There is a vast array of evidence and a vast number of experts who can testify to the fact that playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States government is a bad idea.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

"I can testify to the fact that it was a lot harder to turn the other cheek and refuse to fight back than it would have been to exercise a normal reaction, " Robinson wrote.

WSJ: Chris Lamb: Jackie Robinson��Faith in Himself, and in God

That has no standing in French or German law, but when both parties to a failed marriage freely testify that a talaq has taken place in some Islamic country, European courts have been forced to acknowledge the fact.

ECONOMIST: Sharia in the West

Certainly asset values are a fraction of what they once were but those who knew Japan in the 1980s can testify to the fact that living standards there have increased at least as fast in the last two decades as they have in the United States.

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