Anyone see this attack?
 

Police: 'Inconsistencies' In Story Of Politically Motivated Attack - Pittsburgh News Story - WTAE Pittsburgh

Does this story seem plausible or odd? I do'nt want to say it sounds like someone is looking for fame bc i'll feel like shit if it turns out she was assaulted, but there are enough inconsistencies that the PD is currently administering a lie detector evaluation.


i just have a hard time with stories like these bc i've known crazy peopel who would mug someone, then see something and fly off the deep end and i've known crazy people who would mutilate themselves if it furthered their cause...


i'm a bit conflicted, but i do'nt know how many people walk around with knives dull enough to NOT break the skin or hte care necessary to 'carve' something like that in someone's face w/out causing much if any bleeding. i'm not 6'4, but i know i can do more damage with a random stick on the ground vs a metal blade.

Anyway, if this thread needs to be moved, please do so, i just felt it belonged in politics bc it's either a dem or republican nutjob, depending on which way you lean for the story.

It's sketchy. It's yet to be vetted. I question why she didn't immediately go to the hospital.

She's a volunteer for the McCain campaign from Texas. Seems like some of the Pitt press is skeptical.

Ben Smith's Blog: The letter 'B' - Politico.com

this could easily turn out to be a 'hurry up and make obama supporters look like bad people, before our own people do the assaulting' tactic.

fuck.. I have no idea. I'd like to see this vetted before I cast any judgement.

hopefully this didn't really happen.

Police say evidence gathered from the ATM machine makes her story "inconsistent".

I'm guessing that would be video.

There's also a pic....

http://hotair.cachefly.net/images/2008-10/todd.JPG

It may just be me, but if somebody were trying to carve a letter in my cheek, I would have to be knocked out. That's a pretty well-defined B.

yea, the pic seems reaaaallly sketchy and anyone assaulted would 'hopefully' seek medical attention...i don't see a logical reason why she would refuse. at all. unless she thought a doctor would look at it and say , "sorry miss, are these self inflicted"
-----Added 24/10/2008 at 12 : 42 : 21-----
the other thing is that she said the guy straddled her chest, so the B is backwards...very odd..

some were saying he may have had her head between his knees looking down her body, so the B is written from upside down...

and others say "gee, look in a mirror and it is right"

i would hate to be this skeptical, then learn it really happened like she said...

It's a crock. The ATM photos have now been seen and she didn't make a withdrawal.
Police say inconsistencies in McCain worker's story

Apparently, she's recanted.

kdka.com - McCain Campaign Worker Confessed To Making Up Story Of Attack

Poor kid.

I think this is a good time for slow, sarcastic clapping. Just pathetic.

Desperation on the part of the campaign or honest emotional instability? Can't say for sure.

oh that is paaaaathetic.

drudgereport.com hasn't retracted yet...

oh, and i think it's just an unstable young lady

I just heard that she recanted.

I'm struggling to understand WHY someone would fabricate such a vicious crime. Attention? Racism? I'm sure what actually went through this young woman's mind is much more complicated than any one-word answer....I'd interested in whether or not she'll make a statement.

I hope they come down hard on her. Making up a hate crime is serious business, and considering it was regarding an already heated election that makes it even worse.

well drudge changed the headline to "SHE MADE IT UP"

ww

She has to be stupid... she even carved the B backwards. I bet you right now she is wishing she carved an O instead...

What a freakin' tool.:shakehead:

LOL, people will never cease to amaze me.

Seriously?

The McCain campaign is so desperate that they're sending 20 year old campaign workers to Pittsburgh, with the express purpose of self inflicting wounds and blaming it on a physical attack by a thugish Obama supporter?

Really?

Let's just go with the honest emotional instability and be done with it.

I don't think he meant that anyone sent her to do this, but instead that she took it upon herself to become a rally point for the campaign.


Also, she's nuts.

My thoughts exactly. If the McCain camp was willing to go that far to make Obama look like a bad person they would probably be inducing Bristol into premature labor, then claiming the newborn baby is in NICU and may not make it. And grandma dearest needs to take time away from the campaign to console and comfort her family. Then, newborn baby would tragically die, and grandma dearest would be so grieved that she reluctantly bowed out of the campaign and Mitt Romney became the new Republican VP hopeful to save the day and the election!

