tagged w/ Utah
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By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona’s business leaders, frustrated by the deep financial fallout of increasingly radical immigration proposals, successfully swayed state lawmakers into defeating five extremist anti-immigrant bills.
New America Media’s Valeria Fernández reports that 60 executives from the likes of WellsFargo bank and U.S. Airways penned an open letter to state Senate President Russell Pearce last week, urging him to leave immigration policy to federal government. Julianne Hing at Colorlines.com has posted the letter in full, but here’s the gist:
Last year, boycotts were called against our state’s business community, adversely impacting our already-struggling economy and costing us jobs. Arizona-based businesses saw contracts cancelled or were turned away from bidding. Sales outside of the state declined … It is an undeniable fact that each of our companies and our employees were impacted by the boycotts and the coincident negative image […] Arizona is looking like a nativist, restrictive and intolerant place, and that’s bad for business.
The legislature subsequently voted down five controversial measures that sought to redefine citizenship and ban undocumented immigrants from hospitals and public schools, among other provisions.
Pearce, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvering repeatedly saved the contentious bills from dying much sooner, has vowed to continue pushing his agenda by voter referendum, if necessary. If he does, he may have more success. Arizonans have repeatedly voted in favor of harsh anti-immigrant proposals, including measures that stripped undocumented college students of financial assistance, banned ethnic studies, and ended equal opportunity programs.
Arizona’s business leaders overlook immigrant workers
It’s worth noting, though, that while the letter’s signatories handily criticized the legislature’s immigration agenda for negatively impacting the state’s economy, they had almost nothing to say about its detrimental impact on the state’s workers—a considerable proportion of whom are immigrants. Instead, they urge “market driven immigration policies” that will “preserve our ability to compete in the global economy“ — language that is more evocative of labor-exploitative capitalism than worker solidarity.
Their calls for “the creation of a meaningful guest worker program” are similarly suspect. While the notion of a “meaningful guest worker program” that would legalize certain undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. may, on the surface, seem like a sympathetic solution—particularly in light of the federal government’s failure to move forward with any kind of comprehensive immigration reform—it nevertheless poses dire implications for undocumented workers.
Utah’s guest worker proposal evokes Bracero program abuses
As David Bacon at In These Times posits, “guest workers” whose legal status is contingent on their employment situation are uniquely vulnerable to workplace abuse and exploitation, and could face labor conditions “close to slavery.” The Bracero Program, a guest worker initiative which imported Mexican laborers primarily for work in agriculture between 1942 and 1964, stands out as stark example of the dark side of guest worker programs. Bacon explains:
Braceros were treated as disposable, dirty and cheap. Herminio Quezada Durán, who came to Utah from Chihuahua, says ranchers often had agreements between each other to exchange or trade braceros as necessary for work. Jose Ezequiel Acevedo Perez, who came from Jerez, Zacatecas, remembers the humiliation of physical exams that treated Mexicans as louse-ridden.
“We were stripped naked in front of everyone,” he remembers, and sprayed with DDT, now an outlawed pesticide. Men in some camps were victims of criminals and pimps.
Arizona isn’t the only state to toy with the idea of establishing a guest worker program. In an effort to distance itself from Arizona’s contentious and economically disastrous immigration agenda, Utah—a fiercely red state and Arizona’s northern neighbor—is considering creating its own guest worker program, according to the Texas Observer’s Victor Landa. The law would grant legal residency to working, undocumented residents who do not commit serious crimes.
While Landa notes that the purportedly progressive measure nevertheless runs afoul of federal immigration laws (only the federal government can grant immigration status), the bill presents other issues. One must stay employed or lose residency—a circumstance that would strip employees of bargaining power while granting their employers an inordinate amount of license in the workplace. In practical terms, that doesn’t much change the existing workplace dynamics of undocumented immigrants, who frequently endure exploitation and abuse without recourse.
Labor unions vs. worksite immigration enforcement
What’s more: Exploitative employers generally get off scot free even when targeted by employer sanctions efforts; it’s the workers, not employers, who bear the brunt of the federal government’s worksite immigration enforcement. For this reason, a Services Employees International Union (SEIU) leader, Javier Morillo, has condemned the Department of Homeland Security’s emhasis on workplace raids and employer verification, according to Nicolas Mendoza at Campus Progress.
