is serious. The fact is even as a joke anti-Russia activists would not accept an American asking help from Russia to defeat socialist Hillary. But Trump, who has no affinity with these activists and his hatreds, did it. And he has been being doing much more, despising the pope, praising Putin and putting as priority concern not an anti-Russia obsession, but the Islamic threat.
Portuguese version of this article: Putin ama Hillary!
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Friday, July 22, 2016

PayPal Founder Peter Thiel Gets Standing Ovation by Affirming His Pride On Homosexuality Among Republicans


PayPal Founder Peter Thiel Gets Standing Ovation by Affirming His Pride On Homosexuality Among Republicans

By Julio Severo
Billionaire capitalist bully and PayPal founder Peter Thiel fulfilled his word. Days before his speech endorsing Donald Trump for president on Thursday, he let all the press know that he was going to declare: “I’m a proud gay man.”
Peter Thiel
He gave lots of time for an alleged opposition to contest his arrogant words affirming a sinful behavior in the Republican National Convention (RNC). But no Republican opposition appeared, and Thiel was rewarded with a strong round of applause as if he had addressed the liberal Democratic National Convention.
He broke a new barrier for the homosexual activism within the Republican Party by becoming the first openly homosexual speaker to address his homosexuality at a GOP convention— at a time conservatives want the Republican Party to fight the gay agenda.
When he said that he was proud to be a homosexual and a Republican, he got a standing ovation, after adding: “Who cares what bathrooms people use?”
Families care.
Christians care.
Conservatives care.
Liberal-minded Republicans could be saying to themselves: “Who cares about billionaire homosexual Thiel affirming his pride on homosexuality among us while he uses his fortune for our political cause?”
Conservative-minded Republicans asked other questions. Peter LaBarbera, founder and director of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (www.AFTAH.org), asked in his Twitter account, “How many open adulterers have addressed a GOP convention? Homosexualism is just a different sexual sin.”
As a conservative evangelical, I also ask questions. Can Thiel, the PayPal founder, restore my account? Can he apologize and declare that he yielded to homosexual activists who were harassing and persecuting me?
In 2011, PayPal closed my account definitively, after a campaign orchestrated by U.S. homosexualist group AllOut. To me, PayPal explained that I am ineligible to receive donations from my friends and readers because “you are not a registered non-profit organization.” To AllOut, PayPal explained that it closed my account because “We take very seriously any cases where a user has incited hatred, violence or intolerance because of a person’s sexual orientation.”
In a listing of the top ten anti-Christian acts in 2011, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission ranked the gay pressure on PayPal as fourth top anti-Christian act, as reported by Charisma magazine.
Thiel believes in Libertarianism, whose followers traditionally believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
A true libertarian would never have terminated my PayPal account when I was a victim of bullying from AllOut. But Thiel’s anti-Christian act against me and my family (my account was used to receive donation from my friends to support us) is explained by what he wrote in a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute. He said: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
The hard way, I understood that he practices what he believes and says.
Conservative writer Don Hank remarked about Thiel’s speech in RNC:
When I heard Thiel say last night that he welcomed a dialogue, I thought he might actually be serious. But considering that he was at the helm of PayPal when they denied Julio service simply because Julio believes in the traditional definition of marriage (NOT a crime!), it is hard to take Thiel seriously. It would appear he is just another bully who wants to force everyone else to support the homo agenda and silence those who won’t.
Of course, if Trump is elected, it will be up to him to decide whether we dialogue openly or just allow people of faith and other sane individuals to be enslaved to this agenda.
I think Trump is trying to navigate between people of tradition and the revolutionaries who want tradition abolished. But does he have the wisdom to succeed?
I suggest that anyone with ties to the Trump campaign send this link “PayPal closed my account definitively” to the leadership and ask them to see if Thiel is serious about dialogue and is willing to reopen Julio’s account. After all, Julio is on the front lines of the faith side of the dialogue and Thiel’s organization, which claims it wants dialogue, is on the other side. If Thiel refuses to re-establish Julio’s account, he is a liar and Trump should distance himself from him and issue a statement to that effect.
