Wow, what a refreshing article.

I want to say that you are brilliant, however, what you are saying is simple logic and it should be "common" sense. Unfortunately, "common" sense isn't really all that common. Please visit my site (http://www.rosecoloredglasses.org and my blog: http://www.rosecoloredglasses.org/rcg_warblog ) and perhaps we can work together on some things. I know I sure could use the help. Thanks again, for this excellent article. When I get the time, I want to read your other articles as well.

by RCG (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 352 comments) on Monday, October 30, 2006 at 12:51:36 PM
 

I'm still with you Mark

Mark, for what it's worth - I'm still with you. I will never again vote for or support someone to "represent me" unless they actually "represent me". They don't have to represent my every position but they must represent my core values.

by RCG (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 352 comments) on Friday, November 3, 2006 at 9:01:53 AM
 

Good feature

Many of us are indeed frustrated along the lines that are revealed by this great post. Just in the past couple of years, newly elected senators and representatives from my state (Colorado) have time and again betrayed not just the Democratic principles upon which they ran, but basic constitutional safeguards that NO elected official who has taken the oath of office should compromise. We're talking about Patriot Act extension, not filibustering Alito, the NSA no-warrant spying for God's sake, etc., etc.

Both points of view exhibited in your post have legitimacy. Nader, the 911-Truth folks, Dennis Kucinich, in my mind, seem to be the only people who are asking the right questions and who have the welfare of our democratic republic at heart. On the other hand, the political center of gravity in the U.S. is still so swayed by the Reagan and Bush spin, that progressives find ourselves fighting for their political lives even in the face of Republican utter treachery and incompetence. When Marilyn Musgrave has a 10-point poll lead over her Dem. challenger in a House district that includes a major university community, I'm not expecting anything resembling a watershed election next month.

by JimZ (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 11:32:31 AM
 

You must live in a very strange district.

The top-of-the-fold newspaper headline I saw when I went downstairs a little while ago said that in polls taken all over the country, the Democrats had a 25% lead over their Republican opponents. The paper put this down to anger over things like the Foley scandal, but I'm sure there are other issues people are angry about.

And that's my entire point. If there is an issue you care about, something that makes you angry, something that is important to you, I want to urge you, as strongly and as passionately as I possibly can, to vote for candidates who feel the same way you do. And only for candidates who feel the same way you do. Because if you cast your vote for someone who doesn't care about the things that you care about, you will have nothing to complain about if they fail to act in your interests after they're elected.

A vote isn't something to be casually thrown away, although we have no guarantee that the electronic voting machines might not do exactly that. I may care about the homeless person on the corner, I may care about an aging loved one or a hospitalized neighbor, but that doesn't mean I would vote for them. But it is because I care about these people that I will try to only vote for candidates who also care, and who will try to alleviate homelessness, restore Medicare benefits, and attempt to provide decent health care for everyone. I've watched Democrats and Republicans control this country between them all my live, and together they have managed to increase homelessness and savage health care. I'm 66 years old. How many more decades can I afford to give them?

Like most Americans, except for most of those in Congress and the White House, I've held ordinary jobs. And I assure you that if I'd done the kind of job that the Democrats and Republicans have been doing for the past 25 years, I'd have been fired for cause. Exactly how do people bring themselves to vote for a member of the two parties that voted to subsidize the corporations that outsourced their jobs to Mexico or China? Is it out of gratitude that now you and your kids have to work for less or can't find jobs at all?

How do people bring themselves to vote for a member of the two parties that voted for a war based on lies, voted to give more money for that war after the head of the Defense Department fired his generals for trying to tell him what would be needed to win that war, and sent our troops in harm's way in inadequate numbers without the proper equipment? How does anyone who cares about liberty and justice for all bring themselves to vote for a member of the two parties who voted to throw away our liberties and dispense with justice in the name of a war based on lies?

