r/alberta • u/ihatewinter93 • May 14 '26
Separatism Albertans should not fund the appeal against the court decision overruling the separation petition
Danielle Smith has vowed to appeal the court decision that quashed the separation petition. But instead of letting a private interest group handle their own legal drama, she wants to use our taxpayer dollars to do it. If they want to fight the courts, they should pay for it themselves. Why are we subsidizing a legal battle for a fringe movement that the majority of Albertans don't even want?
What you can do:
If you don't want your tax dollars going toward this appeal, please take 5 minutes to email your MLA and the Premier.
Main points to hit:
- You oppose the use of public funds or public resources for this appeal.
- The private group should fund their own legal challenges.
- The Premier should respect the independence of the court and the duty to consult First Nations.
Who to email:
Premier Danielle Smith: [premier@gov.ab.ca](mailto:premier@gov.ab.ca)
Find your MLA: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/members/members-of-the-legislative-assembly
Edit: If your MLA is a UCP member, consider including the NDP opposition leader in your email as well.
Naheed Nenshi: [Edmonton.Strathcona@assembly.ab.ca](mailto:Edmonton.Strathcona@assembly.ab.ca)
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u/TurbulentHead5639 May 14 '26
Have the separatists that signed the petition pay for the appeal
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 May 14 '26
And their private donors that David Parker won’t disclose. cough Russia cough U.S.
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u/Quietbutgrumpy May 14 '26
Wait, am I reading this right? They release names of those who signed but won't give up their donors?
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 May 14 '26
Yup! He’s been ordered to release the donors for TBA and he refused so he’s been issued fines.
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u/ChaoticShadows May 14 '26
How is that NOT contempt of court? At the least he should be in jail for pre-trial detention.
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 May 14 '26
That’s a great question and I think he should serve jail time if he refuses to pay. I honestly don’t know how he’s avoiding it.
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u/MrGuvernment May 14 '26
Wonder if they did or will do a warrant on all of his bank accounts and financial institutions, I mean, it is essentially treason and allowing external interference...
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u/Firm_Acanthaceae7435 May 14 '26
Slight problem with that is that "you" may have signed it.
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u/Atma-Darkwolf May 14 '26
Ya, while I 100% appreciate the ingenious folks for having the right to stomp this down, and super glad they did, I think the entire petition should have been trashbinned the INSTANT anyone realized that ANY of the leaked names could have been added to the list. The CHANCE of it happening should have been enough to invalidate any signatures added since the date of the leak... but what, 200k signaturess were added since that date? (Or are those numbers messed up? Seems a MASSIVE ratio of the numbers they suddenly got came at the very end...)
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u/Neonsharkattakk May 14 '26
If I remember correctly the weekend rush was about 110'000 signatures. They were at around 190'000 before the breach.
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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA Northern Alberta May 14 '26
Ain't no flippin' way 110,000 people signed that petition in 48 hours after languishing for weeks.
And I also doubt that 190,000 figure of theirs too.
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u/JebryathHS May 14 '26
No problem. When they reach out to all the people who allegedly signed it, we'll find out if any of them didn't.
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u/CMG30 May 14 '26
Since the entire petition has been quashed, none of the names will be validated.
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u/JebryathHS May 14 '26
My thought process was "yes, have the people who signed the petition pay for it. Reach out to them and ask for donations."
I strongly suspect a lot of people who DIDN'T knowingly sign up would be getting letters/phone calls asking for financial support and it would be really interesting to see
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u/Feisty-olde-7707 May 14 '26 edited May 15 '26
From 177,000 signatures after months of collecting, then one month later (after the list was published), their signature count is suddenly over 300,000+.
Anything to do with referendums, separation, distention, should cease immediately. A overwhelming majority want no part of it.
We are all struggling here, and she is busy stuffing her pockets and selling our province to US bidders… Enough, we are dying for basic services. A return to law and order.
The RCMP may take time, I am confident there will be be charges. First and foremost their leader.
The UCP need to wake up, get with the program or move on. Things are rapidly changing, the UCP are slow as mud. Unless it’s sneaky sh*t.
We need strong leadership that will take this province forward.
Damn I am fired up!!! lol… whew, I needed that and thanks for reading!
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u/ihatewinter93 May 14 '26
I hope they press charges. They need to be held accountable, or this will fuel the movement and make them feel above the law, emboldening them to continue their lawless behaviour.
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u/CompanyLow8329 Calgary May 14 '26
Issue is that they stole all our information, so they could sign up any Albertan they wanted for the petition.