I mean, if we're coming up with crackpot conspiracies like the McCain camp sending people to other cities to carve letters backwards in their face, the above is not so unbelievable either?

Aww, come on folks. Don't be cruel. Just let 'er be.

i would, but i first came across this story in the gym yesterday when this lady walked in wearing a 'country first' shirt with 30 mccain/palin buttons on her bag yelling how "those stupid N((((((( were attacking honest, hardworking people who happen to be mccain supporters.." and she went on to eloquently explain how she was voting just to show them who's boss.

Seriously.

ahh paq

don't you love living in the south??

I thought I had heard Nigger quite alot.. I was wrong. I've never heard it so much since Obama won the nomination.

On the bright side, with a bit of makeup and some bumper stickers you can now create a provocative and attention grabbing Halloween costume in mere seconds.

I call bullshit on this one. If that really happened, it was probably the same liberal plant who said Obama was an Arab. I can't recall the last time I heard a non-liberal say or refer to the term "nigger".

I'm sure John McCain is actually a liberal plant too, considering he was directly quoted saying, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."

Enjoy voting for a liberal.

Well, as one man, clearly your experiences comprise a representative sample of the entire population.

Ok, let me get this straight:

Either Paq is a liar, or "they" are sending out "liberal plants" to random gyms accross the country, paying for their gym memberships, and telling them to spout off racist comments, because racism doesn't exist?!?

And when somebody decides to kick the crap out of them, do they flash some sooper sekrit handsign or codeword so that they are identified as a "liberal plant" and not a stupid racist, because of course they don't exist.

Just dropped in to say : seriously matt? where do you live? I can think of several times in just the past year or so that I've heard the term thrown around, and usually by "non-liberals."

matthew, i don't know what you're calling BS on. I was simply waiting in the gym so i could teach my class when this lady started talking to the front desk girl and me and this story developed. I thought it sounded horrific, but also seemed to smack of something screwy. I also thought it was a local story, so i looked through my local newspapers thinking it'd be frontpage news..then i searched nationally and found the story.

gucci, i don't hear it often when i'm out in public, so it caught me offguard..especially since my class is generally 50/50 white/black, so this lady's statements were woefully out of place and i'm shocked nobody called her on it. I think they were just as shocked as i was about the sotry and didn't quite catch what she was saying. i'll see her again and give her a copy of the 'psycho girl recants' article.

oh, and i'm so proud i got my family to stop saying the N word....seriously, the south is changing, so it does come as a surprise when i hear it in something other than a rap song, especially in public...That being said, this is about the 30th time i've heard the quote, "Im not votin for that n******" so i tell them not to vote. It's kinda sad, though, that a lot of these people have never voted before and plan on voting now bc they can't stand the thought of obama in office...

oh, and if it's not 'that n((((), " it's "that terrorist" or "that muslim" or, in mccain's terms, "that One"


bc apparently they are interchangeable.

Ahhh living in the south..such a great place....i swear, though, it really is getting better, but i know the secret service is working overtime.


oh, and matthew, did you see the full video of the 'liberal plant' who said obama was an arab?

this is kinda fucked up. obviously. and it's strange to find folk making an allegory out of it

McCain Volunteer's Claim of Attack Unravelled, Online and Off | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

the only interesting thing to arise from this otherwise squalid and ugly little affair is that folk across the political spectrum were inclined to call bullshit on it.


there are jokes to be made about liberal plants.
i just can't figure out how to make them and stay within the rules of this game.
it's a shame.

I think that John Moody overestimates the power of this hoax.

sapiens, i think he overestimates the power of what this could mean, but this is like the 10th story of a radical mccain supporter doing or saying something just insane. although i think this takes it to a whole new level. a whooole new level. it's easy to scream stupid shit at a rally, but mannnn..


however, if she was half sane, she'd just have a likeminded friend beat her up and carve a B in her face..heck, it doesn't even have to be a friend.

I hate to spoil all the fun, but I'm the one that attacked her. Take that liberal plants!

And also:

The irony is almost unbearable.

Call me naive, I find it incredibly hard to believe that a public gym (where you work not to mention), your front desk girl could somehow strike up a conversation where the clientel didn't think twice about invoking "nigger" into a conversation at a conversational tone that people who weren't involved could hear it - oh, and look at that, she was covered in McCain stickers. Not buying it.