Which brings me back to 9/11. The FBI says they have no hard evidence connecting Osama bin Laden to 9/11. President Bush said that there is no evidence connecting Iraq to 9/11. So what was it? Nineteen lone nuts who just coincidentally managed to hijack planes at the same time that our air defenses were busy elsewhere for a couple of hours? Since we've already lost our freedoms, our civil rights, and many American lives, don't we have the right to a full, impartial investigation into who ordered 9/11 and how planes and fires, for the first and only time in history, could cause huge skyscrapers to collapse with the precision and speed of a controlled demolition, including one building that wasn't even hit by a plane?

Many sources have been saying that this year's October surprise will be the bombing of Iran on October 21st. Others, like neo-conservative PNAC member Bill Kristol have predicted that the not only would the Democrats win in November, but that it would be the best possible thing for the Republicans. Why? Because it would restore voter confidence in easily-hacked voting machines and allow the Republicans to take everything back in '08?

I want people to vote. But I want people to vote with both eyes open. I want people to take part in parallel elections and observe the vote tallies where possible. And to bring videocameras. I want people to understand that voting is not something that we owe to a political party, it is something that we owe to ourselves and to our country. To understand that without honest elections, we won't get honest politicians. But most of all, to vote for candidates who really care about the same things they care about. That is the ONLY valid reason for voting for someone. Candidates who don't care about the same issues you care about, cannot possibly represent you in Congress. They may represent the defense industry, big corporations, their party leadership, or something else entirely, but if they don't care about the same things you do, they cannot and will not represent YOU.

by Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 3:53:37 PM
 

There will always....

be a damned good reason to vote for a Democrat. "Anything but Bush" fooled me in 2000. I completely fell for Kerry in 2004, thinking he would help us out of the mess, Diebold and all. All you hear is that wining "just this one last time!"

Alas, I refuse to vote for anyone not totally committed to causes I support (election reform e.g.) and totally against policies I'm against, illegal wars e.g. That doesn't mean I won't ever again vote for a Democrat. Robert Bowman e.g. (Florida, 15th District).

Enough is enough !

by Tony Forest (4 articles, 10 quicklinks, 116 diaries, 1005 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 11:58:16 AM
 

But what if . . .

The reason for voting for 9/11 Truth candidates, if you want a full, impartial investigation into 9/11.

What if you would like to see an impartial investigation into 9/11 but this seems a minor issue compared to the issue of ending Republican one-party rule over this country. What if one is concerned that voting for minority candidates who have little chance of winning will split the progressive vote and keep Republicans in office?

by PrMaine (7 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 229 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 4:19:34 PM
 

So you think the Republicans did it alone?

First of all, there is no question of splitting the vote leading to the Republicans remaining in power. The Democrats won in 2000, 2002, and 2004. The only ones trying to sustain the myth that the Democrats lost due to vote-splitting, third party candidates like Nader, etc., are the Democrats. Anyone with the least bit of interest in election integrity knows that not only did Jimmy Carter admit that Gore won, but also Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. explained in his Rolling Stone article, with carefully cited undisputable documented evidence, that both Gore and Kerry won their elections.

In 2000 the Supreme Court did intervene, but the Florida electoral vote was still fraudulent and should not have been certified. Bob Filner and the Congressional Black Caucus, almost all lifelong Democrats, stood up with a petition begging Al Gore not to certify the fraudulent Florida electoral votes. Gore's response to his fellow Democrats, was to order all Democratic Senators, who held a majority of seats in the Senate at the time, to refuse to sign the CBC petition. Gore did not care about his constituents, or about Democrats in the House of Representatives. His main concern was to make the transition to Republican rule as smooth as possible and to avoid civil unrest. He had been in the Senate and the White House for a long time. He knew the Bush family and their friends very well. He trusted them to run the country well. He voted with them once they took power. As did his running mate, Joe Lieberman.

As for John Kerry, in order to ensure that his fraternity brother Bush could have another four years in office, Kerry had to break not one, but two promises to his constituents. He broke his promise to ensure that every vote was counted, and he broke his promise not to concede early. I'm sure his fraternity brother was grateful, but many of the Democrats who voted for Kerry were not.

