Merry Christmas! I refuse to let the America haters win this holiday season!

After I published my article last week, I needed to go to my local Home Depot to purchase some building supplies for a project I am working on for a friend. I pulled into the parking lot at about 10:45 A.M. on “Black Friday”. I am 71 years old and have never seen a Home Depot parking lot this full! I was driving my older heavy-duty Chevy Silverado hunting and work project truck and pulling a 5’ x 8’ utility trailer. With the trailer attached I had trouble finding a parking space! As I looked for a parking space, I noticed men, women and families loading shopping and lumber carts full of all sorts of merchandise including large stuffed animals, Christmas decorations, tools, and even live decorative poinsettia plants into a wide variety of vehicles. And yes, there were also people like me buying building materials, including those in line at the licensed contractor checkout loading area.

When I did find a place to park and got inside it was literally standing room only in some parts of the store. And, like the overflowing parking lot, I have never seen so many orange aprons (Home Depot employees). It was obvious that Home Depot had gone on a well thought out “hiring and training spree”. I had to wait in a queue for an employee to find me a lumber cart and help me load the materials I needed on it. Yet everyone I interacted with in this practically overwhelming retail environment was cheerful and professional. The young lady that checked me out even said “Merry Christmas” to me with a bright smile when she handed me my receipt and credit card back. The young man that helped me fill my order waited for me to check out and then pushed the lumber cart out to the parking lot, helped me load my truck and trailer and then said, “Merry Christmas Sir”. Note: this is a free-standing Home Depot building supply, appliance and garden center store in western Georgia! It is not in a retail mall!

As I wrote earlier, I had just published my weekly article where I listed a lot of very positive things I see happening in America, and how I had made a conscious decision to not let the America hating Left (Democrats, MSM, and RINO Republicans) succeed in making me be in a negative mood this Holiday season! There is too much GOOD happening in America now to allow the Left to suppress my optimism! This positive experience reaffirmed to me that I had made the right decision to focus on everything GOOD that is happening in America. And then over the  weekend, and into the first part of this week, every time I turned on the TV or logged into the internet, it became obvious that I was going to need positive experiences like this if I was going to be able to stay on track with having a positive holiday season and trying to share it with everyone I came in contact with.

It is increasingly obvious to me that the better things get in America the ANGRIER the “America haters” become!  In some instances, “ANGRY” is not a strong enough word to describe the Left’s behavior. It would also be inaccurate to try and use the words REASON or TRUTH when trying to communicate with the Left or understand how they can be so dishonest in their effort to distort the facts about what is really happening in America! Here are two recent examples of how dishonest and disgusting the Left is now:

  • Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith was in a Mississippi runoff for her Senate seat against Mike Espy, a former member of the Clinton Administration. Another Republican candidate got enough votes in the primary election to force the top two vote finishers in the primary to compete in a runoff (Mississippi has a “jungle” primary system where all candidates can run). When complimenting the host of a fund raiser that she was attending during her campaign Hyde-Smith said. “I think so much of him that if he asked me to attend a public hanging I would sit in the front row”. THE RACE CARD IMMEDIATELY CAME OUT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! She was immediately accused of being racist and deliberately misquoted to support their ridiculous claim. The Left has constantly claimed that she used the word “lynching” instead of the phrase “public hanging”. Public hangings were legal capital punishment, lynchings were murder. She did use a poor choice of words, but this does not make her a racist. Unfortunately, deliberately misquoting someone for political gain is “standard operating procedure” for the Left. Update: Senator Hyde-Smith won the runoff by a comfortable margin.
  • When a large band of illegals tried to cross the border into California the Border Patrol agents working that section of the border were outnumbered “hundreds to one”. When the Border Patrol stood their ground and enforced the border the illegals became violent and began to attack the agents with projectiles like rocks, pieces of concrete, and even pieces of the border fence, while yelling obscenities at them. Several of the agents were injured and several of the Border Patrol vehicles were damaged by the projectiles. The illegals became so violent that the agents had to use pepper spray to try to stop the attack and then had to use tear gas to keep them from breaching the border. The Left’s immediate response was to loudly compare the Border Patrol to the Nazi massacre of the Jews and accusing them of “using chemicals of war against people who only wanted a better life for themselves, including women and children”. The last accusation came from a sitting U.S. Congressman. The Border Patrol supervisor responsible for that area of the border said that NOT ONE OF THE ILLEGALS APPROACHED THE BORDER AND ASKED FOR ASYLUM? The supervisor also said the group that tried to violently cross the border was almost totally male. A FOX NEWS crew that was at the border interviewed several of the illegals involved in the attempt to cross the border. They reported that no one that they talked to said they wanted asylum in the U.S. They all said that they just wanted to come to America to work for a few years. The FOX crew also confirmed that the group at this attempted border crossing was almost totally male.

