Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become more than just a political irritation to President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party establishment.
The Kennedy family scion and anti-vaccine activist is roiling the waters of Biden’s bid for a second term.
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South Carolina senator and 2024 candidate Tim Scott racked up nearly 150 endorsements from current and former elected officials in his home state Monday.
Scott entered the Republican primary in late May, and already gained the backing of South Dakota’s GOP Senate Majority Whip John Thune and Sen. Mike Rounds. The South Carolina senator received 148 endorsements, including several members of the state legislature’s leadership, the mayor of South Carolina’s capital, Columbia, and a former U.S. congressman, the Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed.
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So far in 2023, six states signed school choice legislation into law, giving millions of families and their children education options, including access to taxpayer-funded vouchers.
Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, South Carolina and Oklahoma all signed legislation into law that makes at least some, if not all students within the states, eligible for taxpayer funded vouchers or a tax credit that can be used on education expenses such as private school tuition, textbooks and transportation. Under the legislation enacted in 2023, millions of students across the country are now able to attend schools outside their designated zip code or apply to receive funding in order to seek a private or a homeschool education.
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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act Thursday morning, legislation that protects babies in the state from abortion from the time a heartbeat is detected.
McMaster’s signature on the bill now makes South Carolina the 23rd state to protect babies with a heartbeat, and marks that half of the United States is now protecting babies from abortion at or before 12 weeks.
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The South Carolina Legislature gave final approval to its heartbeat bill Tuesday, one that would ban abortions from the time a fetal heartbeat is detected and a move that will continue the trend in the southern states to restrict abortion.
The state senate passed the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act (S. 474) Tuesday by a vote of 27-19 and sent the measure to the desk of Governor Henry McMaster (R), who said he “look[s] forward to signing this bill into law as soon as possible.”
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U.S. Senator Tim Scott made it official Monday, launching his campaign for president in the North Charleston, SC, hometown that informed his core belief: That the United States of America is “the land of opportunity, not a land of oppression.”
Joined on stage by the single mother who raised him and the wife of the mentor who entered his adolescent life at a critical time, the Republican spoke of the opportunities that made him the man — and the presidential candidate — he is today.
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The South Carolina House of Representatives has passed a bill to restrict abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, per a vote held in the House late on Wednesday.
The House passed Senate Bill 474, known as the “Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act,” with amendments, by a vote of 82 to 32, with all Republicans and two Democrats voting in favor. The bill would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually after six weeks of pregnancy.
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Making the case for America-first principles, Ohio entrepreneur and anti-woke crusader Vivek Ramaswamy told a campaign rally in suburban Des Moines Thursday evening that, as president, he would seek a constitutional amendment raising the voting age to 25.
Ramaswamy, the first millennial Republican candidate to seek the White House, has been known to shake things up on the campaign trail.
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A South Carolina parent challenged the school board of Richland School District Two in Columbia where Blythewood High School (BHS) hosted the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “No Place for Hate” program that invites children to “explore identity,” and “apply this understanding to recognize the relationship between identity, bias and power.”
ADL’s No Place for Hate program also seeks to “build the capacity to recognize and confront bias within oneself, others and institutions. Examine the relationship between individual biases and systemic oppression, including the impact of intersecting oppressions.”
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has set the Peach State’s 2024 party primary elections for March 12, foiling the Democratic National Committee’s plans to move Georgia’s vote toward the front of the presidential nominating line.
Raffensperger says the DNC acted “unilaterally” in its bid to make their nominating process more “diverse” by bumping predominantly white states like Iowa and New Hampshire back and pushing more “racially inclusive” states like Georgia and Michigan to the front of the primary line.
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Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed school choice legislation into law Thursday that provides private and religious school students with taxpayer funds.
Under S 39, every student enrolled in a private or religious school will be eligible to receive $6,000 to spend on education related costs. The bill, signed into law by McMasters on Thursday, passed the state Senate in February and the state House approved the bill in April, 79-35.
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As he moves closer to a presidential campaign announcement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scheduled a trip to the Badger State next month.
DeSantis, who is expected to officially launch his run for the White House after the Florida legislative session ends in early May, will speak at the Republican Party of Marathon County Lincoln Day Dinner on May 6.