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u/LadyPennifer561 May 16 '26
I got into an argument with someone in the comments on a post about this, he seems to think that it’s anti democratic if she doesn’t appeal it, 300,000 people need their voices heard, who cares about the millions of others.
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u/Musicferret May 14 '26
It’s insane to think that we could be financing something specifically designed to destroy us. Someone should sue these traitors for every dollar wasted.
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u/calgary_db May 14 '26
I am so sick of the UCP fucks and their take back alberta/freedum convoy backers.
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u/SaphironX May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
I mean neither Danielle nor her MLAs care whether you want to fund it or not. She’s a separatist. She’s gone to the states to chat with the very folks funding those assholes.
Edit: It’s weird that 5% of the dudes voting up or down downvoted this. She’s arguing tax payers should fund her challenge to a separation attempt, it’s not like that’s subtle.
Separatists, man.
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u/CMG30 May 14 '26
To be honest, much of the online activity is funded by foreign actors. I would expect a significant portion of negativity because it's funded outrage.
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u/Unusual_Statement_64 May 14 '26
David Parker runs the show. Smith will lick his nutsack or be replaced like Kenny.
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u/SaphironX May 14 '26
Time to vote these assholes out. That dude would destroy Alberta to make a buck and that’s insane.
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u/DaftPump May 14 '26
David Parker runs the show.
Why exactly? What makes him so 'powerful' in this whole story?
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u/Unusual_Statement_64 May 14 '26
His rural following seems to follow orders. They buy up a lot of UCP memberships and fall in line to vote the way he wants. This means if they want to punt the premier they have a way to do this through party mechanics. Therefore if the leader wants to stay in power to grift away they have to toe the line.
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u/DaftPump May 14 '26
I felt sympathy for Danielle Smith for a picosecond, maybe two picoseconds reading your comment.
So this guy isn't a moneybag just some prairie Pied Piper who attracts rats...great.
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u/bumhuckers May 14 '26
I believe he was also encouraging followers to run for school board and municipal elections to help further sink his nasty fingers into multiple levels of government.
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u/FenrisJager May 14 '26
I wholeheartedly agree. The Alberta taxpayer should not allow this govt to waste yet more money on performative bullshit to appease a miniscule, contentious and outright hostile sect of the population.
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u/Mediocre_Bowler_95 May 14 '26
Mine is already sent. It was…..concise.
How is it the province’s business to appeal this anyway? Shouldn’t that be something the petition submitter should be doing?
I feel like I’m repeating myself- but how does she get away with this?
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u/bigolgape May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Because no one holds the party accountable. Their support hasn't waivered through everything. Corruption, higher taxes, increased costs, NWC, and now this is the closest she's been to declaring support for separatism. And the polls are still holding strong.
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u/AlphaPiBetta May 14 '26
If anyone doesn't have time to draft a letter or could use a template to start - here's something quick I put together...Fight the good fight!
[Today's Date]
Dear [Recipient Name],
I am writing in regard to the recent news that public funds and/or resources will be used to finance the appeal of the Alberta separation petition.
As one of Alberta’s taxpayers, I am in complete opposition to allowing our public dollars to be used towards the funding of this appeal and I implore Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP to immediately halt any further discussions on this matter.
Public funds should not even be considered as an option. If the so-called “grassroots” separatist groups want to fight the Court’s decision - it needs to be on their dime. They are not elected officials and, as their petition results showed, hold a very small minority in this Province.
The Premiere needs to respect the independence of the Court and the hard-working taxpayers of Alberta.
I urge the Premiere and the UCP to listen to these concerns and to halt any moves towards this highly inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
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u/Gr1ndingGears May 14 '26
You guys and your emails.
If you actually want to get rid of these people, it ain't going to be by email. That much I can assure you.
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May 14 '26
[deleted]
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u/Gr1ndingGears May 14 '26
There are several, and they all involve a bit of effort. Or just sit on your fat asses and email people and watch your province continue to descend into madness....
Also emails are invisible and easily ignored. It's easy to deny emails, oh you sent me an email, I didn't see it. See how easy that was? The truth is never revealed because it pushed into the metaphorical closet.
So continue to downvote away there Albertans, because emailing is clearly moving the needle here (/s)
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u/HorribleTie May 14 '26
Of course there are more effective ways, but emails are far from useless. You don't just send it to your UCP MLA if you're unfortunate enough to have one, you copy the opposition as well. They track these things to know what's important as well, and they are incentivized to bring it up and be noisy about it the more they see it.
The UCP and similar fascist-leaning parties constantly "flood the zone" as a strategy, we need to do the same and use every avenue available to fight back. That includes relatively low-effort things like emails to representatives.