 

Beginning Sunday evening and on into the week the Left (the Democrats, the MSM, and the RINO Republicans) literally filled the airwaves and the internet with nasty comments like the examples above. As I see all the good things that are happening in America now, I find myself wondering how there could be so much hatred like this for America? But I now accept the fact that the Left will stop at nothing to “fundamentally change America”. We cannot let that happen!

Note: From this point forward, I am going to say “Merry Christmas” to people I interact with, not the P.C. “Happy Holidays”!

 

The Left Cannot Wait Until the New Congress is Sworn In on the 5th of January to Make Fools of Themselves

Thanks to the Democrats, RINO Republicans and MSM America is in a growing state of chaos ten days after the mid-term elections were supposed to be over!

It has been ten days since the mid-term election polls closed and we still have undecided federal and state elections, with numerous deadlines being missed and many FEDERAL AND STATE LAWS BEING OPENLY VIOLATED! In a number of these elections the loser does not have a valid path to victory, but they refuse to concede and continue to have lawyers pile up lawsuit after lawsuit trying to change the election results. We also had elections, like Arizona where the Conservative candidate had a comfortable lead when the polls closed but days later the hard-Left candidate was declared the winner by a comfortable margin. It is interesting to me that in every one of the contested elections the majority of the ballots that were “found” were Democrat! Some ballots are still being “found”!

The Democrats in the House of Representatives are in a verbal battle over who will be “Speaker of the House”.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives are running in every direction to get in front of TV cameras to talk about what they are going to do in their new role as the majority party in the House of Representatives.

The Democrats in the Senate are running in every direction to get in front of TV cameras to talk about what they are going to do as they work with the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives to “defeat everything Trump”. The Democrats in the Senate seem to have forgotten that the Senate is known as the “upper chamber” for a reason. The Senate can override practically everything the House may try to do, like trying to impeach the President or Judge Kavanaugh.

RINO Republican Jeff Flake, who is “retiring”, joined with a Senate Democrat to hold a press conference to announce that he will join with the Democrats to block every judge that is waiting on Senate approval unless Congress passes a bill to “protect” Mueller from President Trump. This is beyond comprehension! Flake is “retiring” because it was obvious to everyone that it was doubtful that he could get re-elected because of his anti-Trump activity during the 2016 elections.

RINO Republican Jeff Flake is also getting in front of every TV camera he can find to denigrate the President’s decision to send troops to help the Border Patrol secure our southern border. He is using some of the Democrat’s and MSM’s favorite terms like calling it a “stunt” that is “preventing those troops from spending the holidays with their families” and saying the caravans are not a “threat”. Note to Flake: One part of one caravan is already in Tijuana Mexico trying to get into California to take advantage of the states pro-immigrant policies. If they succeed it will be like the “opening of the flood gates” on a large damn that will rush in the tens of thousands of people in the additional caravans following the illegals already at our border.

Representative Adam Schiff is getting in front of every TV camera he can find to talk about all the subpoenas the Democrats are going to issue to “investigate everything Trump”. The phrase that is being used to describe this plan by the MSM is, “the Democrats are loading their subpoena cannon”.

Representative Maxine Waters, who does not live in her district, made a public statement that as Chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee, “the days of being easy on banks are over” (whatever that means?). Does she want to recreate the housing market crash that Bill Clinton created by forcing banks to make loans to people who were not eligible for them and could not pay them back? This is the Congress Woman who illegally funneled bank bail-out funds to a minority owned bank in California that she and her husband owned stock in and her husband was a member of the bank’s Board of Directors. Even though what she did was blatantly illegal the Congressional Ethics committee declined to censor her in any way. Note: The Congressional ethics Committee has an equal number of Democrat and Republican members virtually assuring that no one in Congress will be censored for anything. It was designed to protect all members of Congress, not to assure that they are ethical.