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by Eric Lendrum On April 7th, an amicus brief was filed in favor of Florida’s current ban on using state funds to support “transgender” treatments, with 17 state attorneys general voicing their support for the law. According to the Daily Caller, the brief’s filing was part of an ongoing legal battle in the state of Florida, where far-left, pro-transgender activists have teamed up with several pseudo-medical organizations to file a lawsuit against the law. The groups involved include the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The law in question states that Medicaid funds cannot be used to cover any transgender operations, including sex change surgery, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers. The 17 states that have filed in support of Florida are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In their filing, the AGs argue that the organizations involved in the lawsuit have “prioritized politics over science.” “The amici States submit this brief in support of Florida’s right to regulate medicine and determine appropriate treatments for Medicaid coverage,” the brief states. “Moreover, there is particular reason to…
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While Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy may be lagging in the polls, in his first month on the campaign trail no one has outworked the Ohio businessman to connect with voters.
In the words of Geoff Mack and Johnny Cash, Ramaswamy has been everywhere, man — from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina and Maryland. He’s made the media rounds, too, from the smallest small town newspapers to the network talking heads.
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Several states are advocating for harsher fentanyl penalties as overdose deaths surge in the U.S.
Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Texas, West Virginia and South Carolina have all pushed to increase the length of sentences for fentanyl dealers, according to the Associated Press. Fentanyl is largely responsible for the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths that occurred in 2021 up from 93,331 drug overdose deaths in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley brought her freshly minted campaign for president to Iowa Monday evening, telling a town hall crowd in suburban Des Moines that she’s the candidate who’s got the experience and the energy — and the competency — to lead.
The Republican and former ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump didn’t spare her old boss in her headline-grabbing call for a competency test for elected officeholders over the age of 75.
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Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced her 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday in a video.
She is now the second Republican to seek the party’s nomination after former President Donald Trump.
Haley, a former United Nations Ambassador under Trump, opened her campaign video by reflecting on her childhood.
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The Democratic National Committee has approved a calendar that makes South Carolina the party’s first primary for the 2024 election.
The move follows an endorsement from President Joe Biden, whose win in the state’s 2020 Democratic primary was integral to his securing the Democratic nomination.
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South Carolina’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the state law restricting abortions at around six weeks, finding that it violated the state constitution.
Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill into law in February 2021 barring abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can happen at around six weeks into a pregnancy. The state can limit a woman’s privacy rights with regard to abortion decisions, but only after she’s been given “reasonable” time to pursue an abortion legally, the court found.
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Following South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem’s lead, nearly half of U.S. states have put restrictions on or banned the use of Chinese-based social media app TikTok.
At least 19 states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utha, Virginia and West Virginia.
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Texas and Florida lead the U.S. in population growth, according to new Census Bureau estimates.
Texas saw the largest population gain in the U.S. Florida had the largest percentage increase and the fastest population growth, according to the data.
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A school district that gave preschoolers a book on cross-dressing has changed its procedures for giving out books after news of the incident surfaced last week.
As first reported exclusively by The Lion and The Heartlander news sites, a 4-year-old preschooler in the Turner School District in Kansas City, Kansas, took home the book Jacob’s New Dress. It’s a picture book in which a little boy wears girls’ clothes and even competes with his friend Emily to be a princess.
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A panel of the Democratic National Committee on Friday backed a proposal that would make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary contest in the party’s primary nominating process.
Under the Rules and Bylaws Committee proposal, Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Michigan, would follow soon after South Carolina and precede Super Tuesday, according to CNN. The changes still require confirmation at a full DNC meeting, set to take place next year.
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Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”
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A fuel supply and logistics company is warning about diesel shortages across the Southeast United States, issuing an alert on Friday about “rapidly devolving” conditions in North Carolina and six other states.
Mansfield moved to “Alert Level 4” to address market volatility, and “Code Red” in the Southeast, which means the company is now requesting 72 hour notice for deliveries when possible “to ensure fuel and freight can be secured at economical levels.”
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Republican state treasurers are withdrawing $1 billion in assets from BlackRock’s control due to the asset manager’s alleged boycott of the fossil fuel industry, according to the Financial Times.