Responding to the termination of 250 unionized janitors in Minnesota following an I-9 audit—a verification process through which the federal government can ask businesses to check the immigration statuses of their employees—Morillo said:
Under the leadership of Secretary Napolitano the federal government has become an employment agency for the country’s worst employers. With each I-9 audit, the government is systematically pushing hardworking people into the underground economy where they face exploitation… Let’s be clear: I-9 audits, by definition, do not go after egregious employers who break immigration laws because many of them do not use I-9 forms. Human traffickers do not ask their victims for their social security cards. [emphasis added]
Mendoza notes that the federal government’s employer verification programs rely on the honesty of employers and rewards them for firing undocumented workers, rather than sanctioning businesses for hiring them. Workers pay the price, while employers get off.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona’s business... more
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By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Stricter immigration enforcement and reduced economic opportunities in Arizona has pushed many undocumented immigrants out of the state to look for work.
While restrictionist lawmakers, whose stated objective over the last year has been to drive attrition through enforcement, are satisfied, it’s not exactly the outcome they’ve been waiting for. Rather than return to their home countries, most immigrants are instead relocating to surrounding states — a trend that’s prompting legislators in other states to approach immigration reform in radically different ways.
Oklahoma Absorbs Arizona Emigrants
Oklahama is experiencing a considerable influx of undocumented immigrants fleeing Arizona, according to Kari Lydersen at Working In These Times. The rising immigrant population has created friction among residents, some of whom believe that undocumented migrants are taking jobs away from Oklahomans. In response, state lawmakers have introduced a bill known as “Arizona Plus,” which incorporates many of Arizona’s more controversial laws, in an effort to expel immigrants in much the same way that Arizona’s existing immigrations laws attempt to do. Lydersen explains:
State Senator Ralph Shortey (R) and Shannon Clark, a Tulsa police officer in charge of enforcing the city’s 287(g) immigration program, said workers including masons and tile workers have been greatly affected by the influx of immigrant workers from Arizona. Employers and civil rights leaders have decried the proposed Arizona Plus measure and other recently introduced anti-immigrant laws, saying that immigrants provide a crucial part of the state’s workforce, especially in areas with otherwise aging and declining populations.
There remains disagreement about the actual economic impacts of unauthorized immigration. As state Senator Andrew Rice (D) told Lydersen, many of Oklahoma’s incoming immigrants are assuming low-wage jobs that citizens are not even bothering to apply for.
Immigrants are an economic boon
Of course, numerous studies demonstrate that immigration actually bolsters economies rather than depressing them, effectively driving wages up and creating opportunities for American workers to move into more highly skilled fields, as Mikhail Zinshteyn of Campus Progress explains:
A study co-authored by George Borjas…shows without new waves of immigration, legal or otherwise, there would be far fewer businesses operating today because of an inadequate labor market. His partner on the paper, Lawrence F. Katz, co-authored another study that showed income inequality in the bottom half of the economic ladder has not increased since the 1980s—meaning the huge spike in undocumented immigrants since 1990 has had no statistical effect on the economic fortunes of the Americans they allegedly affect.
Facts notwithstanding, pitting undocumented laborers against low-income American workers is a time-tested tactic of anti-immigrant politicos. It’s effective too, even though — as Zinshteyn notes — many of its proponents also support myriad other policies that directly hurt low-income American laborers.
Utah proposes guest worker program for undocumented migrants
Meanwhile Utah’s legislature is proposing to handle unauthorized immigration rather differently. New America Media reports that state lawmakers passed a bill last week that seeks to legalize and integrate undocumented laborers into the state’s workforce. The measure would create two-year work visas for undocumented Mexican immigrants without a criminal record and their families, for fees ranging from $1,000-$2,500. Lawmakers hope to demonstrate that Utah, which is home to 110,000 undocumented immigrants, is a safer place for migrants than Arizona.
Immigrant rights advocates are not as enthusiastic, however. Colorlines.com’s Julianne Hing notes that the Utah legislature also passed enforcement and employer sanctions measures last week, which — while less draconian than Arizona’s — nevertheless do their part to marginalize and oppress undocumented immigrants. Hing adds:
[Activists] argue that the benefits of the guest worker program will not be enough to mitigate the harm of harsh enforcement measures that will almost certainly lead to more exploitation and deportation.
Regardless, many others are lauding Utah’s efforts to implement some kind of reform that legalizes undocumented immigrants living in the United States — particularly as Congress has yet to move forward with any attempt at comprehensive immigration reform.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The PulseBy Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Stricter immigration enforcement... more
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Brandon Davies is a basketball player of Birmingham Young University. His girlfriend has been revealed recently. RadarOnline has reported that the girlfriend of Brandon Davies is Danica Mendivil. She plays on behalf of Arizona State University. Her specialization of games is volleyball.