Practically everyone in the MSM loudly and happily talked about how “bitter and withdrawn Trump is over losing the House majority”. While they were doing this President Trump was holding a White House press conference announcing his support for bi-partisan legislation that would enact prison reform and criminal sentencing reform to correct some of the serious problems created in our justice system by Bill Clinton’s “three strikes and you are out” legislation. This bill will do a lot to reduce the number of people in our prison system and help many people who do go to jail become productive members of our communities when they get out of jail. President Trump was surrounded at the press conference by bi-partisan members of Congress and representatives of influential law enforcement and prison staff organizations. This bill has passed the House with bi-partisan support and President Trump promised to sign it when the Senate passes it and sends it to his desk.

Unfortunately, these examples are just a small sample of how obsessed the Left is with their plans to destroy the Trump Presidency (RESIST and OBSTRUCT) and make America be part of their dream of a “One World Order”. As I wrote last week, it is going to be really interesting to watch the “news” from now until the November 2020 elections!

Can the Left Really be as Self-Absorbed Anti-American as it’s Behavior Indicates?

With a little more than a week until the final ballot count of one of the most important elections in our lifetime, the Left’s behavior is becoming even more self-absorbed and anti-American. The 24/7 news cycle has become a constant stream of people on the Left saying and doing things that are completely irrational or 180 degrees different from what they said or did in the past. Many times their irrational behavior is in front of TV Cameras or with a microphone in their face. It appears they do not know that what they say in front of TV cameras or say into a microphone is being recorded? Obviously these people think that they are immune from ever facing any consequences for their actions. Based on what I see in the 24/7 news cycle their feeling of self- empowerment and belief in a total lack of consequences for their actions has become an epidemic in America. Here are few recent examples:

  • The Florida Democratic candidate for governor, Andrew Gillum denied any wrong doing in any of his actions as the mayor of Tallahassee, Florida. When asked about his interactions with a person who wanted special consideration for developing some property in Tallahassee he flatly denied the allegations and loudly insisted that he had always worked hard and earned everything he ever got. When information was recently made public that the “developer” was an undercover FBI investigator and that Gillum was the subject of an investigation, he loudly denied any wrong doing and played the “race card”. He continues to deny the allegations even though the information from the investigation, including text messages, e-mails and other documents, prove that he accepted gifts from the “developer” and approved a potentially lucrative deal for the “developer” in Tallahassee. He continues to play the “race card” publicly and even doubled down with public statements that his Republican opponent is “supported by racist groups”. When asked if he was openly saying that his opponent is racist he said, “no but his support from racist groups proves that the groups think he is”. Gillum is a graduate of an eighteen-month Socialist education program in California funded by George Soros and has never had a job in the public sector. He has been in politics full time since he was 23 years old. Every policy that he advocates in his campaign for governor of Florida confirms that he is a textbook anti-American Socialist. In spite of all this the MSM and Democrat Party spokespersons insist that he is going to lead the “blue wave” in Florida on November 6!
  • Prominent Democrats, including Obama, Pelosi and Schumer continue to publicly attack everything President Trump and other Conservatives advocate, like protecting our borders, even though there is an endless stream of recorded media proving that they supported similar policies in the not too distant past when it benefited them personally. Is it really a coincidence that multiple “caravans” with thousands of people participating are attempting to walk thousands of miles with the belief that they are going to be able to cross our southern border and stay in America? In many cases these people only have the clothes on their back or a small back pack. Where are they getting food, water, clothing and shelter? Who inspired these “caravans” and who is supporting them? Is it a coincidence that these events are happening now at the same time as one of the most important elections in our lifetime? Prominent Democrats and the MSM are all loudly attacking the Trump Administration for its insistence that these people will not be allowed into America. No one on the Left, including the MSM will admit that the Obama Administration called out the National Guard to try and slow down the flood of illegal immigrants trying to cross our southern border, or that Obama separated children from their parents when they were taken into custody at the border. Is this 180-degree change in the Left’s public positions a true change in their beliefs as to what is good for America?
  • There has been an endless stream of people on the Left, including the MSM, using every form of media available calling for public “push back” against members of the Trump Administration and other Conservatives. In many cases this call for public “push back” has been specific regarding public assaults against anyone and anything Conservative. The incidences of public verbal assaults, and in some cases physical assaults, against Conservatives has dramatically escalated since President Trump was elected. In many instances Conservative‘s family members and their property have been the victims of these assaults. The Left’s call for “push back” against Conservatives has become so viral that it inspired ANTIFA and BLM to reappear in public violent and destructive demonstrations demanding that America become a socialist country. While all these attacks on Conservatives were happening the Left, including the MSM refused to condemn it or even acknowledge it. However, now that prominent members of the Left who publicly advocated violence against everything Conservative are the subject of what appears to be targeted bomb attacks, they loudly blame all the violence on President Trump’s rhetoric. Pelosi and Schumer even issued a joint public statement attacking President Trump’s public statements condemning the current bomb threats against people on the Left. Is it really a coincidence that these (apparently fake) bomb threats are happening this close to the last day of the November 6 mid-term elections? Is President Trump really solely and personally responsible for them?
  • When President Trump declared that he was a “Nationalist” in his personal beliefs the Left, including the MSM immediately went viral with the same message. The message was that President Trump just publicly declared that he is a “White Nationalist” and was just choosing to leave off the “White” part of the title in a feeble attempt to be P.C.! None of the textbook definitions of “Nationalist” support the Left’s immediate jump to this conclusion!