On the slight chance that story is %100 accurate, it disturbs me more that you saw it as an opportunity to come tell your TFP friends "ohh looky, we all talk about this all the time, but here's another fun story of how McCain supports are racist and like to use the "N((((((((((((((((" word, rather than chalk it up as some crazy bitch that doesn't represent anyone (except for the fact she did have McCain plastered on her, 30 times - I suppose that's pretty convincing).

And therein lay may problem, this is another clear example of how liberals use the black experience for political purposes, regardless of whether or not this story is true. That happens much more than some McCain supporter" walks into a gym and yells "nigger". I guarantee you.

I'll actually add that what you're doing is 100 x's worse because you're obviously much smarter than this chick, have more influence with average people, and you should frankly know better.

WTF....racism is still an issue in America because liberals bring attention to it. :thumbsup:

jesus, matthew, i worry about you.
i worry that among the consequences of seeing the world upside down is that all your blood will rush to your head and that bad things will follow from that.

if i understand the scenario you are arguing for---you think there's an Evil Liberal Genius Figure who is Hellbent on fucking with Righteous Conservatives.
this Evil Liberal Genius Figure is also obsessed with conservatives because, at this point, conservatives are that Important--an idea that is funny in itself.
because the Evil Liberal Genius is out there, and is obsessed, it follows that he or she would would designate Decoys or Shills whose sole function is to generate the types of events that you imagine the Evil Liberal Genius would want to see in order to thrash effectively the Righteous Conservatives, who are Regular Folk and so do not have the advantage of their own Good Genius who can designate Decoys or Shills whose sole function is to generate the types of events that you imagine the Good Conservative Genius would want to see so as to trash effectively the Evil Liberal Genius and everything that Evil Genius stands for.
so this non-event and the context this non-event necessarily refers to are all the results of the operations of some Evil Liberal Genius who only exists to fuck with people like yourself.

so in the end, it is a problem of a Genius Gap that explains the reality that conservatives like yourself have brought on yourselves.

and that Genius Gap is obviously an expression of the larger Persecution that has befallen the Righteous in these Degenerate Times as a result of the Evil Liberal Media and the Pointy-Head Conspiracy of the Coastal Elites and all that.

and you even try to run a reverse version of this paranoid scenario on paq.

all this while hanging upside-down.

it's impressive. i would think xanax would be less work. but hey, different strokes...

umm, dude, it's an omni gym, the front desk girls talk to EVERYONE who come in. I work there as an instructor 1-5 hrs a week, depending, and people come in and unload their shit at the front desk all the time bc it's that type of club. also, if it helps, the club is in SC and in a decidedly republican part of the state...well, not so much now, but generally...

i don't get where you're coming from here. If the reverse were true, i'd be spouting it too, "Oh damn, this obama supporter with a 'change' shirt came in with 30 obama stickers talking about how someone was mugged and had a J carved into her cheek, said she wasn't voting for the old fart just to keep them in line'.. old fart is closest i can come

and i'm in the chris rock boat...i don't get offended hwen i think racism exists, i get offended when i find people who think it doesn't exist. Maybe it's from living as a white in a black neighborhood, maybe it's from working at an upper middle class place that only hired blacks to wash dishes (one who actually worked his way up to grill cook, but is an exceptionally amazing cook, so hard to overlook) or maybe it's that i dated a girl who had only seen 1 black family for the first 17 yrs of her life while living in pa and was amazed at the cultural difference..amazed enough to actually lock her car door when she saw someone walking down the street.

like i said, i'm not shocked when i see it anymore, i'm shocked when i find out people don't think it still exists.


Now, when i see a middle class lady in a mccain shirt with a bag loaded with mccain stickers who spouts a story she heard on the radio then spouts a racial epithet in relation to how she's going to vote..am i going to think "gee, this woman who has been coming here for at least a year is a shill for a campaign or 'gee, this woman is upset at what she heard and is going a bit too far with her position by using some derogatory language" She's just a normal gym goer, has her 3 yr old in the daycare, is a normal person in every other circumstance. I've seen her before, never spoke to her, but when the 4 of us were in proximity, this all came about. I don't think i fully understand what you're saying.