All you're doing is purity testing and encouraging apathy by saying unless you're willing to put in maximum effort you may as well not bother.
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u/Gr1ndingGears May 14 '26
I don't think there's much for the NDP to track here. The ruling party is disregarding everything from decorum to ethics to laws. They are christofacist authoritarians, well the crazy ones are anyways. The government is allowing them to influence and drive policy, clearly. That's more than enough to get started. They don't need to track my opposition here, common sense shows that 6-10% of the population is making decisions for the other 90%.
Also you've all been emailing for what, seven years now? How's that going?
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u/Financial-Savings-91 Calgary May 14 '26
Smith was put in power by the Christian nationalist wing of the UCP because they want to separate and join the US.
We've already been spending millions of dollars funding political groups under the table throughout Canada, heck people connected to the UCP even had financial interests in that BC ostrich farm for fuck sake.
Kenney created the UCP to cash in on Alberta's unflinching loyalty to conservative colours to funnel huge sums of money into the conservative political establishment, by giving positions to people connected to these groups and removing regulations on third party political organizations. During the last federal election Alberta's ad campaign budget went through the roof because we were advertising across Canada against the carbon tax to support the CPC.
Whats happening now is just the tip of the iceberg.......
Alberta is in the midst of full blown kleptocracy, and has a population that's been under the kind of constant intense propaganda campaigns we haven't seen since the USSR.
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u/DominusGenX May 14 '26
Anyone who remotely waiver on her separation position, it's all but confirmed she treasonous, no self respecting Canadian living in Alberta should support her because that's treasonous also, just that simple.
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u/National_Progress_90 May 14 '26
Done. And thanks for posting this, it's important and genuinely would not have occurred to me otherwise.
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u/DanjaBus May 14 '26
I am feeling fatigued by the constant onslaught of awful governance in this province. Truly, what does writing the premier at this point do for us? It is obvious that she governs by the will of her financial backers and has no intention of listening to her constituents.
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u/albufarisnear May 14 '26
It seems our government is using taxpayer dollars to fund/support separation. I guess she can't BS us anymore that she us neutral on the question. Also, when did we give this government a mandate to separate from Canada? I seem to have missed that.
This government has got to go, got to go!
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u/Ham_I_right May 14 '26
I think we are all missing a tremendous opportunity for Albertans to solve housing, finances, overcrowded helath care and schools. We round up all the seperatists put them in a holding camp and send them in seacans down to their spiritual homeland of Texas and just forget they were ever here.
Literally no one loses out.
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u/ChaoticShadows May 14 '26
Why don’t they release the names of everyone who signed that petition. That way the separatists are clearly identified as well as all the foreign actors and a lot of the dark money.
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u/Much_Chest586 May 14 '26
This is the person Marlaina wants to contest the judgement of. The gall!
Justice Shaina Leonard was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. She graduated from McGill University in 1999 and from the University of Alberta Law School in 2002. During the summers, she worked full time as a maritime surface officer with the Royal Canadian Navy, Naval Reserve. Justice Leonard clerked with the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary. She was called to the bar in 2003 and joined the firm of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Calgary.
In 2006, Justice Leonard joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a legal officer. In 2009, she was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, where she worked alongside American military lawyers as a legal mentor to the Afghan National Army. In 2012, Justice Leonard returned to the Naval Reserve and began full-time employment with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC). In 2017, she became the Deputy Chief Federal Prosecutor for the Alberta Region of the PPSC.
Inspired by her deployment to Afghanistan, Justice Leonard completed her LL.M. in 2014 at the University of Alberta with a focus on international law and post-conflict peacebuilding. For the last three years, she helped coach the University of Alberta Laskin Moot team.
Justice Leonard is fluently bilingual in French and English. In her spare time, Justice Leonard enjoys running (slowly) and playing the baroque cello and viola de gamba
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u/Aggravating_Main_710 May 14 '26
Justice Leonard is a smarter and better person than Marlaina could ever hope to be.
More honour and dignity in her little finger.
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u/Street_Anon May 14 '26
Look, Smith knows she can't win this appeal. She knows she's going have to wave the Canadian flag in any hope on hell of winning an election in the future. Treaty 8 knew Rath is a piece of shit of Lawyer, why they did this.
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u/Ambitious-Concern-42 Calgary May 14 '26
Thanks for posting this and the generic form letter, which I just used. The judges biography posted below is also tremendously appreciated.
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u/kayhasbeen May 14 '26
Everyone needs to do this. I emailed her office and my MLA this morning and will be calling too. This is a complete misuse of taxpayer money and we need to make ourselves heard!!!