After all, Trump could have chosen any influential gay person to speak at the convention, but he chose a bully who stifles dialogue while hypocritically claiming to welcome it. Now he must answer for this choice or walk it back. This cannot stand.
Apparently, the problem for Thiel, 48, and his PayPal is not only my conservative Christian stance against the gay agenda. In RNC, he voiced criticism of the Republican Party, where there are many socially conservative opponents of the homosexual movement. 
“When Donald Trump asks us to Make America Great Again, he’s not suggesting a return to the past. He’s running to lead us back to that bright future,” said he.
Apparently, he was referring to the fact that in the past the United States was dominated by conservative evangelicals who rejected homosexuality. In its foundation, America was 98% Protestant, not 98% homosexual. George Washington, the first U.S. president, rejected homosexual behavior.
Thiel, who supports homosexual “marriage,” was one of the original backers of Facebook (a move that made him a billionaire) and is still one of its board members.
He is also a co-founder of Palantir, a company long associated with doing data analysis for U.S. intelligence and surveillance agencies.
He supports the legalization of marijuana, something which Republicans have long opposed.
Thiel’s decision to endorse Trump, even though liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy is his favorite President, shows that he seems as an unpredictable Republican as Trump.
Clearly there is far more to Thiel’s motives. Because he is a capitalist worth nearly $3 billion, he could simply believe that Trump will manage the economy better than Hillary Clinton. His capitalist ambitions seem to be a little above his homosexual militancy.
Yet, definitely his capitalist power has been at the service of his homosexual militancy. PayPal vowed to discontinue the expansion of its services in North Carolina after its governor passed a law to protect women and children against homosexual predators by not allowing biological men to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
In answer to the PayPal boycott, on Facebook Franklin Graham, son of the legendary evangelist Billy Graham, said, “PayPal gets the hypocrite of the year award!… PayPal operates in countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Yemen for Pete’s sake. Just last month PayPal announced they would be expanding in Cuba, a country in which homosexuals and transgender people have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed.”
In RNC, Peter Thiel explicitly urged people to vote for Trump, in a stark contrast to senator Ted Cruz, who dodged an endorsement and has hammered Trump for his stance on transgender people’s use of women’s restrooms and locker rooms. During his campaign, Trump said transgender people should get to choose whatever bathroom they want.
While Thiel threw a bone to Trump, to Republicans and to gay militants, Trump seems to be throwing a bone to evangelicals and to gay militants. After Thiel’s speech in RNC, Trump’s speech promised to get rid of a law that hamstrings clergy from speaking about politics while promoting forcefully “our LGBT community” label.
Conservative Presbyterian Robert A. J. Gagnon, who is a professor of theology and author of the book “The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics,” said,
Trump said: “This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBT community. As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me. And I have to say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.” One can only wonder how far this positive defining of “our LGBT community” and the promise of protection against hate will extend to promoting discriminatory “sexual orientation” laws in the workplace against people of faith. He has already intimated support for such laws and has directly expressed opposition to laws prohibiting males by birth from entering female rest rooms.
Obviously a Clinton presidency would promote this agenda more rigorously than a Trump presidency. But a Trump presidency would implode Republican values from within, ending perhaps forever our connection with the Grand Old Party that once supported our values on sexual ethics. This is why many of us continue to have reservations about endorsing Trump for President even in the face of the horror of a Clinton presidency.
The presence of billionaire homosexual bully Peter Thiel as a speaker in the GOP convention seems to have been calculated to implode conservative values within the Republican Party.
If Trump keeps treating Christian values and the gay agenda as a mere business game, he will be cooperating with such implosion.
With information from DailyMail and The New York Times.
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Thursday, July 21, 2016

PayPal founder Peter Thiel to endorse Trump and become first openly homosexual speaker to address his homosexuality at a Republican convention


PayPal founder Peter Thiel to endorse Trump and become first openly homosexual speaker to address his homosexuality at a Republican convention