As I watched and listened to everything that is happening in America right now it occurred to me that none of it is a coincidence! It looks to me like the Left has decided that they are ready to shred our Constitution and make America be part of their dream of having a “One World Order”. And they can do this after they take over our Government at every level on November 7, 2018! We cannot let that happen! Vote and vote Republican during the November 6 elections!

“I Ain’t Got the Words’…Again!

Last week I wrote about why I did not feel capable of adequately describing what I was seeing and hearing the Democrats, MSM and RINO Republicans say and do. As I watched and listened to them this week I was literally overcome with the same thoughts and feelings. I also thought about something I wrote recently about how obsessed the Democrats, MSM and RINO Republicans are with their “Egos, Money and POWER”. I am absolutely certain that this is ultimately all they care about with the number one obsession being “Power”, and they will say and do anything to remain in “Power”! Their egos are insatiable and they need “POWER” to feed them. They all have money and with “POWER they can keep it and add to it. Consequently they will never give up their “Power” regardless of the damage their actions do to America and the world.

Here are a few examples of what the Democrats, MSM and RINO Republicans said and did publicly this week:

  • After the Democrats brutalized Judge Kavanaugh in his Senate committee confirmation hearings, which they lost badly, they went public with a political version of a nuclear weapon. They leaked an anonymous letter that a woman allegedly gave to Senator Feinstein alleging that Judge Kavanaugh physically assaulted her and attempted to sexually assault her 35 or 36 years ago at a drunken party attended by high school students. This story has changed hourly since Senator Feinstein went public with the accusation. According to Feinstein she had the information since July but the woman did not want to go public. Not much could be further from the truth! The initial contact was a two hour private interview with California Congresswoman Eshoo IN JULY! Obviously all the Democrats have known about this since Eshoo’s initial contact and carefully coordinated their efforts (with the MSM’s eager assistance) to destroy Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, AND ULTIMATELY PREVENT PRESIDENT TRUMP FROM EVER APPOINTING ANOTHER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. With the help of the RINO Republicans this might actually happen! During his long career in public service Judge Kavanaugh has been heavily vetted six times by the FBI without the vetting’s ever producing a single blemish on his record. Meanwhile the accuser decided to go public while represented by a lawyer who is a Democratic activist (according to the lawyer’s public statements). Then the accuser immediately changed her position through a second Democrat activist lawyer, who is an active member of a George Soros funded anti-democracy group. This lawyer announced that the accuser would not testify before the Senate committee or anyone else until her allegations were fully investigated by the FBI! Every credible expert that I have seen interviewed publicly about this demand said it is not a reasonable request by any stretch of the imagination. For instance the statute of limitations has long since expired and even it had not this complaint must be filed with the local authorities as an attempted assault. Other legal experts pointed out that no one has the right to demand an FBI investigation when no formal complaint has been filed anywhere and the due process requirements in our system of justice have not been fulfilled. Obviously the accuser is being manipulated and used by the America hating Democrats and the MSM and she is now a victim herself. Whatever happens as a result of her unsubstantiated allegations she and her family will never get their lives back.
