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More on that in a minute. But first, this was not exactly the best case for any gun-rights proponent to push to the level of the Supreme Court. National Review reports the details: “The appeal came from Shane Cox, who owns a military-surplus store in Kansas, and Jeremy Kettler, who purchased a gun suppressor from him. The men were convicted under the [1934] National Firearms Act of failing to register the device but appealed the decision, saying the law infringes on their Second Amendment rights. The appeals court then ruled that a suppressor is not a ‘bearable’ weapon protected under the Second Amendment.”

However, the specifics are a bit murkier: “Kettler said he bought the suppressor to avoid further harm to his hearing, which was damaged while he served in the military. He said Cox had led him to believe that suppressors made and sold in the same state were not required to be registered.”

Now, we’d be the first to agree with Justice Clarence Thomas, who has in recent years complained that SCOTUS has ignored Second Amendment jurisprudence to the point of making it a second-class right. But breaking the law and then demanding it be overturned by the courts is not the strongest approach. Moreover, this is about accessories, not the firearms themselves, which makes it less than an airtight case. (To be clear, we absolutely oppose any ban on suppressors.)

The better and more fundamental case SCOTUS did agree to hear is one challenging a New York City law governing transport of firearms outside the home, so stay tuned.

Now, back to the media misinformation. Leftmedia outlets (and some conservative ones that should know better) insist on referring to suppressors as “silencers.” While these devices do attach to a gun barrel and slightly muffle the sound of a shot, they are a far cry from the fantasy fiction in Hollywood movies. You cannot attach a “silencer” to a gun and shoot another person in the next room without anyone hearing it. But by reminding people that the murderer in Virginia Beach last month used a firearm with a suppressor, the Leftmedia lead the ignorant to think a gun with a suppressor is somehow more deadly. That’s a lie.

It’s akin to the mendacious misnaming of semiautomatic rifles as “assault weapons.” Beware the Left’s manipulation of language.

On a final note, Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam wiped off his black face long enough to propose a ban on suppressors and “high-capacity” magazines (another leftist misnomer) after the Virginia Beach attack. And even President Donald Trump said last week that he will “seriously look at” a ban on “silencers” (his word) because “I don’t like them at all.” Maybe he should talk to his son, Don Jr., an advocate of the Hearing Protection Act to ease restrictions on suppressors.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63573?mailing_id=4326&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4326&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Trump offered his answer: “Can’t believe they are bringing in John Dean, the disgraced Nixon White House Counsel who is a paid CNN contributor. No Collusion — No Obstruction! Democrats just want a [2016] do-over which they’ll never get!”

Republicans had a field day, blasting Dean and Democrats for their clear attempt to paint Trump as Nixon. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) noted, “Dean has made a cottage industry out of accusing presidents of acting like Richard Nixon.” He also asked committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who interrupted and stopped his questioning of Dean, “I would like to know how much money he makes based on making these accusations and exploiting them for his own economic benefit and you’re saying that’s out of line?”

But it was Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who hit the nail on the head, observing, “There are similarities … with regard to Watergate. In both, an administration was seeking to illegally spy on another candidate. In both, people were hired to attempt to gather evidence that could be used against a candidate. In Watergate, the Committee to Reelect the president hired burglars to break into the DNC headquarters. In Watergate, administration officials tried to find ways to use federal dollars to pay for their criminal spying.”

Gohmert continued, “In Russiagate, members of the federal government used the intel, DOJ, and FBI communities to attempt to defeat a presidential candidate, then when that failed to have him removed from office. In Russiagate, the scumbag/liar-Clinton campaign and the FBI paid a foreign agent to collude with Russians to produce opposition research — that turned out completely false, as the Mueller report indicated — that could be used to commit a fraud on the FISA court and get multiple warrants to spy on opposition campaigns.”

