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Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Thomas Paine. Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Thomas Paine was an American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, revolutionary, and an influential Founding Father whose writings provided the genesis for American Exceptionalism. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white...

President Trump in an interview airing Sunday characterized national security adviser John Bolton as "a hawk" who would "take on the whole world at one time." When asked by Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" about whether he felt he was being "pushed" into conflict with Iran by others in his administration, Trump said that he had both doves and hawks in his Cabinet. "John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time," Trump said. "But that doesn't matter because I want both sides."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un received a letter with “excellent content” from US President Donald Trump, according to the Korean Central News Agency on Sunday. Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece said that Kim expressed his satisfaction with the letter after reading it. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reads a letter from US President Donald Trump in his office in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on Sunday. (Yonhap-KCNA) “Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong-un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” the KCNA said in a three-sentence report. It did...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un an “excellent” letter, the North’s state-run news agency reported Sunday, quoting Kim as saying he would “seriously contemplate” the content. The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said Trump sent a letter and “correspondence between the two leaders has been ongoing.” Formal talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down after a failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam. But earlier in June Trump told U.S. reporters he received a “beautiful” letter from Kim, without revealing what was written. In...

New investigative documents released by a state agency have given fresh life to lingering questions about the marital history of Rep. Ilhan Omar and whether she once married a man — possibly her own brother — to skirt immigration laws. Omar has denied the allegations in the past, dismissing them as “baseless rumors” first raised in an online Somali politics forum and championed by conservative bloggers during her 2016 campaign for the Minnesota House. But she said little then or since about Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the former husband who swept into her life in 2009 before a 2011 separation....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House confirmed on Sunday that President Donald Trump had sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, days before the U.S. president leaves for a trip to Japan and South Korea. “A letter was sent by President Trump and correspondence between the two leaders has been ongoing,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in an email. Earlier North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA said Kim would put serious thought into the content of the letter, details of which it did not describe. The KCNA report said Kim described the letter as being “of...

A migrant suspected of raping and sexually abusing a much younger girl claims that he did not know it was illegal in Sweden because no-one had told him. The suspected sexual abuse took place in April of this year at a family home with the young girl, whose exact age has not been revealed. It is alleged she was forced to have sex with the supposedly 17-year-old migrant, newspaper Lokaltidningen reports. When questioned, the migrant reportedly admitted that he had sex with the young girl but said that it had not been a crime and was just something that “happened...

For the past two weeks, a Christian hymn has been cropping up in an unlikely place - the protests that have drawn millions of people on to the streets of Hong Kong. "Hallelujah to the Lord" has become the unofficial anthem of crowds protesting against a controversial proposed law that would allow people accused of crimes in China to be extradited to the mainland. For Christians in Hong Kong, the hymn is a sign of faith but also of their concerns that it's not only political but also religious issues that are at stake, should the bill ever pass. Fears...

Mainstream media calls traditionalist Catholic charity a 'hate group'Dioceses in England have apologized for a leaflet critiquing gender theory after social media criticism from trans-activists and the National Secular Society. The flyers headlined "Gender Theory NO!" were inserted into Catholic newspapers all over Britain in the same week as the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education released its document "'Male and Female He Created Them': Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender theory in Education."The front of the leaflet features a group of young boys and girls asking: "Am I a boy? Am I a girl? Or both?"...

New York is aiming to become the first state in America to fully decriminalize sex work via a new bill introduced this morning by legislators and activists from Decrim NY, a coalition of various organizations advocating for the rights of sex workers. The bill, called Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act, is sponsored by Democratic Senators Jessica Ramos and Julia Salazar as well as Assemblymembers Richard Gottfried and Yuh-Line Niou. It is the first statewide bill of its kind in the history of the United States and purposefully cites no reference to a specific gender in its language. Currently,...

A university in California removed a historical symbol from its campus Friday in an effort to be “more inclusive” after a years-long campaign by Native American community members argued the marker highlighted a period of racism in the state. The El Camino Real Bell was removed from the University of California Santa Cruz after administrators had several discussions with members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and other community members who felt that the bell marker glorified a period of time when Spanish missionaries dehumanized their ancestors and culture and enslaved those who converted to Christianity. Vice Chancellor of Business...