  • There is so much information about the Kavanaugh nomination “carefully coordinated political hit job” that I cannot begin to properly detail it all here. The fact that the Democrats immediately put Anita Hill before the MSM cameras to loudly denounce how badly she was treated in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings proves that they have been planning this for months and left ”no stone unturned”. Meanwhile the physical assault complaint that has been filed against Keith Ellison (AKA Keith Hakim) the current Illinois Congressman, number two person in the Democratic National Committee and soon to be the Illinois Attorney General has been buried. It has been totally buried in spite of the facts that the complaint was filed by his former girlfriend with graphic details about the assault and two different Doctor’s reports that confirm that she sustained physical injuries during the assault. Ellison’s “Keith Hakim” name was the Muslim name he used when he was active in the radical “Nation of Islam” organization prior to entering public life. As usual he always gets a pass on this and the recent assault charge whenever he is speaking to the public or the MSM asks him questions about anything.
  • Remember Mary Jo Kopechne? In 1969 she drowned in Senator Ted Kennedy’s car when he was drunk driving and ran off the Chappaquiddick bridge. He managed to get out of the car, walk home and went to sleep while she SLOWLY drowned! All because he did not want a DUI charge on his record or that it be made public that he was at private “parties’ with young women and alcohol. He was never charged with any crimes and was continually re-elected to the Senate until he died in office in 2009. He became known as “The Lion of the Senate” AND WAS EVEN GIVEN A STATE FUNERAL WHEN HE DIED. But now the Democrats, MSM and RINO Republicans are executing a perfectly coordinated political hit job on Judge Kavanaugh using a 35 or 36 year old unsubstantiated complaint. While this is happening no one in the MSM has asked any of the Kavanaugh attackers how the unsubstantiated claim against him compares to what Kennedy did?
  • And let’s not forget Bill Clinton’s endless sexual escapades over decades. In spite of this Hillary is going public again along with Obama and Biden attacking President Trump, his Administration and his supporters for ”destroying all the good the previous administration accomplished for America”. Hillary even published an op-ed in “The Atlantic” attacking President Trump and then went on the MSM talk show circuit to pontificate about how much damage Trump has done to America and what Trump is going to do immediately after the November 6 election, even if he loses the House or Senate. Among other ridiculous claims she said that he would immediately embark on a massive firing spree throughout the Federal Government, including in his Administration (I hope that he does). While all this is happening no one in the MSM has asked anyone on the Left how the alleged Kavanaugh complaint compares to Bill’s decades long history of sexual misconduct and assaults!
  • As I said earlier, everything the Democrats, MSM and RINO Republicans are saying and doing is part of a carefully planned and coordinated effort to take back the House and Senate on November 6 so they can totally take back control of America. If they do there will not be a Supreme Court Judge appointed as long as President Trump is in office. Also if they take back control of the House radical Democrats will become the chairperson of every House Committee. The same is true for the Senate! For example Maxine Waters will become Chairperson of the “House Banking and Finance Committee”, Congressman Nadler will become Chairperson of the “House Judiciary Committee” and Adam Schiff will become chairperson of the “House Intelligence Committee”. And these are only the tip of the ice berg! This is absolutely terrifying to me!

Those of us who want America to be “great again” must not be silent. We must continue to stand up and support President Trump’s tireless efforts to “make America great again”, especially at the ballot box!  When you consider the open dishonesty that is happening in politics in America now, I am firmly convinced that the November 6 mid-term elections is now tied with the November 2016 Presidential election as the most important election in my lifetime!   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Do We Have Such an Absurd Double Standard of Justice in America?

Our Justice System is supposed to be blind so nothing can influence it but the facts. Unfortunately that is not what we have in America today. I am sure there have always been people in America who have questioned how laws have been enforced, but what I am seeing today is way beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime.