The Democrats’ aim in this ridiculous show trial is to accomplish two things. First, tar Trump as an illegitimately elected criminal so as to damage his reelection prospects, and second, distract Americans from following the actual scandal that is unfolding as the Justice Department investigates those government officials involved in initiating and coordinating Russiagate.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63574?mailing_id=4326&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4326&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

As we celebrate the courage, determination, and resolve of the “Greatest Generation” on June 6 — the 75th anniversary of the bloody Allied invasion of Normandy, France, that was the start of the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny and oppression — it brings to mind a crucial question.

Would today’s millennials meet the same challenge if faced with a future war, one in which the U.S. and its allies were attacked?

Would they have the grit and fortitude to fight and win to preserve the freedom and liberty of the West that they seem to take for granted and the values that too many of them seem to treat with contempt?

Have they been so coddled, pampered, indulged, and overprotected, and taught to hate what we stand for, that they would fail and let the world slide back into a Dark Age, where freedom was only a remembrance?

More than 1.6 million American military personnel participated in Operation Overlord. It was the largest amphibious assault in history, with more than 2,700 ships and 11,000 airplanes involved in the invasion.

Thousands of paratroopers and glider troops of the famed 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions jumped into chaos in Normandy the night before, greeted — as were the troops on the beaches — by overwhelming machine gun fire and artillery barrages.

The Allies secured the beaches and a toehold in Europe, but only after losing more than 10,000 killed and wounded, many in gruesome firefights with German troops.

The killed also included those who drowned before they could even get ashore to fight because of the weight of the packs and equipment they were carrying.

As authors Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen recount in “A Patriot’s History of the United States,” German “crossfire slaughtered 197 out of 205 men in a single rifle company” on Omaha Beach.

Allied troops were pinned down by the defenses barbed wire, mines, tank traps, bunkers, pillboxes, and machine gun nests that had been planned and prepared by one of the most skilled German commanders of the war, Erwin Rommel, the famed Desert Fox.

When then-Col. later Brig. Gen. George Arthur Taylor, who commanded the 16th Infantry Regiment, arrived on Omaha Beach, there were thousands of troops hunkered down in the sand dunes and along the seawall.

With the help of his brave officers and sergeants, Taylor managed to get the Americans to rise up and attack the murderous German defenses, yelling, “There are only two kinds of people on this beach. Those who are dead, and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery on what Rommel had accurately predicted would be “the longest day” of World War II.

No one questions the capability, high quality, and professionalism of our armed forces today. But the young men and women who today make up our military — the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines — are volunteers.

They are different from so many others in our culture and society today, because they are patriots who have chosen to serve their country and to undertake the often-dangerous jobs that protect our nation from the terrorists, rogue nations, and tyrannical dictators who hate America and everything it stands for and represents.

I don’t question their determination and grit. No one who has seen the way they have fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mogadishu in Somalia, and the many other dangerous places of the world could doubt them — or their families, who have supported them through the hard years of repeated deployments and tragic losses.

The same goes for the many millennials who join our law enforcement agencies and persevere in those jobs despite the hostility they face from too many ignorant members of their generation. And I know many, including millennials in my own extended family who cherish the values we hold dear.

But what if we became involved in a lengthy, globe-spanning war, such as a two-front war with communist China, which has been aggressively building up its military because it appears to want to dominate the Pacific the way the Japanese did in World War II, and a resurgent Russian dictatorship or Middle Eastern terrorist state with nuclear weapons?

It seems likely that the United States would have to bring back the draft to enlarge our military forces to cope with such an enormous threat.

The 16 million Americans who volunteered and were drafted when we vastly expanded our military after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 had grown up in the midst of the Depression.

They had risen to adulthood under very tough conditions. Many were malnourished, and those who were ethnic and racial minorities had suffered mistreatment and discrimination. Yet those Americans, including Japanese Americans and African-Americans, joined the armed forces to fight for America.