Both Gore and Kerry won the popular vote and actually won their elections in Florida, Ohio, and almost everywhere else. But neither of them felt that winning the election was important enough of an issue to put up a fight about, and both felt that the important thing was to concede graciously to their Republican opponent so as not to be labelled a sore loser. They didn't care what Democrats thought of them, their only concern was what Republicans might think of them.

Those of us who actually oppose the Republican agenda, and who voted for Democrats, only to watch them, having actually won their elections, turn around and concede to their Republican colleagues without a fight, and without even bothering to apologize to the millions of Democrats who had voted for them, are angry.

You fooled us once. You fooled us twice. And now you think that we're so stupid that you can fool us a third time with the same tired old lies? We feared the Republicans. That's why we voted for Democrats. But the Republicans took power any way, which they couldn't have done without the gracious concessions of their Democratic colleagues. The Republicans have been in power for six years now and the Democrats have never effectively opposed them, not even when there was a Democratic majority in the Senate. Instead they used that majority to stomp on their fellow Democrats, to express their contempt for voting rights, and to smooth the way to power for their Republican colleagues.

I'm sure you'll never forgive those people who didn't vote for Gore. I'm sure you believe it was those third party voters, not Gore, who conceded to Bush. Nader got the most votes, not Gore, right? Nader conceded to Bush, not Gore, right? Nader refused to ask for a full recount in Florida, and instead selected only certain counties, as if the votes of other counties didn't matter at all, not Gore, right? It is all Nader's fault? Nader forced Kerry to send all those volunteer lawyers home instead of having them contest the elections in all precincts where fraud was known to have occurred? Nader forced Kerry to concede early, despite his promise not to? Nader controls the Supreme Court, the Democratic Party leadership, and it is all his fault, right?

The fact is that the Nader vote had no effect at all. Kerry got 9 million votes more than Bush did. It has been proven and documented. But you don't care. You just want people to vote for Democrats so that the Democrats can once more laugh in their faces and waste everyone's votes by conceding to their Republican colleagues.

Where was the filibuster of the Military Commissions Act? Had a single Democrat stood up and at least attempted to filibuster the end of habeus corpus in America, you might have had an argument for people to vote for Democrats. You could have been able to say, well, we don't have a majority, but we tried to oppose the Republican agenda, and if you give us a majority we might be able to do it. But you didn't even try. Because you don't care. You've had six years in which to show that you oppose the Republican agenda, and you haven't done it.

The Marines have a slogan for people like the Democrats:

Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

You haven't led, you won't follow, and it is high time you got the hell out of the way and let us take our country back.

by Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 5:08:26 PM
 

And if 9/11 seem like a "minor issue" to you,

why would Democrats have voted for the PATRIOT Act, the Iraq War, torture, the Military Commissions Act, and everything else that has destroyed our Constitution?

Over a minor issue? 9/11 changed nothing? Democrats would have voted for the Republican agenda even without 9/11?

Forgive me, but I'm starting to wonder if Democrats are not just obstructionists and collaborators, it is quite possible that none of them have been in contact with reality lately. They must be too busy working with their Republican colleagues to destroy America.

I'm going to make a prediction here. I'm not a poltical expert, but I predict that when somebody takes a more precise poll, they are going to find that there has been a majority shift of the mainstream to the left in this country. Republican dissatisfaction with their party has caused many of them to reregister Democrat, while Democratic dissatisfaction with their party has caused many of them to withhold donations and look for third parties who might better represent their interests.

We the People want our Constitution back. And neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem to give a hoot. And when the Republican converts find that the Democrats won't represent them any more than the Republicans did, they are also going to leave you.

If you really want people to vote for Democrats, I suggest that you quit the whining and fear-mongering, and start trying to pretend that you actually care about the Constitution. Everyone knows that you really don't care at all, and you certainly can't run on your voting records, but if you want to retain two-party rule, you'd better start pretending to act like an opposition party. Because nobody wants the sort of one-party rule we've had for the past six years except for the Republicans and their Democratic colleagues and collaborators.