Here are some glaring examples of one side of the double standard of justice we have in America today:

  • The Clinton Foundation was nothing but a giant “pay for play” money laundering organization that operated for many years with an estimated two billion dollars in funds passing through it. The Foundation deliberately did such a sloppy job of managing its books that no reputable charity auditing organization would attempt to audit them and verify how much money they actually raised, or how much of it actually went to valid charities. The best available estimation of how much of the money it took in actually went to valid charities was only 5.73% and most of that went to the Clinton Initiative, which was the charity formed and operated by Bill Clinton.
  • Bill Clinton “volunteered” to head up the international efforts to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to restore Haiti, and to manage the restoration efforts. The published plan was to provide immediate humanitarian aid and then develop long term housing and jobs programs. To date the proposed housing and jobs programs do not exist on any level that remotely resembles what was proposed, even though enough money was raised to pay for them. All the money has been spent and a huge amount of it cannot be accounted for?
  • Another part of the Clinton’s international “pay for play” scam was Bill’s international speaking tour where he was paid $500,000 to $750,000 per speech. Hillary started doing the same thing immediately after she left the position of Secretary of State.
  • John Podesta, Hillary’s Campaign Manager, and his brother had a very expensive lobbying firm in Washington that specialized in working for international clients.
  • While Hillary was Secretary of State she and her staff deliberately mishandled hundreds of thousands of U.S. Government documents. Eleven U.S. Government electronic communication devices assigned to her and her staff were deliberately destroyed and 33,000 U.S. documents were destroyed and all traces of them were wiped clean. Hillary and her staff gave access to U.S. Government documents to people who did not have the security clearances required to have access to those documents. Every time Hillary or her staff mishandled a U.S. Government document they committed a felony!
  • Jim Comey’s work in the private sector included a year at Lockheed Martian. He was paid $6,000,000 for that year’s work. He still had his U.S. Government security clearance and used his connections in Washington to “lobby” for Government contracts for Lockheed Martian.

No one involved in any of this has ever been subjected to any level of prosecution or public scrutiny from anyone in our justice system or the MSM!

Here are a few examples of the other side of our justice system:

  • Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as a Special Prosecutor to open a wide ranging federal investigation into alleged Russia collusion with Donald Trump to assure Trump won the election. The opening of the investigation was based on false information compiled in a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign, our DOJ and our FBI in an organized and coordinated effort to prevent Trump from winning the election.
  • General Flynn, President Trump’s first National Security Advisor has had his and his family’s lives destroyed based on charges that he lied to the FBI. These charges were filed against him even though the agents he talked to originally said he did not lie to them, and he was not under oath. He will be forced to plea bargain and will still serve time in jail. The real reason for this prosecution is because the prosecutors want to force him to somehow help them find evidence that can be used to impeach President Trump.
  • Paul Manafort, his family and some former business associate’s lives have been destroyed based on some of Manafort’s financial actions dating back to 2005. He was recently convicted on eight of eighteen charges and is still awaiting a second trial on the same eighteen charges in another jurisdiction. Regardless of what happens in the second trial he will most likely die in jail. Evidence used to indict him was obtained in a pre-dawn Gestapo style raid at his home by FBI agents. The real reason all this is happening is because he briefly worked on the Trump campaign and the prosecutors want to force him to somehow help them find evidence that can be used to impeach President Trump.
  • Michael Cohen, one of President Trump’s former lawyers has been charged with a number of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws. So much pressure has been put on him that he has been forced to plea bargain for a reduced sentence. Recently he was subpoenaed to testify in a criminal investigation into the Trump Foundation, a charity that was operated by Trump!  The real reason all this is happening is because he did some legal work for Trump and the prosecutors want to force him to somehow help them find evidence that can be used to impeach President Trump. What is really interesting about the alleged campaign finance law violations is that what he and candidate Trump did WAS NOT ACTUALLY A VIOLATION OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS ACCORDING TO ALAN DERSHOWITZ, A WELL KNOW AND RESPECTED LEGAL SCHOLAR.  Evidence used to indict him was obtained in  pre-dawn Gestapo style raids at his home and office by FBI agents.

Obviously both of these lists of examples of the frightening double standard of justice we have in America today could be much longer, but I believe what I have described here proves that it does exist.