Today is the third anniversary of the EU Referendum. Like all Brexiteers, I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the result. And more importantly, I remember exactly how it felt. It felt as people must have done on VE Day. (Quite appropriate, really, given what the E in VE Day stands for…) It felt how that preeminent knight of the Crusades Reynald de Chatillon must have felt on his release after years in the lightless, airless, foetid dungeons of Aleppo. It felt like that time I chatted up a Norwegian barmaid well above my pay grade and...

The U.S. launched a cyber attack against Iranian spy assets in the hours after the Islamic republic downed an American navy reconnaissance drone last week, according to various reports. U.S. Cyber Command was behind the retaliatory strike against the spy group, which has ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Yahoo! News first reported the U.S. response, revealing the online strike targeted an Iranian espionage group’s computer software that was also used to track the tankers that were targeted in the Gulf of Oman on June 13. A spokesman for the Pentagon would not comment on the matter Saturday,...

ROME - Pope Francis on Friday visited the southern Italian city of Naples and participated in a theology congress dedicated to interreligious dialogue and migration in the context of the Mediterranean Sea. The Argentine pontiff revisited some of his core concepts, calling for theologians to be an expression of a church that is a “field hospital,” and to be merciful, because without this, “our theology, our law, our pastoral care, run the risk of collapsing into bureaucratic pettiness or ideology, which by its nature wants to tame the mystery.” The theology summit was organized by the Pontifical Catholic University, a...

Iran should not “mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness” U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday. He was speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem during a press conference, adding no one has granted Iran a “hunting license in the Middle East.” Bolton’s words of advice for the Islamic republic come days after President Donald Trump called off military strikes on Iran after learning approximately 150 Iranians would be killed, saying it would’ve been out of proportion to the downing of an unmanned American surveillance drone by Iran. Bolton also revealed sanctions will continue against...

President Donald Trump admitted Sunday his decision to stall deportation for illegal immigrants in order for Democrats to work out a deal would probably not work. “I want to give the Democrats every last chance to quickly negotiate simple changes to Asylum and Loopholes,” Trump said. “This will fix the Southern Border, together with the help that Mexico is now giving us.” Trump halted the scheduled crackdown on Saturday at the request of Democrats, he explained on Twitter, expressing optimism that they could fix the problems at the border in two weeks. Trump acknowledged Sunday that the proposed solution would...

An upbeat Roger Stone drew a standing-room-only crowd at his Staten Island legal defense fundraiser Saturday night, complaining to supporters about the “relentless attacks” against him in the media but stopping short of violating the gag order in his upcoming Washington, DC, obstruction trial. The controversial former adviser to President Trump was at an Annadale restaurant trying to recoup some of his $2 million in lawyer bills ahead of his Nov. 5 trial date. At his side were his pal, former “Manhattan Madam” Kristin Davis, and former congressman Michael Grimm, who said he came to support Stone because he had...

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg was confronted by a group of protesters in his own hometown Friday following the fatal police shooting of a black man by South Bend police early Sunday morning. Police Sgt. Ryan O’Neill claimed he fired his weapon when Eric Logan, 54, approached him with a knife and refused to drop it after being confronted vandalizing a car parked at an apartment complex. Logan was transported to a hospital, where he later died. No camera footage or witnesses exist of the incident, which has stirred up racial tensions in the area because the officer is white...

Say what you want about his politics but the easy listening stuff he plays makes me hunger for more of the electric like Running on Empty/Dr. My Eyes. Unfortunately he never seemed to strive for the big time by producing more of any music.

Embattled Virginia Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax is "seriously" mulling a run for the commonwealth's highest office and suggested that the multiple sexual misconduct allegations have helped raise his profile. **SNIP** Despite being accused of sexual assault by two women, however, Fairfax is convinced that the publicity will ultimately help him. “Many people a year ago would not have recognized me, now they really do,” Fairfax explained. “People come up to me at gas stations, they say, ‘Hey, we recognize you. We love you. We know what they are saying about you is false.’" In February, Scripps college associated professor Vanessa...