I don't want to see the Republicans retain power. That is a good reason for me NOT to vote for any Democrat who voted with the Republicans. It is not a good reason for me to vote for Democrats who voted for the PATRIOT Acts, to confirm Alito, in favor of torture and renditions, to continue the war, or to absolve Bush of liability for war crimes. In fact I happen to believe that Bush may have committed treason and therefore should be impeached. So I have every reason not to vote for Democrats like Russ Feingold, Nancy Pelosi, and John Conyers, who have already gone on record as stating that they do not intend to try to impeach Bush. In other words, if you vote for Democrats, you can be assured of continued Republican rule.

by Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 5:32:39 PM
 

Whew!

I won't even try to take up all of your points. Clearly you are convinced of your cause beyond any hope of my persuading you. But let me correct you on a couple points.

You say, The fact is that the Nader vote had no effect at all. If 10% of the vote for Nader in Florida in 2000 had gone for Gore then the election count would have gone to Gore. True, Gore won the vote. True, you can point to other possible causes. Clearly false that the Nader vote had no effect at all.

Second, I did not say that 9/11 was a minor issue and I certainly do not believe it. I said that having another investigation of 9/11 was a minor issue compared to restoring checks and balances in our government.

by PrMaine (7 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 229 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 6:42:00 PM
 

You can fool some of the people all of the time.

PrMaine, you wrote, "If 10% of the vote for Nader in Florida 2000 had gone for Gore then the election count would have gone to Gore. True, Gore won the vote. True you can point to
other possible causes. Clearly false that the Nader vote had no effect at all."

Let's take this slowly, point by point. First of all, there was no election count until long after Bush was declared the winner. Justice Anthony Scalia wrote the Supreme Court ruling to stop the recount. By the time the newspapers were able to do an actual recount and learn that Gore had won, Bush was already President.

Secondly, since you admit that Gore won the vote, which he did, how can you possibly think that if he had won it by a wider margin it would have changed anything? He didn't lose the vote. It wasn't that if more people had voted for him we would have won. He won the vote. True, if thousands of voters hadn't been illegally disenfranchised by Katherine Harris, he would have won it by a much larger margin, but he won it. If those voters hadn't been disenfranchised, or if nobody had voted for Nader, the results still would have been the same: Gore won, Bush was installed.

As the video "Unprecendented" (anyone can google it and view it online for free) shows, the manner in which the election was stolen in 2000 did not require, or have anything to do with, the Nader vote. It was irrelevant. It changed nothing. It did not influence Katherine Harris or ChoicePoint. It did not influence the Supreme Court. It did not influence Gore's decision to ignore most of those who had voted for him in Florida and request a recount only in a handful of counties. It did not influence the Jews for Buchanon phenomenon. You have been told by your party leaders that it is Nader's fault that the Supreme Court stopped the recount, that Gore wouldn't let Democratic Senators sign the CBC petition, and that when Katherine Harris illegally disenfranchised thousands of Democratic voters, the Democratic Party did not rally to support them and file lawsuits to restore their right to vote. So that's what you are determined to believe, even if it requires that you contradict yourself.

The only possible way that the Nader vote could have effected the result, is if Gore hadn't gotten enough votes to win because too many Democrats had voted for Nader. This was not the case.

You then wrote, "I said that having another investigation of 9/11 was a minor issue compared to restoring checks and balances in our government."

But it was 9/11 that "changed everything." If not for 9/11, most Democrats might not have voted for the PATRIOT Act without even bothering to read it first, and might not have voted for the illegal, unjustified Iraq war. If not for 9/11 Bush would not have had sufficient popularity and Congressional support to push through his agenda of eliminating checks and balances in government. Bush got everything he wanted by pointing to 9/11 and saying that because of 9/11 everything he was doing was necessary, and that anyone who didn't agree was supporting the terrorists.

Since then the FBI has stated clearly that they have no hard evidence tying bin Laden to 9/11, and Bush himself has said that there is no evidence connecting Iraq to 9/11. There are still a lot of people who believe the government's conspiracy theory that 19 lone nuts with boxcutters just coincidentally happened to hijack four airplanes at a time when our air defenses were busy elsewhere for two hours, and that the laws of physics were suspended so that for the first and only time in history, airplanes and fires could cause steel skyscrapers to collapse with the precision and speed of controlled demolition. But even they haven't explained why that would justify the PATRIOT Acts or the Iraq war.