By Julio Severo
PayPal founder Peter Thiel is breaking a new barrier for the homosexual activism within the Republican Party by becoming the first openly homosexual speaker to address his homosexuality at a GOP convention— at a time conservatives want the Republican Party to fight the gay agenda.
Peter Thiel
Thiel, who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention today, Thursday, plans to express his official support to Donald Trump and declare: “I’m a proud gay man.”
The declaration, while commonly expressed in Obama’s Party, will register a major support for the homosexual cause within the GOP, which has taken a critical view of homosexual issues.
Thiel, who supports homosexual “marriage,” was one of the original backers of Facebook (a move that made him a billionaire) and is still one of its board members.
He is also a co-founder of Palantir, a company long associated with doing data analysis for U.S. intelligence and surveillance agencies.
His presence as a speaker in a GOP convention is strange, because Thiel has been a supporter of radical homosexual groups.
In 2011, PayPal closed my account definitively, after a campaign orchestrated by U.S. homosexualist group AllOut. To me, PayPal explained that I am ineligible to receive donations from my friends and readers because “you are not a registered non-profit organization.” To AllOut, PayPal explained that it closed my account because “We take very seriously any cases where a user has incited hatred, violence or intolerance because of a person’s sexual orientation.”
With information from DailyMail and The New York Times.
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Sunday, July 17, 2016

Have I Become an Ambassador?


Have I Become an Ambassador?

No, but it seems some editorial staffer of O Globo has read Julio Severo too much

By Julio Severo
Perusing Brazilian news in O Globo, a major secular news site in Brazil owned by the powerful conglomerate Globo, I was surprised to see… my name as an ambassador!
In the disorder in Turkey after a failed coup attempt, trapped Brazilian parliamentarians in Turkey were assisted by an “Ambassador Julio Severo,” as reported by O Globo here.
Yet, according to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the name of the Brazilian ambassador in Turkey is Antonio Luis Espinola Salgado.
How then did an “Ambassador Julio Severo” manage to appear in a major Brazilian report on Brazilians and their ambassador in Turkey? I do not know.
I googled it in Portuguese, and I have found no “Ambassador Julio Severo” (in Portuguese is “embaixador Julio Severo”).
Perhaps, while preparing his report, the Globo editorial staffer was reading my blog and without noticing introduced my name. Usually, “Julio” in Portuguese is written in an accented way: “Júlio.” The non-accented form is less common, and the report brings the less common form, which I use.
While I am perusing O Globo, it seems that O Globo is perusing my blog!
By reading my blog too much, the distracted Globo could, also accidentally, eventually introduce my name in a report about the U.S. or the Brazilian presidency! So from “ambassador” to “president”?
I am not unfamiliar to Globo. In the 2007 visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to Brazil, Globo contacted me for an interview, because, according to its journalist, I was one of the few Brazilians supportive of Bush. My support was based on pro-life and pro-family values. The Globo report, headlined “As a Minority, Admirers Defend Bush in Brazil,”  is here.
Portuguese version of this article: Virei embaixador?
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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

A New Russian Law Against Christians?


A New Russian Law Against Christians?