Even many Hollywood celebrities joined the war effort. That included famed actor Jimmy Stewart, who became a command pilot flying bombing raids over Europe, as did William Holden. Ed McMahon, late-night talk-show host Johnny Carson’s sidekick, was a Marine Corps fighter pilot.

Compare that with today’s celebrities in Hollywood, who constantly display their dismissive, contemptuous attitude toward America, our history, our unique culture, and the values that have made us a great nation.

Can anyone imagine any of the current hosts of late-night talk shows volunteering to help fight to protect America?

Would the millennials who are terrified by doorbells have the fortitude to fight in a long, costly, intensive conflict?

We have a generation of college students who have grown up in the luxury of modern America, yet who prefer socialism just another form of tyranny.

They complain about “microagressions” and approve of university speech codes that restrict speech and protect them from anything they don’t want to hear. They occupy as supposed adults special rooms set up for them with pillows and stuffed animals to calm and cuddle them when they get upset about the normal frustrations and conflicts of everyday life and contentious political battles.

Would these young Americans display the same courage, determination, and resolve that the young Americans of the Depression era showed if our country needed them? Would they show the same sweeping patriotism and engage in the volunteer efforts that characterized our national response following the vicious terrorist attack on 9/11?

I don’t know the answer to that.

I hope that the tenacity, patriotism, and steadfastness of the Americans who stormed the beaches at Normandy have not been lost, and that the society and culture that produced those men has survived, despite the constant attacks on it that we see in academia, in pop culture, and in our politics.

Let’s hope that we never have to find out and that our sons are never again faced with a hostile shore in a foreign land.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/63512?mailing_id=4323&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4323&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Last Wednesday, Steven was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had just filed papers for his mandatory retirement in July. He had no spouse or children, and as one detective said, “He lived for the NYPD.” The president of the NYPD Detectives Endowment, Michael Palladino, added, “He had such enthusiasm for the job and for life itself which makes this difficult to understand. He was one of the nicest human beings I ever met.” NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said, “Deputy Chief Steven Silks truly was one of the most capable and most dependable cops this profession has ever seen. His entire 39-year NYPD career — much of his adult life, in fact — was devoted to NYC, its police officers, and to fighting crime & protecting all the people we serve.”

I asked our mutual friend, Rob, a Navy veteran and former head of law enforcement for NASA at KSC, to offer a few words about Steven.

From Rob:

“I met Steven Silks in 2008. In my capacity as the KSC Law Enforcement Program Manager, I was also in charge of the overall security operations for space shuttle launches. In that job, I received a lot of phone calls from cops in other agencies who were interested in watching a shuttle launch. I did not know Steven, but given his position with what is arguably one of the world’s finest police departments, I agreed to let him attend a space shuttle launch as my personal guest. During my 12 years at NASA, no other person ever managed to convince me to let them attend a launch as my guest in that manner. But Steven was just that nice.

"In fact, after the first launch day he attended, I invited him back for an all-day, behind-the-scenes tour of every vital area of KSC, including all of the most historic sites. As a space program enthusiast, he loved it. In the years that followed, we became good friends. When I spoke with Steven last week, he was upbeat, positive, and energetic.

"I first became a federal agent in 1982 and retired in 2015. During that time, I knew hundreds of great cops. I’ve never known anyone who lived and breathed the job like Steven. He was truly a ‘cop’s cop.’ Steven loved serving and protecting the public; a more dedicated, loyal enforcement officer you’ll never find. I don’t know why Steven made the choice to end his life as he did, but I do know that this world is diminished by the loss of warriors like him. Steven, we’ll miss you, brother.”

According to Blue Help, 167 police officers took their own lives in 2018. Steven was 62, a month from his 63rd birthday and retirement.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63549?mailing_id=4323&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4323&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Recent polling reflects the wide embrace of socialism that redistributes wealth to all regardless of effort or work and centers on “investment” through government control that is characteristic of shortage, corruption, and even illness. In Venezuela, its citizens are emaciated from the lack of food. There’s no fuel, and showers are even a luxury. But socialism is the new darling of the losing Left.