A new, full, impartial investigation would investigate why Building 7, which was not hit by a plane at all, fell as quickly and completely as WTC 1 and 2. The whitewash investigation doesn't even mention Building 7. If a large building falls and the investigation ignores it, did it really fall at all? A new, full, impartial investigation might not allow Bush and Cheney to testify secretly, together instead of singly, and while not under oath as all other witnesses were. A new, full, impartial investigation might investigate whose stock market plays indicated foreknowledge of 9/11 and how they had known. It might investigate why warnings were ignored. And much, much more.

So if you want to restore checks and balances in government, you should take a hard look at how they were lost, and who was behind it. Pakistani President Musharraf claims that he only funded the terrorists because the United States threatened to bomb Pakistan if he didn't. Is that true? Is it a lie? We know he sent money to Mohammad Atta. Where did that money come from? Why didn't the whitewash investigation bother to trace the money trail?

9/11 was the justification that Bush gave for removing checks and balances from our government. He said that he needed more power to fight the terrorists. So we need to know why he blocked any investigation for over a year. It only took 8 days after Pearl Harbor for an investigation to be opened, and it was wartime, so what was the difference? We need to know why he withheld portions of the investigation that involved the Saudis, particularly since his family has such close ties to the bin Laden family.

In other words, we need to know if 9/11, which was the reason Bush gave for removing checks and balances from our government, was initiated and carried out by terrorists, specifically those Al Quedah terrorists under bin Laden who had been formed, armed, and trained by the U.S. to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, for purposes of their own, or because Bush or others in his administration had ordered them to do so to facilitate his ability to remove checks and balances from our government.

Some have said that they did it to get Bush to remove U.S. troops from Saudi soil. Since Bush did comply with their demands and remove U.S. troops from Saudi soil, was he merely giving in to terrorists, or was that the quid pro quo he had promised them if they attacked the WTC so that he could remove checks and balances from our government?

Maybe you think it is a minor issue, but many people really want to know.

by Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments) on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at 6:57:33 PM
 

Whew again!

I'll try to be brief. As I understand your argument, there is no point in voting for Democrats because the Republicans will just steal your vote and give it to the Republican.

If you believe this argument (and it is not without some merit) then you also believe there is no point in voting for Greens or other minority candidates. The Republicans can just as easily steal these votes - probably more easily since few people really think these candidates have a chance anyway.

So it seems you are arguing for just throwing in the towel ... or are you arguing for massive rebellion of some kind?

It is my considered opinion that close elections are much easier for the Republicans to steal than are Democratic landslides. I do think that there is a progressive majority in this country, but I also think that the presence of progressive third party candidates, like Ralph Nader was in 2000, make close elections much more likely. Splitting the progressive vote like this also makes actual Republican wins (as well as stolen elections) much more likely.

by PrMaine (7 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 229 comments) on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 8:18:47 AM
 

You cannot understand my argument.

My argument is that if you care deeply about something, like peace, truth, democracy, or things of that nature, you should only vote for candidates who have the strength of character to represent you. Isn't that why you vote for people -- to represent you? No? You vote for them so that your party can win? You don't care if the people you vote for can represent you or not, so long as they win? The only way you can possibly understand my argument would be if you yourself were capable of caring about issues.

In your case, the only thing you seem to care deeply about is that people vote for Democrats. You don't care if the Democrats then concede to Republicans, or take office and then proceed to vote with Republicans for the Republican agenda, because you don't care deeply enough about any issue to care how they vote or whether or not they concede. You just want people to vote for them.