......despite that very smart sounding rebuttal, its empty. If you can't see my point, I wouldn't call you evil, but certainly are not a genius (someone get roach a chair). It was amusing to see the left through your eyes though. I got you to not only NOT say conservativeland 50 times, but replace it with Evil Liberal Genius Figure.

I would like to point out again though - I never even hinted that I thought liberals were geniuses, that came from you. Was that whole thing just an opportunity to call yourself a genius? FYI, if your going to attempt a realistic effort at seeing yourself through my eyes....drop the "genius".

mathew....until the last of the deniers (mostly on the right) can acknowledge that racism still exists in America and stop characterizing it as a tool of liberals for "political purposes", the problem wont go away.

It doesnt take a genius to see through your blame game.

dc, that sounds like something obama said after the reverend wright stuff started appearing. someething about how we have to talk about the issue, accept it as real, then move on....


that's pretty much what i see while others are saying "No way, no how, it doesn't exist, lalalalaallalalallalalalla" and we're making it up, ya know. i don't get it

paq....one encouraging sign is that the racial (and religious) fear and smear tactics of the McCain campaign arent working as they may have in the not so distant past...with swing voters, older voters, blue collar voters.....
-----Added 24/10/2008 at 10 : 01 : 43-----
BTW,this incident goes beyond a mentally unstable young women....its been reported that the Communications Director of the Penn Republican Party is the one who told the local media that the "B" stood for Barack.

Everyone above me has said it more articulately than I could have, but yes, racism in America is very real. Mostly it's covert, which I think makes it easier to ignore, but that doesn't make it any less real. It does, however, seem to make people less likely to deal with it.

Despite Obama's ridiculous monetary advantage, the nonstop rhetoric similar to and demonstrated by the last few posts via mainstream media and Acorn preying on the vulnerable - this remains a relatively close race, so much so that the left is already talking about widespread voter fraud "in the event" that McCain wins. I got news, common sense at some level trumps all of this shit.

Is it easier to believe that I think racism doesn't exist because I question your use of it, or that you simply use it. Guyy can't speak a sentence without accusing someone of it, Paq thinks he hears it from someone who's conveniently covered in McCain stickers and runs wild. Its tiring, its transparent, and your reactions will be comical if McCain wins, for a day anyway.

Racism exists. People act racist and say racist things. Many racist people are racist against black people. Barack Obama is half black.

How is this complicated?

Liberals use and promote racism because it works for them. How is that complicated?

How do you end racism without bringing it into the light? And why is ending racism something that's only associated with a liberal ideology? Does that mean that conservatives are passive, or worse still active, in racism as a part of their ideology?

Mathew...there is a pervasive tone of racism and religious bigotry in and around the McCain campaign that is tolerated as long as McCain can say, after the fact, that he doesnt support it.

This incident is only the latest example....not the actions of the woman in question, but the fact that it was McCain's communications director in PA who reported to the media that it was "a politically motivated attack by a 6'4" black Obama supporter" without knowing the facts.

Other examples,

a mailer from a McCain state campaign staff or republican party official in one state that included an "Obama" dollar with his picture along with fried chicken, watermelon and food stamps.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PYVKD31RPF...cist16_400.jpg

campaign robo-calls and mailers in other states that question Obama's religion and say that muslims are evil

the list is endless.

But you only see what you want to see.

and would an example of "bringing it to light" congressman Murtha accusming the eastern half of pennsylvania of being racist, no wait....rednecks........no wait ...... old people who want change but not change enough to vote for a black person.

I mean, Murtha ain't a "mailer" for Obama...........seriously where the fuck did you hear that (you must have been looking for it). And do you REALLY fucking believe McCain had anything to do with that, or would you just like to make other people think he did? and we're back to my original point that was basically ignored in the first place.

Murtha being racist doesn't negate conservative racism, and you're changing the subject. Please answer my questions.

Unlike others here, i'm not losing any sleep over the possibility of a McCain victory. None. Zilch.

One reason it isn't close is because McCain has tried to use essentially racist identity politics when people want him to talk about economic problems. There are racists voting for Obama! They're saying that racism is a luxury they can't afford, but McCain's crew isn't listening. They're the pros, they know what they're doing, they know how to win. Why should they listen?

No..I dont believe McCain personally condones those mailers nor do I believe that Obama condones Murtha's remarks.