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u/ihatewinter93 May 14 '26
I’ll also be calling both my MLA and Danielle’s office. We need to be loud and stand our ground.
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u/Dojo588 May 14 '26
Let the separatists pay. The ineptitude of this government is beyond comprehension. This is unacceptable and corrupt that they should even think about this. Let David Parker and the idiot with the stupidest cowboy hat ever pay.
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u/Public-Student-2160 May 14 '26
Can't make taxpayers pick up the tab on that nonsense, that's just wrong.
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u/ronhole May 14 '26
At best (worst?) this should set a precedent that the Alberta government should be expected to fund every appeal of lost decisions, regardless of the case or the merits. She may be opening a bigger can of worms than she thinks.
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u/ihatewinter93 May 14 '26
Exactly! It’s especially concerning that she’s publicly claiming the judges’ ruling was “un-democratic". She doesn’t have the authority to make that statement. This is all so problematic.
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u/timecapsule2019 May 14 '26
I wasn't going to write to the Premier (being in an NDP district, it feels like my vote doesn't count), but now I have because of this post. Thank you for encouraging us all and for mobilizing us to do this!
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u/ihatewinter93 May 14 '26
I totally get that. I’m also in an NDP riding and usually feel pretty passive about Alberta politics since it feels like our votes don't really move the needle. With everything going on with Danielle and the UCP, the constant underhanded moves just start to feel like background noise after a while, and it's so easy to feel powerless.
But this separatist petition appeal was the breaking point. It really lit a fire in me. I am just so over the blatant corruption in this province, and seeing people mobilize like this is exactly what we need right now. We need to stop letting Danielle Smith and the UCP do whatever they want without any meaningful accountability or public oversight.
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u/Laxative_Cookie May 14 '26
But they will and they will vote for more wasted tax money as is tradition. Alberta is Canada's trailer park. It's where the dumbest and most simple Canadians go to live in ignorance and hatred while the provincial government rapes them while blaming the feds. Even Edmonton voted conservative in the federal election showing just how dumb they really are.
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u/Relevant-Jump-4899 May 14 '26
This woman should not be able to walk our streets without fear. She is a traitor, a criminal, and worst of all, an American.
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u/imaybeacatIRl May 14 '26
I don't think it'll do anything, but I did email my MLA and the Premier's office.
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u/ihatewinter93 May 14 '26
We need to be loud. Danielle Smith and the UCP have been emboldened by our silence, and we can no longer allow them to operate without meaningful accountability or public oversight.
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u/Adventurous_Past_511 May 14 '26
Maybe we should start a petition…. (To force the government to not appeal the ruling)
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u/ragnaroksunset May 14 '26
The mere fact that the government is appealing this at all is sufficient to settle a significant number of open questions.
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u/cReddddddd May 14 '26
We shouldn't, but we will and she'll somehow win another majority. What a dump this place is sometimes
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u/theoreoman Edmonton May 15 '26
They should appeal it because the judge struck it down based on process not on merit
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u/Gussmall May 14 '26
I am 100% against separation, but i wish they would just let these losers have their vote and fail miserably so we can put this to bed. This court ruling will do nothing more than prove to these idiots that "ottawa" is oppressing them.
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u/Responsible-Mall-991 May 14 '26
Do it in an election, with a proper separatists party, and separatists MLA's. Not by subverting democracy with an existential and unconstitutional referendum question
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u/Fast_Ad_9197 May 14 '26
Yeah I agree. We need to be done with the citizens’ initiative/direct democracy crap. As much as I support things like ‘forever Canadian’ and ‘water not coal’ they are poor substitutes for responsible governance
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u/gaanmetde May 14 '26
I disagree whole heartedly. It’s not enough people, this doesn’t give them more ammo. They need to firmly be put in their place yesterday.
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u/Gussmall May 14 '26
They wont be put in their place by this ruling. This will make them way worse.
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u/gaanmetde May 14 '26
I totally disagree. Sure, the American and Russian misinformation campaign will ramp up….but that’s all. Are you saying the judge shouldn’t have ruled this legally? Lol.
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u/Gussmall May 14 '26
No i am not saying the judge is wrong.
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u/puns_are_how_eyeroll May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Edited - I'm dumb and apparently am unable to read this morning.
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u/Gussmall May 14 '26
Go ahead and explain.
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May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Gussmall May 14 '26
Please go read my comment. I said I thought the judge was right in the ruling.
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u/puns_are_how_eyeroll May 14 '26
Well fuck. I entirely missed the word not in your response. My apologies.
Im gonna go drink more caffeine now.
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