You don't really care if the Democrats win or not, because if you did you'd be fighting for honest, open elections and refusing to support any Democrat who didn't, fighting to purge the Democratic Party of anyone who breaks a campaign promise not to concede early to a Republican and does it anyway, and fighting to force the Democratic leadership to support candidates who agree with most Americans that we should get out of Iraq and that we should impeach Bush/Cheney. And because you don't really care if the Democrats win or not, but only that people vote for them, it looks to me like what you really want isn't votes at all, but campaign contributions.

Gore is a Democrat. Enough people voted for him that he actually won in 2000. But he didn't want to stand up for Democrats of color in Florida who had been disenfranchised, so he graciously conceded to Bush, a Republican.

Kerry is a Democrat. He knew people were angry about what Gore had done, so he promised that if people voted for him he would ensure that our votes were counted, that nobody was disenfranchised, and he promised that he would not concede early. But even though he won in 2004, he broke both promises and conceded to Bush, a Republican.

I don't know if the mistakes in your response were deliberate or were just accidents, but the best way to ensure a Republican victory, as Gore demonstrated in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, is to vote for Democrats, because they will always concede to Republicans.

You know that there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. I know that there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Everybody in the country except for Al Gore and John Kerry knows that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. Gore and Kerry don't believe that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans, and they feel that the country is just as well off being run by their Republican colleagues as it would be if it were being run by them. And you know what? They may be right.

by Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 26 quicklinks, 64 diaries, 767 comments) on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 10:20:42 PM
 

More proof I'm not a Democrat.

Having read the initial article, and now having read your comment, I am now more than ever convinced I am not a Democrat. I hold every Democrat in both houses of congress equally culpable for the ramrod treatment given to the torture bill DUBYA wanted.

Not one Democrat stood to oppose it. There were three Republican dissidents; the only ones who opposed this legislation on moral and constitutional grounds. I believe their action was a clear signal to the Democrats saying, "Hey, guys, we're fighting your fight, we're making your stand, why not come over and lend us a hand?" (Wow, that's poetry if you say it right)

Then when the dissidents failed in their attempts, could any Democrat in the Senate be bothered to filibuster? Clinton: no, Reid: no, Kennedy: no, Feingold: no! All those Senators listed are among the most left-leaning of the lot, yet they couldn't find a spinal column between them to stand up to this flagrant abuse of the constitution, and good old common sense.

Why? Were they afraid of being painted as "soft on terrorists"? Were they afraid they wouldn't be invited to nifty Republican sponsored parties? Were they afraid to make a moral stand because they have no morality between the lot of them?

I'd really like to know. I think America has the right to know. However, I will probably grow a uterus and give birth before anyone of those spineless assholes ever gives a sound, moral reason for not standing on principle.

It just infuriates me to no end. America is self-destructing, and no one cares. Those who do care have to contend with constant accusations of lack of patriotism, accusations of being in cahoots with terrorists, or being conspiracy theory loving nutcases. I am none of these things.

I just wish for once, the Democratic party would quit rolling over on command from the Republicans. I know, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up faster.

Blessed be!
Pappy

by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments) on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 6:31:05 PM
 

I vote for issues

TRUTH V(for"vote")911:I VOTE "ISSUES"

Issues: that's my synonym for your group name"Truth v911."

Did you listen/hear/see Moyer on the Christian Right tonight. But of course, you wrote your wonderful article first; and, by the way, I am envious, downright jealous, of that "shill" technique. It's great. What a neat way to offer the World my valuable ideas! In 71 years of writing, why didn't I think of it?

But to get back to Moyer and the Christians, who'd ever have thought, EVER, that the odious Religious Right would have a "re-birth,"embrace an issue as far off their plate as the environmental and step up to help save the Planet and ourselves. Will I work with them? You bet. I care not a stitch for labels. I write, vote and teach,"issues" and I vote with my heart, because the power to oppose this administration must come from our gut.

It is also the creed of the journalist, except most journalists have forgotten it. It reads like this:

"It is my job to inform the citizens, to tell them the truth, all and nothing but, based on what I see, hear, and understand, and to criticize only if I provide a remedy, because only fully informed voters can guide a nation stretching toward a democracy of, for, and by the people.

by emily horswill (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 57 comments) on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 2:39:46 AM