Republican South Carolina State Treasurer Curtis Loftus is pulling $200 million from BlackRock by the end of 2022, and Louisiana treasurer John Schroder said on Oct. 5 that he is divesting $794 million from the company, according to the FT. Utah treasurer Marlo Oaks said he removed $100 million in funds from BlackRock’s control, and Arkansas treasurer Dennis Milligan pulled $125 million from the company in March.
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A dozen Republican state attorneys general are fed up with what they view as the leftward drift and self-dealing of their nonpartisan national association and are asking the organization to change its ways and return roughly $280 million in assets to the states.
The National Association of Attorneys General was created in 1907 as a bipartisan forum for all state and territory attorneys general. Over the last year, several of the group’s Republican members have asserted that NAAG has become a partisan litigation machine that improperly benefits from the many tort settlements it helps to engineer.
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The South Carolina Supreme Court has temporarily blocked continued enforcement of the state’s Heartbeat law, which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
The court’s order Wednesday grants abortion providers an emergency motion that will halt enforcement of the law which has been in effect since June 27, several days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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A federal judge in Tennessee ruled in favor of Tennessee, Georgia, and 18 other states in their effort to block federal guidelines on transgender athletes and school locker rooms.
The lawsuit, brought by Tennessee, challenged guidance from the United States Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that would allow athletes who were marked as males on their birth certificates to compete in girls and women’s sports. The federal guidance also would have prohibited student shower and locker room access from being determined by birth gender and provided guidance on required pronoun use.
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Twelve attorneys general filed an opening brief Friday in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for changes made this year to energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers and washing machines.
“These arbitrary washing machine regulations are unlawful, ineffective, and absolutely ridiculous,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, co-leader of a suit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals against the DOE and Secretary Jennifer Granholm, said in a statement. “They should be hung out to dry as soon as possible.”
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Most of the nation’s 48.2 million public K-12 students are assigned to their schools based on geographic school districts or attendance zones, with few options for transferring to another public school district. This method of school assignment intertwines schooling with property wealth, limiting families’ education options according to where they can afford to live.
A 2019 Senate Joint Economic Committee report found that homes near highly rated schools were four times the cost of homes near poorly rated schools. This presents a real barrier for many families – and 56% of respondents in a 2019 Cato survey indicated that expensive housing costs prevented them from moving to better neighborhoods. The challenge has only deepened as housing prices skyrocketed during the pandemic, putting better housing and education options out of reach for many.
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South Carolina’s Republican-dominated House passed legislation Tuesday banning males from women’s sports despite Democrats’ stall tactics.
Democrats attempted to delay the vote by proposing an estimated 1,000 amendments, according to the Associated Press. Debate on the amendments Tuesday lasted eight hours, with Democrats proposing measures such as renaming the bill the “Discrimination Capital of the United States Act,” allowing high schools to opt out of the requirements and only allowing school bands to perform at girls’ sporting events.
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Twenty-one states have filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s continued mask mandate on public transportation, including on airplanes.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody are leading the effort. Moody filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida along with 20 other attorneys general. DeSantis said the mask mandate was misguided and heavy-handed.
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Sixteen states again are challenging a federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care workers who work at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
Friday’s filing in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana comes after the issuance of final guidance on the mandate from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), arguing the guidance is an action that is reviewable.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 vote Jan. 13 against the original Louisiana challenge to the mandate and a similar Missouri filing.
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A Clemson University admissions counselor recently took to Snapchat to express her frustration with Republican students applying to the college.
Monica Rozman, a Clemson University undergraduate admissions counselor, posted an announcement to her personal Snapchat stating, “no one cares if you’re Republican.”
Campus Reform obtained a screenshot of the post.
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A professor at Coastal Carolina University was canceled after he emailed his department questioning their reaction to a perceived racial bias incident that proved to be baseless.
“Free speech and basic civility are disappearing,” the theater professor Steven Earnest told Campus Reform. “So, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I still am.”
On Sept. 16, a non-White visiting artist working with non-White theatre students at the South Carolina university wrote a list of names on the board so that the students could connect as a group.
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In the past year, Congress has rushed more than $204 billion in federal emergency funds to states to support K-12 schools.
But 23 states had fewer incoming students this fall. This declining enrollment is likely in part due to pandemic-related trends but is also a symptom of changing birth rates and families geographically relocating.