The difference is how frequently racial and religious slurs have been played by McCain campaign staff or Republican party officials at various levels...always with a half-hearted apology after the deed has been done.

I can see how you might come to that conclusion. Are you suggesting the opposite is true for Conservatives?

Interestingly the woman in this story, a conservative, seems to be using racism (or the fear of Blacks) to get people to not vote for Obama (rather than vote for McCain).

matthew:

Are you a genius?

Do you think Paq is a liar?

Do you believe that racism exists in America?

Too many responses here. We should only have a few people respond.

Bowing out for the moment.

matthew--the structure of your argument was some kind of conspiracy. all i did was make it explicit. the game you're running is not one that interests me, so i have no motivation to make things up. sorry if you don't like the outputs.

i think i'm a bit offended that i relay what happened at the place where i work a few hours a week and i'm accused of being a liar..kinda like a girl who carves a B into her face.

it's kinda funny, though, bc i was standing there, i have witnesses, and we all heard the same thing....

the only disbelief or "I thought i heard' was based on the 'wtf did she say" factor, not the fact she said it, but the fact she said it out loud in public.

but believe what you want. It's convenient she said "I heard this story and put more buttons on my bag" as a show of support for her cause? that was actually the only thing about her i understood. I don't get what you're trying to say, or i'm understanding you're saying i'm a liar or she's a plant... it's a bit offensive either way

...and I have nothing further to say. My "game" is over. I made my point, I liked (expected) the outputs just fine. Again it was a fairly simple point, that NONE of you could comprehend, so ten people ask me questions as if they never heard me in the first place.

Not gonna say the same thing over and over and over.

"Are you a genius?"

Might not be a genius, but i'm not insane either. Don't worry about me roach. I'll be aight.

mathew....never let the facts get in the way of a good rant! :thumbsup:

it's a bit offensive that you're using this to paint me as a racist. you heard that, and came her all excited that it was another "example" of how conservatives are racist. If that wasn't your intent, why did you mention it.

and now I'm repeating myself. I'm done, and I don't care that your offended Paq. As much as I hate this expression - it is what it is.

i'm not calling you a racist, i'm saying it's kinda like sticking your head in a hole and saying LALALALLALALALALALLALALA anytime something racist comes up. big difference.

did you get it all out dc? you feel better?

mathew....all i'm suggesting is to try bringing facts into discussions.

try it once, you might like it!

forget it.

I already have.

roach, dc, thanks greatly for the inputs in here.

btw, scott mclellan just endorsed obama.

hahaha, what the hell was that? Will was involved too. That was a diss to Will. You gonna take that Will?

Ending it on a lighter tone.

All the frightening rumors about Obama that you never knew existed:

sorry, thanks will :)

dcdux, that last vid was awwwesome

3 simple yes or no questions.

I guess that was too much to ask.

I apologize for being a superfluous respondent.

aw man, i liked those three questions, too

no, no, yes.

There ya go. Have fun with that.

See, now that wasn't so hard now was it? Simple. Direct. To the point.

If you will indulge me a few follow up questions:

Do you think it is possible that there are McCain supporters that are racist?

Do you think that some people immediately believed the OP attack story was true?

Do you think that it is possible that some people still use the word "nigger" when they are angry or upset about a black person?

As Bill Maher said.. if you can't laugh at a black joke, you're the racist one.

Heh, np. Matthew jumping to my defense, that was an interesting turn of events.

I've found elsewhere that the dog-pile approach really only works when the bottom dog has the energy to answer each question, to support the full weight of the pile. I am one of few liberals on several conservative forums, and I'm regularly piled on by posts from dozens of people faster than I can respond. I can set aside time to respond because I'm an insane forum addict, but most people can't which is why I suggested streamlining this. Maybe have one or two people from the more progressive side pose questions of Matthew, so that he can respond.

ok so next day, without a couple beers under my belt...what i found strange last night, and find even more strange today, is the idea that the racism that's surfaced in some clips, and so which frames the relations of *some* conservative voters to mc-cain, is only visible because "liberals" want to use it for their own advantage.

now there are two ways that this could be interpreted. one was the conspiracy route that i went through last night, which is absurd. the other is that the selection of clips is not neutral---this is a different issue, and there's no doubt that this is the case--the problem here is that the way matthew framed his position last night tended toward the former, but that latter seems to me a stronger argument.