Charges were put on Brandon Davies from his school administration due to which he was kicked off from the team of his school for the rest of this season. It was told that Brandon Davies and Danica Mendivil had conducted sex.Brandon Davies is a basketball player of Birmingham Young University. His girlfriend... more
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In the Salt Lake City of California, Brigham Young had dreams of deeply penetration into the NCAA tournament. These dreams have been blown away because on this Tuesday Cougars, are third ranked, have sacked Brandon Davies; Brandon Davies is their starting forward. His dismissal has taken place for the whole remaining season of NCAA. He had made a violation in honour code of his school according to University officials’ announcements what were made in evening of Tuesday.In the Salt Lake City of California, Brigham Young had dreams of deeply penetration... more
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The process has begun to recall eight of the 14 "missing" Democratic state senators, including Dave Hansen of Green Bay.
American Recall Coalition, a group based in Utah, filed paperwork Tuesday with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
The group has 60 days to collect the required signatures -- about 16,000 for each senator -- to force a recall vote.
The Government Accountability Board says there has been no formal filing to recall any Republican lawmakers but it has been contacted about a gubernatorial recall.
That, however, cannot happen until Governor Walker has been in office for a full year.The process has begun to recall eight of the 14 "missing" Democratic state... more
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While several states in the U.S. are considering bills to crack down on illegal immigrants and kick them out, a pair of bipartisan lawmakers in Utah are proposing a different plan -- one that they say could generate millions in revenue for the state.
The Utah Pilot Accountability Permit Program bill, backed by Democratic State Sen. Luz Robles and Republican State Rep. Jeremy Peterson, would allow illegal immigrants to work in the state, so long as they had a state-issued work permit. It would require them to undergo criminal background checks, take English classes and pay taxes. The workers would be forced to leave the state if they lost their jobs, and the state would report illegal immigrants who commit major crimes to federal immigration authorities.
The tax revenues from those workers would generate more than $11 million for Utah within six months and $20 million the following year, according to a fiscal note Robles presented yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The fiscal note also estimates the state could generate an additional $18 million from charging immigrants for their work permit cards.
The legislation faces an uphill fight and would without doubt draw legal scrutiny, since regulating immigration falls within the purview of the federal government. Robles has said her bill would require a federal waiver to be enacted. However, she's confident it could survive constitutional challenges since Utah has had no problem issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, USA Today reports.http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20032906-503544.htmlWhile several states in the U.S. are considering bills to crack down on illegal... more
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We bring you Arhythmatik a true hip hop artist. Created of Life Elevated Hip Hop- a local monthly Hip Hop Show held in Provo, Utah.We bring you Arhythmatik a true hip hop artist. Created of Life Elevated Hip Hop- a... more
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We bring you DJ Electronic Battleship winner of the Life Elevated Hip Hop DJ Battle. Battleship has DJed for Bone Thugs & Harmony, Chino XL, and Joell Ortiz.We bring you DJ Electronic Battleship winner of the Life Elevated Hip Hop DJ Battle.... more
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A day once existed in America when a woman like Dena Long-Christensen, 44, would have been celebrated, admired for her “can-do” spirit, and held up as a role model for others.
That day is sadly past. Now Long-Christensen—and others like her—are treated by the new America as criminals to be fined and jailed.
Her crime?
Dena Long-Christensen was discovered selling flowers from her home.
A struggling entrepreneur, Long-Christensen was unceremoniously trundled off to jail over a dispute with authorities who accused her of not having acquired the proper permits to start and operate her small business.
In other words, she didn’t obtain the government’s permission to have her own business—any kind of business—in the first place.
Land of the free
Long-Christensen case is just one of the latest in a long string of cases of attacks on liberty and an oppressive government that is hamstringing people and eliminating choices until a once-free society will be bound within a straitjacket of rules, regulations, laws meant to limit instead of protect, social engineering schemes and a burgeoning, mindless bureaucracy that has become so overbearing that Franz Kafka himself would be shocked.
Over the past decade outrageous episodes of innocent citizens’ encounters with authorities have filled daily newspapers. The 12-year old girl who was handcuffed because of eating a candy bar comes to mind, and so do dozens of other similar cases across the country.
Justice in America is fast vanishing replaced by civil courts that have become adept at interpreting laws in such a way to mutate them to their own advantage. Many of the legal machinations churned out by the people running such state-sponsored entities—such as the notorious “justice courts” in Utah—seem to exist mainly to confiscate, intimidate and generate as much cash as possible through fines and fees.