Medicare for All will guarantee government-controlled health insurance that, in other nations, has proven to result in excessively long waits for services and limited access to innovation and top-quality health care and medicines. The open-border approach to immigration is turning some U.S. cities into landscapes that feature the rise of measles, tuberculosis, mumps, polio, the bubonic plague, and widespread illicit drug use in massive homeless camps.

But, again, the intelligentsia on the Center-Left declare The Progressive Way to be that which protects the rights of all for a future of bliss.

The same crowd is angrily fighting the War on Climate Change. This group is composed of entitled, guilt-driven individuals who operate on the wrong-headed belief that authentic progress, mobility, and achievement are mutually exclusive to good stewardship of environmental resources that are changing and resilient. In other words, if you believe that the best for individuals is self-reliance, the honor and dignity of work, or wealth and mobility that comes with personal responsibility, you’re dangerous. To “progressives,” the best way “forward” is to ensure scarcity and minimalism because humanity is the enemy.

Look no further than the recent New York Times article informing the masses that an individual enjoying air travel of 2,500 miles will be responsible for melting 32 square feet of Arctic ice. The same piece features this assertion from the University of Tennessee’s Professor John Nolt: “The average American causes through his/her greenhouse gas emissions the serious suffering and/or deaths of two future people.” Nolt’s analysis is based on his calculations that the average American generates about 16 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent a year.

And, if you’re someone who likes cruises, you’re the biggest offender. Compared to flying by jet, those who sail around on even the most efficient cruise ships are supposedly belching out three or four times more CO2 per passenger mile, says Bryan Comer, a researcher at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation.

The message of the NYT’s piece: Either buy carbon offsets at “carbon kiosks” available at airports like San Francisco’s to assuage your guilt or just don’t travel by plane and surely get off those cruise ships. When asking just how harmful one vacation might be, the article’s author, Andy Newman, wrote with dread, “You can’t see the face of the unnamed future person whose coastal village you will have helped submerge.”

This entire mindset is so very sad — to see generations of otherwise intellectual beings mired in fear that the very breath they exhale, containing carbon dioxide, is poisoning our planet. While indoctrinated to view humanity as the enemy, a life of limitations is demanded. Because the curriculum of our modern culture equates progress with destruction — all with little if any mention of the massive climate changes and continental shifts that occurred prior to the world’s population growth or burning fossil fuels with the advent of the combustible engine — many are convinced that development can’t occur with a sustainable community or that advancement can happen without apocalypse.

On Friday, an article looking at “apocalypse anxiety” noted the biblical doomsday scenario — Judgment Day after the war to end all wars on earth with a returning Messiah who would divide humanity into believers for heavenly reward and non-believers to a damned eternal separation. For many modern folks, this age-old belief has now been replaced with a climate catastrophe. As the alternative online news site, Metro.co.UK published, the return of Christ is seen as “unlikely” to be the End of Days but is now replaced by another end-of-the-world scenario. “We are absolutely sure doomsday will come when climate change melts the ice caps and rising seas swallow our civilisation. And if that doesn’t happen, a killer computer will wipe us off the planet — as long as we manage to survive the inevitable nuclear war, alien invasion or global pandemic.”

The greatness of humanity is being eclipsed by the angst and fear of “progressive” politics, which is moving us into a disgruntled mediocrity. Instead, let’s choose to believe in greatness and make true progress while stewarding our wonderful planet.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63526?mailing_id=4323&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4323&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

House Speaker liar-Nancy Pulosi bloviated, “President Trump undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south. Threats and temper tantrums are no way to negotiate foreign policy.”

The New York Times sought to diminish Trump’s accomplishment by pointing out that much of the deal had been in the works for a while, and that Mexico had already agreed to several aspects of it months ago. The Times then speculated that Trump’s decision to accept the deal was actually “a face-saving way to escape from the political and economic consequences of imposing tariffs on Mexico.”