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Thales Academy officials have announced they will open a private and low cost K-12 school in Greenville, South Carolina at an unspecified time. Thales Academy is an independent and private school.
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Earlier this year, an Aiken County teacher wrote to South Carolina state Rep. Bill Taylor in alarm about critical race theory emerging in public schools.
“I know full well the insidiousness of the so-called critical race theory that aims to resegregate society, discriminate against those who are white, victimize those who are black, and render America a nation of identity groups rather than Americans,” the teacher wrote.
Hardly a day goes by, Taylor said, that he doesn’t hear from a constituent on the issue.
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The states of South Carolina and Montana have both decided in recent days to put an end to their handouts of federal unemployment benefits as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, in an effort to encourage residents to return to the workforce, as per CNN.
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) said in his announcement that “incentives matter, and the vast expansion of federal unemployment benefits is now doing more harm than good. We need to incentivize Montanans to return to the workforce.” Instead, Governor Gianforte announced that the state government will be providing $1,200 checks as bonuses to every citizen who returns to work, using the state’s share of the recent $1.9 trillion stimulus package to pay for it.
In South Carolina, Governor Henry McMaster (R-S.C.) announced on Thursday that the state would be ending their share of federal unemployment benefits, since “what was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced during the height of the pandemic has turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace.”
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Thirteen states sued President Joe Biden’s administration over an American Rescue Plan provision prohibiting states from cutting taxes after accepting coronavirus relief funds.
The 13-state coalition argued that the provision included in the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package preventing states from cutting taxes if they accept relief from the federal government is unconstitutional. The coalition, led by Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
“Never before has the federal government attempted such a complete takeover of state finances,” Morrisey said in a Wednesday statement. “We cannot stand for such overreach.”
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A group of red states sued President Biden and members of his administration on Wednesday over his decision to revoke a key permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, The Hill reported.
The lawsuit is led by Montana and Texas, and backed by 19 other states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
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A federal judge temporarily blocked South Carolina’s near total abortion ban Friday barely a day after the governor signed it into law.
Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act into law Thursday after it overwhelmingly passed the state’s house Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis put a 14-day temporary restraining order on the law Friday, the Associated Press reported.
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Republican lawmakers, who voted to impeach or convict President Donald J. Trump, earned rebukes from their home states – a new trend of holding GOP legislators accountable for their actions in Washington.
“Wrong vote, Sen. Burr,” Tweeted former congressman Mark Warner. “I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator.”
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U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN-05), who has long scolded others to act civil, reportedly does not practice what he preaches as he this week compared South Carolina voters to people who have Down Syndrome.
Cooper reportedly said this when The Nashville Post profiled him this week.
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South Carolina Senate candidate Jaime Harrison suggested Wednesday that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett might allow racial segregation to return, video shows.
Harrison spoke Wednesday at a Post and Courier Pints and Politics event in Columbia, South Carolina, where he discussed whether he would vote for Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
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Eighteen Republican attorneys general called for a congressional probe on Friday into China’s deliberate concealment of the severity of the coronavirus outbreak at its onset.
“Recent reports suggest that the communist Chinese government willfully and knowingly concealed information about the severity of the virus while simultaneously stockpiling personal protective equipment,” stated the letter from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, which 17 other state attorneys general cosigned.
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Iowa Democrat Jim Larew joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Monday morning on the newsmakers line.
During the second hour, Larew explained how he saw Joe Biden’s campaign gain energy and spring to victory in the South Carolina primary which he felt was aided by the endorsement of Representative James Clyburn. Somberly, he added that Iowa may no longer be the indicator as it has been for the last 24 years by referencing Mayor Pete’s bowing out of the race after a victory in the state.
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Authorities have charged a Murfreesboro man and a South Carolina woman with TennCare fraud, according to two statements the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration released last week.
Authorities charged that Murfreesboro man, William Weed, 40 with TennCare fraud, a Class D felony, in connection with allegedly selling prescription drugs obtained using TennCare healthcare insurance benefits.
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Joe Biden was declared the winner of South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary Saturday, benefiting from solid African American support and stopping progressive rival Bernie Sanders’ winning streak.
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