Real justice and common sense—if any—are side-effects.
Wild, wild injustice
“Unfortunately, the ‘wild, wild West’ is alive and well in justice courts,” Kent Hart admitted to Utah’s KSL-TV. Hart is the executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. He was one of the few the TV station news team could get a comment from as most were afraid of retribution or a political backlash from the authorities.
That’s how bad it’s become as the system of legal justice in the U.S. continues to slowly creep towards the type of justice meted out in the old Soviet Union.
Hart agrees that some cities and counties priorities are to generate revenue rather than concern themselves about defendants’ rights.
“Without checks and balances, we’re going to have abuses,” he told KSL-TV.
There’s something wrong with our country
Dena Long-Christensen knows all about abuses. After being tossed into jail for selling flower baskets she shared a cell with career criminals. One cellmate of hers was charged with aggravated assault.
“Instead of being further in shock, it was like, there’s something wrong with our country,” she told the TV news crew.
“Fighting the city got me put in jail,” Long-Christensen asserted. “We were doing everything we could to comply with what we were told by planning and zoning.”
The small business woman and her husband were careful to conduct their growing business according to the dictates laid out by the West Jordan Planning & Zoning board in Salt Lake City, Utah. The board is another typical, top-heavy government entity designed to inhibit the creation of businesses and then make the ones that do overcome all the bureaucratic hurdles pay a price to stay in business.
In years past it was known as graft and blackmail. Mafia thugs were prosecuted for such behavior. Now such activities have been re-named “government.”
“We were not allowed to sell anything other than what we grew, except for once a month as a garage sale or bazaar,” she said.
How did America, who’s citizens built the country through innovation, risk-taking and starting small businesses, reach the point where the government decides who can and cannot have a business and how what the current rate is for the legal bribe to be “allowed” to start a business?
The bureaucrat who testified against Long-Christensen via an affidavit—the West Jordan business license coordinator Marsha Lancaster—testified she “personally observed the defendant selling hanging baskets out of her home.”
Mafia vigorish
Such government malfeasance would have precluded some giant companies today from ever having existed. Many entrepreneurs decades ago literally started in kitchens and garages—Microsoft, for one and the telecommunications giant of the 1970s and 1980s, MCI.
None needed any government’s permission. Nor did they have to pay a Mafia-style “vigorish” to fend off the bureaucratic parasites.
When asked how it can be that a couple that was only making and selling legal products from their own property call fall into the categories of criminals—and worse, a 44-year old American who committed no serious crime could be locked up with dangerous felons—Hart responded, “The judges have basically unfettered use of the jails,” Hart said. “In other words, nonviolent people are being sent to jail where there are many violent people.”
The astonished investigative reporters from KSL-TV took it upon themselves to go back and dig up all the Salt Lake County Jail records for every individual incarcerated from 2004 through 2010. What they found was deeply disturbing.
Walk a dog, go to jail
They report that although “…the vast majority of defendants who are sent to jail from municipal courts commit drug-related crimes, there are others who do go to jail for business license violations as well as other petty crimes such as jaywalking, lack of a dog license or having tinted windows.”
So the moral of the story is don’t get caught selling flowers while walking an unlicensed dog outside of a cross-walk after stepping out of your vehicle with tinted windows.
If you do, the justice system may well sentence you to life imprisonment.
http://island-adv.com/2011/02/utah-woman-jailed-for-selling-flowers-from-her-home/A day once existed in America when a woman like Dena Long-Christensen, 44, would have... more
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A Utah legislator introduced a bill Wednesday that would require all publicly funded programs, laws, and regulations, to ensure they exclude families headed by gay and lesbian couples.
Rep. LaVar Christensen writes in the bill's language that "marriage and family predate all governments and are supported by and consistent with the Laws of Nature and God, the Creator and Supreme Judge of the World, affirmed in the nation’s founding Declaration of Independence." It also says, "families anchored by both a father and a mother, fidelity within marriage, and enduring devotion to the covenants and responsibilities of marriage are the desired norm."
Brandie Balken, executive director of Equality Utah, told the Salt Lake City Tribune that the bill could be used to "create a filter for public agencies and a way to target laws, services and funding that currently help single Utahns or Utanhs with families that differ from Representative Christensen's."
http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/02/02/Utah_Strict_Bill_to_Exclude_Gay_Families/A Utah legislator introduced a bill Wednesday that would require all publicly funded... more
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http://www.treehugger.com/us-import-radioactive-waste.jpg
A Utah company is promising to tighten nuclear materials handling rules after discovering it took in waste with radioactivity levels higher than allowed.