By Julio Severo
A new anti-terrorism law in Russia has been criticized in headlines in the Western media as tailored to target Christians, especially evangelicals and Pentecostals. Others denounce that it was tailored to ban evangelism. Some have labeled it as a “communist” law to persecute evangelicals and Pentecostals.
What are we supposed to know about this anti-terrorism law in Russia? I asked some questions to Alexey Komov, who is the international foreign affairs director of the Patriarchal Commission on family, protection of motherhood and childhood of the Russian Orthodox Church. He answered me,
Just wanted to give you my perspective on the set of the “anti-terrorism” amendments that became law in Russia recently. The main purpose was to amend several laws in a way allowing better anti-terrorism protection/prevention (that other countries including the US and EU already have). Now cell phone operators and internet providers will have to store data for some time and make it available if needed for an investigation, etc. The main and real threat is the activities of various radical Islamic missionaries who are rather active in Russia. We have around 9% of Muslim population that have been historically peaceful, but in the recent decades is being artificially radicalized by foreign radical sects like ISIS and other wahhabi/salafi sponsored imams (just today I’ve seen in the news that a radical imam who has publicly supported terrorism has been arrested in Moscow). Youth is particularly vulnerable and is the target.
New regulation of the missionary activities is just a minor part within the set of the new amendments to various laws. It basically says that foreign missionaries need to receive a permission/registration to do their work, and that they should preach only at their mosque/church/etc. But this concerns only official representatives of a religious organization. All normal people can freely express/preach/promote their religious and other beliefs with no limitations (which is a Constitutional right), and the law does not regulate that. The final law was seriously amended and many controversial things were deleted.
So the conclusion is that many negative reports on this topic in the Western mass media are:
1) Biased against Russia.
2) Use the draft of the bill, and not its final version.
3) Misinterpret actual text of the law.
I personally think that those amendments regarding the regulation of the missionary work could be softer, but even in the current form there is nothing really dramatic (I’ve read them). Plus the actual implementation and practice is now aimed at the radical Islamists. Of course there is also a prejudice against some innovative Western protestant groups and Eastern sects that have been calling for illegal actions, drugs, violence, preaching suicide or terrorism, etc. Plus many non-Orthodox religious groups have played an important role in anti-Russian coup d’etat in Ukraine. Also Russia has a centuries old tradition of over-regulating things.
So there are some worrying factors in this new law, but nothing really dramatic, as the press reports.
This is the view of Alexey Komov, the most prominent pro-life leader in Russia. 
What are my thoughts?
The new law was drafted, and eventually enacted, in Russia after the Islamic bombing of a Russian jet in Egypt. It hits millions of Muslims in Russia, and affects also Christians of other persuasions (Catholics and evangelicals), who are not so numerous as Muslims are in Russia. Islam has about 10,000,000 members in Russia.
The Catholic Church has 140,000 members, thus about 0.1% of the total of the Russian population.
Jehovah’s Witnesses has 300,000 members, thus about 0.2% of the total.
Protestantism in its various denominations, both historical and Evangelical or Pentecostal, has also 300,000 members, thus about 0.2% of the total.
The Russian Orthodox Church has 58,800,000 members, thus 41% of the total.
So the two only major religions in Russia are the Orthodox Christian Church and Islam, and it is very obvious that the anti-terrorism law hits Islam head-on.
Differently from the U.S., where anti-terrorism laws increasingly stifle her major religions (especially evangelicalism) and grant more power to Islam and homosexual activism, and specially a massive secular State, Russia has been stifling homosexual activism and radical Islamic expansion and granting more power to its major Christian religion, the Orthodox Church.
The difference is while U.S. anti-terrorism laws protect an anti-Christian secular State, in Russia anti-terrorism laws protect the Orthodox Church. At least in Russia they are protecting its form of traditional Christianity.
My worry is that anti-Christian and anti-family laws and measures in the United States target not only U.S. citizens, but people around the world. In 2011, WND reported about Homeland Security surveillance on my blog, even though I am not an American citizen. Yes, DHS watches conservative blogs.
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent who has lambasted the Russian law, exposed to the world that the U.S. government was, contrary to the U.S. Constitution, spying on Americans and people around the world. “The (National Security Agency) NSA surveillance scandal is the biggest story of your lifetime,” said Michael Savage in a WND report.
It is very troubling that even without laws and measures allowing surveillance and spying on innocent Christians around the world, the U.S. government is engaged in this behavior in a global scale. If the Russian law is a threat because of the data store of its cell phone operators and internet providers, it is a threat only in Russia. But what about the massive surveillance and spying scandal of NSA? It is a threat hovering illegally not only over Americans, but also over multitudes of people around the world.
The new Russian law was not tailored to target specifically evangelicals and Pentecostals. It targets millions of Muslims. It can also affect other religions, including many U.S. sects as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism that are operating in Russia, but it will not affect the power and status of the Orthodox Church.
According to Charisma magazine, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government panel headed by Jesuit priest Thomas J. Reese, condemned the new law.
Charisma reported,
Religious organizations directly affected by the new laws are those with strong evangelization programs in Russia — the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists and other Protestant organizations with Baptist, Pentecostal and independent Christian roots.
“The Russian Orthodox church is part of a bulwark of Russian nationalism stirred up by Vladimir Putin,” David Aikman, author of “One Nation Without God,” told Christianity Today.
It is a pity that evangelicalism, which was a part of early American nationalism, is not longer essential for the U.S. government, which has discarded it.
Charisma also said, “Only about 1 percent of the Russian population is Protestant; the majority religion is Russian Orthodox Christian.”
Interestingly, Charisma showed no concern and made no mention that in a much larger scale the law hits millions of Muslims.
Even though evangelicals are a very tiny minority in Russia, the Orthodox Church has partnered with them in common missions. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Russian Orthodox Church will be hosting a summit in Moscow on persecution against Christians next October.
“I met with Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and evangelical leaders, and we discussed at length the persecution of the Church worldwide,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He added, “The World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians will shed a global spotlight on this crisis. We will bring delegates from around the world and will be able to join hands with people of other churches and denominations of the Christian faith to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ and to hear firsthand reports of the suffering that is taking place.”
“In the years under Communist rule, virtually all of the [orthodox] priests, pastors, and church leaders in Russia were imprisoned or executed by the Communists, and their graves are on the outskirts of Moscow and throughout the country serving as a reminder,” continued Graham.
“No church in modern history has suffered more than the church in Russia. … So Moscow will be a fitting and meaningful location for this much-needed summit.”
Portuguese version of this article: Uma nova lei russa contra os cristãos?
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Thursday, July 07, 2016