Or maybe Trump was simply holding Mexico’s feet to the fire, getting our neighbors to quit dragging their feet on what they had agreed to months ago. After May saw  132,000 arrests of illegal aliens crossing the border, it was clear that Mexico was failing to live up to promises to help stem the migrant crisis. Trump’s tariff threat appears to have given Mexican officials the necessary kick in the pants to finally act.

The obvious problem with the Left’s spin is that Trump has not shied away from imposing tariffs. He followed through on his tariff threat against China and has only continued to raise them as he presses Beijing on decades of bad behavior. Why would he be scared to hit Mexico?

But there may be another reason Democrats and the Leftmedia aim to mitigate Trump’s victory here. The latest polling shows that a large segment of Americans view immigration as the most important problem facing the nation today. Democrats and much of the mainstream media — who have long sought to downplay the border crisis — don’t want this becoming the major election issue in 2020, as it is a winning issue for Trump.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63548?mailing_id=4323&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4323&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

In the case, the defendant legally possessed a conceal carry permit, but he was spotted outside a convenience store showing his firearm to another individual, not in a threatening manner. An observer notified the police who then responded to the call, restrained Mr. Hicks and conducted a search of his person and his vehicle. They smelled alcohol and found a small bag of marijuana and subsequently arrested him for driving under the influence and disorderly conduct.

The court in its ruling correctly concluded, “Unless a police officer has prior knowledge that a specific individual is not permitted to carry a concealed firearm, and absent articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion that a firearm is being used or intended to be used in a criminal manner, there simply is no justification for the conclusion that the mere possession of a firearm, where it lawfully may be carried, is alone suggestive of criminal activity.”

National Review’s David French notes, “This is exactly correct, and it’s buttressed by the plain constitutional truth that there exists ‘a first principle that lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment — that the government may not target and seize specific individuals without any particular suspicion of wrongdoing, then force them to prove that they are not committing crimes.’”  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63474?mailing_id=4318&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4318&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Fellow Americans, you’ve seen it all before. The broken promises to “do something” about illegal immigration that amounted to nothing, even when each political party had complete control of Congress and the White House. The bankrupt arguments, like the contemptible idea America should tolerate wholly avoidable crimes, including rape and murder, because illegals commit them at “lesser rates” than native-born Americans. The judicial activism, as in preventing the Trump administration from transferring Pentagon funds to border-wall construction, or forbidding it from withholding grants from sanctuary cities that openly defy immigration law. And the wreckage of lives perpetrated by drug cartels, to the point where the number of lives lost to drug overdoses exceeds the number of those killed in car crashes.

Thus, Americans are enduring a wholesale invasion of our nation. One so egregious the number of apprehended illegals could top one million just in FY2019, a total that is surpassed only by the 10 most populous cities in the nation.

And you’ve witnessed every bit of it abetted by open-border, nation-state-despising, “abolish ICE!” leftists, many of whom believe that any attempt to preserve our customs, culture, language, and exceptionalism is tantamount to white nationalism.

When President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, the Democrat/Media Complex assured the nation he was “manufacturing a crisis,” that he was “abusing” the Constitution, and that Congress was the only entity that could address the issues that would effectively eliminate the problem. Yet the legislative branch has failed to address issues such as birthright citizenship, E-Verify, visa-overstays, the Flores Settlement that requires government to release children detained by ICE within 20 days, and the idea that an asylum claim automatically gets one entry into America, even though international standards require asylum-seekers to claim it in the first safe country they enter.

Lawmakers’ calculated impotence is no accident. “For decades politicians made statements about how our immigration laws must be enforced and our borders secured against the illegal and uninspected entry of aliens, while making certain never to implement the measures to actually achieve those commonsense and achievable goals,” columnist Michael Cutler explains.