there is the question of what kind of imagery is "newsworthy"---it is continually the case that for every clip involving a racist outburst from somebody there's an unknown number of other possible clips that do not include such outbursts. and if you think about the total number of possible clips, the set that includes racist outbursts is probably quite-to-vanishingly small in comparison with the other (hpothetical) set of clips of the same rallies which do not include them. that the clips which would circulate would come from the smaller set is not surprising if the mediation is a news organization, because from that viewpoint, clips that show people walking into or out of a palin rally, say, in the context of which nothing particular happens apart from walking into or out of a rally is probably not going to be understood as "newsworthy"---but this would obtain regardless of the political biais that you might assign to any given news outlet--fox news is no more likely to air clips in which nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens than is any other. but in selection of anomaly as information has consequences, and one of them is that the Image (in the metaphorical sense, the Impression) that is generated is not that *some* palin supporters are also racist, but rather that to be a palin supporter is to probably also be a racist. this doesn't follow. but i think everyone knows this--on the other hand, if television imagery really is a basic battleground across which various conceptions of the world are built, then these clips are a Problem for conservatives. but the Problem follows from the fact that anomaly=information in a "news" context and that racist statements are anomaly, so are information in a "news" context.

there's no need for any paranoid claim about "liberal plants" (i still want to make jokes about my geraniums here)....

i can see how conservatives who are not racist would be offended by the impression that's generated by these clips---but the response seems to me problematic when the issue is dodged--and the issue is that, like it or not, there *are* people who support mc-cain and palin because they're racist. but elementary logic tells you that it does not follow that therefore all do.

beyond that, i think the previous posts raise other framing questions---that you have a conservative identity politics that pitches toward xenophobia, which in turn rationalizes racism by legitimating it (when it seems functional for political reasons--ask almost any arab-american about how much fun it was for them right after 9/11/2001 to be arab-american...)---that the mc-cain campaign has pitched itself way to the right in order to shore up the "base" and so finds itself locked into using this kind of language, even as they try to distance themselves from the bush administration, which legitimated it's "war on terror" using the same kind of language---these are tactical problems.

all this in a thread about the action of a crazy=seeming person who apparently thought this discursive situation was an interesting space for theater....

Anyone see THIS attack?
Yes To Democracy: In all the faux (and Fox) outrage......

Yes, you read that right. A McCain supporter beat an Obama volunteer, and he admitted it.

I'm waiting, Druge.

Those stupid crackers are attacking honest, hardworking people who happen to be Obama supporters, and I am voting just to show them who's boss.

(Paid for by the conservative plants of America)

*looks up*

wow.. that's a pretty tall horse you have there... must be difficult breathing in the clouds like that.


Seriously. wtf are you smoking?? Conservatives here have been throwing Nigger and Arab and Terrorist around more and more since the Primaries began. What was once more a private discussion on the racial views is now public and in the open. So please stop thinking that it's just some liberal conspiracy that's bringing up racism. I can only speak from what I see and hear around here.. and trust me, it's not the liberals throwing around the racist remarks. It's the so called christian conservatives and their followers.

gucci, i forgot you were in NC and i'm glad there is someone else from this area who know hears the same shit i hear.

thanks man. This stuff is getting t be bloody...

I just don't hear it, I see it.

A truck on the highway today had about 10 McCain/Palin stickers on his truck.. along with 5 obama stickers. 2 Obama Stickers had Obama wearing a Turbin and calling him a terrorist. Another 2 had Obama with a bloused out shirt, no tie and a cigarette hanging from his mouth with the caption "just another nigger looking for change" the other, had a picture of McCain beside Obama. McCain was like Jesus and Obama.. a turbin wearing terrorist.

Amazing.. seriously. Now, I'd really really doubt that the person driving that truck was a liberal. But.. who knows.. maybe he was just a plant placed on the highway. :rolleyes:

i think i saw that truck....

i do remember seeing a truck with the jesus/mccain vs obama turbin terrist sticker.....i want to see the bloused out shirt, no tie and cig sticker just to see the driver get mugged here...my area is sooooooooo divided..it's literally an across the street mccain/obama feud and it's so prevalent that the dem office has trouble holding volunteers to walk their get out of the vote campaign. I'm pretty sure the republican office has the same issues, honestly.