Actor Matt Damon Calls for Massive Gun Ban in U.S.


Actor Matt Damon Calls for Massive Gun Ban in U.S.

By Julio Severo
Actor Matt Damon said recently he wishes a massive Australia-style gun confiscation of guns to happen in the United States.
Jason Bourne
Damon made the remarks in an interview in Australia during his tour to promote his new movie “Jason Bourne.”
“You guys did it here in one fell swoop and I wish that could happen in my country, but it’s such a personal issue for people that we cannot talk about it sensibly,” said Damon, referring to the sweeping gun control laws enacted in Australia in 1996.
The Hollywood mega-star lamented that people get “so emotional” about the issue.
Australia’s laws were changed after a gunman killed 35 people at a resort. With bipartisan support from leftist and conservative politicians, Australia implemented a massive buy-back of firearms, banned private sales and said that anyone wishing to own a gun would need a “genuine reason” to have one beyond self-defense. 
Yet, the Australian way is not the Bourne way.
The best way for Matt Damon to express his anti-armed defense ideas is through the propaganda machine of his movies. In his current “Jason Bourne” movie, he dispatched at least 10 people as a gun-toting one-man-killing-machine. In his other “Jason Bourne” movies, he killed other bad guys, especially from corrupt and wicked intelligence services.
So why Damon is so anti-gun if Bourne just loves them?
If he were real, Bourne would dislike Damon, and surely if Damon were honest he would hate Bourne and leave his role to a pro-gun actor.
By rejecting the Bourne character, Damon could make a valid point based on his conscience. In this point, he has no conscience to reject the money his gun-loving character gives him.
Damon, who has reportedly made over $50 million for his work in the four Bourne films, has also had no issue with using weapons in other films.
The 45-year-old actor has also carried firearms in his movies The Departed, Green Zone and Elysium, to name just a few.
He is pictured holding a gun on movies poster for all four of his Bourne films. 
Where his conscience?
It is time for Damon to reject Bourne and give back his $50 millions.
In addition, he should disarm his bodyguards and make no secrets about it, letting the public know that in consistency with his anti-gun stances, his bodyguards are totally disarmed.
This would be a real anti-gun propaganda.
I support Jason Bourne, but not Matt Damon.
With information from FoxNews and DailyMail.
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