They have an equally recalcitrant ally. “Mexico … refuses to sign a ‘safe third country’ agreement with the United States — this despite Mexico having incredibly generous asylum laws that are even broader than our own,” writes columnist Rachel Bovard, who further asserts that Mexico is the key to solving the crisis.

Mexican President President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has other ideas. “‘America First’ is a fallacy because until the end of times, even beyond national borders, justice and universal fraternity will prevail,” he asserts.

Thus, the game continues. Trump’s proposal for a merit-based immigration system that would raise skill-based immigration from 12% to 57% of the total, and decrease family-based and lottery-based immigration by 50%? A deflection.

His promise to impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports beginning June 10, and rising to 25%, if Mexico does not take action to “reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens” crossing the border? “This is a misuse of presidential tariff authority and counter to congressional intent,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) insists. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) agrees. “Senator Cornyn supports the president’s commitment to securing our border, but he opposes this across-the-board tariff which will disproportionately hurt Texas,” a Cornyn spokesperson said.

Disproportionately hurt Texas? Compared to what? “‘We’ve never seen anything like this’: As Trump threatens to close border, migrants overwhelm Texas cities,” stated a USA Today headline — in March.

April? “On Wednesday, CBP reported ‘off the charts’ figures for the number of migrants apprehended at the border in April,” Fox News reports. “109,144 people were encountered trying to illegally enter the U.S., up from 103,719 in March and a 160 percent increase over the previous year.”

May? An NBC News headline says it all: “Record number of undocumented immigrants flooded the southern border in May.”

Mexico’s response to the proposed tariff? “Mexico’s top diplomats issued a veiled threat to the U.S. government suggesting that without their efforts, 250,000 more Central American migrants could proceed north,” Breitbart News reveals.

Central American migrants? “Border officials in Texas say a group of 116 Africans was arrested Thursday after wading through the Rio Grande to enter the United States,” Fox News reports. “The migrants were from Angola, Cameroon and other African nations and include families with children and young people who were not with relatives.”

In other words, how to game America’s immigration system is becoming common knowledge worldwide.

Enough. America currently maintains 28,500 active-duty troops on a South Korean border they have defended since 1953. And as columnist George Neumayr reminds  us, the same Congress that refuses to address the problem at America’s border gives “billions of dollars to governments across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.” Moreover, that funding “combined with the astronomical costs of U.S. military protection, allow those countries to seal off their borders” (italics added).

It’s time to seal our border the same way. And it’s time to ignore the voices that insist it will violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, prohibiting the use of U.S. military forces to perform civilian law-enforcement tasks without congressional authorization. Mexico has demonstrated for years it is willing to behave as a hostile power. Cartel-driven human and drug trafficking need to be treated like the terrorist operations they are. And caravans are being organized for the sole purpose of breaching our border.

Repelling an organized invasion abetted by heavily armed cartel members is not civilian law enforcement. Moreover, nothing but a complete border shutdown enforced by troops will force Congress to act and Mexico to behave.

Ruling-class mandarins who speak of the dire economic consequences of such a move? As always, globalist-minded elites with armed security, who erect walls around their houses and their neighborhoods, and who send their children to private schools and access first-class medical care — all of which is wholly unaffected by massive illegal immigration — couldn’t care less about “racist deplorables” forced to endure the orchestrated descent into Third World-ism.

A descent that will entrench those same elitists in permanent positions of power.

As stated above, the number of apprehended illegals this year is likely to exceed the population of Austin, Texas. Combined with those who aren’t caught? How about San Diego, California? Combined with the current level of legal immigration that engenders 1.1 million new green cards every year? Are Americans really supposed to abide the admission of a population close to the size of Chicago — every year — or endure accusations of bigotry for refusing to do so?

A promise to fix illegal immigration put you in the White House, Mr. President. You said a “nation without borders is no nation at all.” It’s time to act like a commander-in-chief and defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Put troops on the border and shut it down. Everything else is politics — and has been for decades.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/63455?mailing_id=4318&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4318&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body