KSTU reported Friday that Salt Lake City-based Energy Solutions Inc. found 23 drums of material accepted for disposal in Utah exceeded low-level radioactive waste standards.
Company chief executive Val Christiansen says Energy Solutions is troubled by the finding and was taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Healthy Environment Alliance Utah chief Christopher Thomas says the state shouldn't let the company off the hook. He's calling for a stiff fine, calling it astounding the company didn't know what kind of nuclear waste it took in.http://www.treehugger.com/us-import-radioactive-waste.jpg
A Utah company is... more
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A man who'd been arrested in Utah on suspicion of burglary tried to escape from cops by jumping out of a moving police car.
As this footage shows, Nicholas Duffy was still handcuffed as he dubiously leaped from the speeding car and onto the highway.
The 20-year-old had complained to officers that he felt like vomiting and asked them to crack the rear window open a bit for for him.
But when they did he unbuckled himself before jumping out of the window as the car travelled along Interstate 15 at 30mph.
Unsurprisingly flying head-first from a car while his hands were cuffed behind his back didn't end well… he was soon back in custody and in need of a trip to hospital.
http://newslite.tv/2011/01/27/arrested-suspect-jumps-from-mo.htmlA man who'd been arrested in Utah on suspicion of burglary tried to escape from... more
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A quarter of a teaspoon of VX nerve agent ("one of the deadliest chemical agents ever created," according to the video above) disappeared from a Utah military research base earlier today. Over 1,000 people at the base were locked inside the facility during a search for the missing chemical weapon, which was found "early on Thursday." A press conference is scheduled for later today.
From Wikipedia:
VX is the most toxic nerve agent ever synthesized for which activity has been independently confirmed. The median lethal dose (LD50) for humans is estimated to be about 734 micrograms through skin contact and the LCt50 for inhalation is estimated to be 30-50 mg·min/m³.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/27/army-loses-then-find.htmlA quarter of a teaspoon of VX nerve agent ("one of the deadliest chemical agents... more
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Every year, towards the end of January, independent Hollywood filmmakers take over the small town of Park City, Utah, for the Sundance film festival.Every year, towards the end of January, independent Hollywood filmmakers take over the... more
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Recently Complete Hollywood News Updates Ms. Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn and Ms. Kate Mara Burton. Screenplay by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, based on the book by Mr. Ralston. Treating herself to a midday retail session, the lovely Ms. Kate Mara was spotted out shopping in Los Angeles, California on Wednesday (October 27).Recently Complete Hollywood News Updates Ms. Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn and Ms. Kate... more
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UTAH COUNTY, Utah — A Utah County couple last seen on Christmas was found dead Monday in the mountains above Alpine. Micah Glenn Huggard, 26, of American Fork, and his fiancee, Kassi Kyoung-Hee Kim, 27, were last seen on December 25 when they left to go off-roading in the mountains above Alpine.UTAH COUNTY, Utah — A Utah County couple last seen on Christmas was found dead... more
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Renardo Sidney Forced To Sit Out.Diamond Head Classic Sophomore forward Renardo Sidney and junior forward Elgin Bailey got into the altercation about 10 minutes before the tipoff of the game between tournament host Hawaii and Utah at the Stan Sheriff Center.Renardo Sidney Forced To Sit Out.Diamond Head Classic Sophomore forward Renardo Sidney... more
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Video found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sidewinder-Media/119671261426003?ref=ts
Almost homeless Cellist Eli Potash plays on the streets of Salt Lake City, Utah. Many people know of Eli and his cello entertainment and he has become part of the downtown experience.
In this video The Daniel Day Trio mentioned that they wanted to get Eli a new cello and I asked to film the story. We finally tracked Eli down and DDT asked if they could set up and play with him some Christmas songs. Then at the end of playing surprised him with a lighter, better cello than the one that he has been using.
Thank you for viewing and please spread and share this video of a beautiful example of the Christmas spirit!
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 17-35mm f/2.8L
Post: Adobe Premier Pro CS4
Band: Daniel Day Trio
Find them on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/ddaytrio
Cellist: Eli Potash
Find him playing in the evenings around downtown SLC, in front of Broadway Theater many times.
Filmed and Edited by: Rusty Sessions of Sidewinder Media
Grips and DA's: Tiffany Sims and Bridgette Grogg
Sidewinder Media on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sidewinder-Media/119671261426003?ref=tsVideo found here:... more
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