Showing posts with label slippery slope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slippery slope. Show all posts

Sunday, December 2, 2012

John Boehner - Nowhere Man

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He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
~ The Beatles


From Fox News
WALLACE: How would you characterize the deal the Treasury Secretary Geithner offered you on behalf of the president this week?

BOEHNER: A non-serious proposal.

The president is asking for $1.6 trillion worth of new revenue over 10 years, twice as much as he has been asking for in public. He has stimulus spending in here that exceeded the amount of new cuts that he was willing to consider.

It was not a serious offer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

WALLACE: Take us behind the scenes. Take us inside the room. What was the mood music when Tim Geithner sits there, like we are here and presented this to you? What did you say?

BOEHNER: I was flabbergasted. I looked him and said, "You can't be serious."
I've just never seen anything like it. You know, we've got seven weeks between Election Day and the end of the year. And three of those weeks have been wasted with this nonsense.

WALLACE: OK. So, if they are wasted, where are we now? And, quite frankly, what are the chances we're going to end up going over the cliff?

BOEHNER: Well, right now, I would say -- we're nowhere, period. We're nowhere.

We've put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there to try to get this question resolved. But the White House has responded with virtually nothing. They've actually asked for more revenue than they have been asking for the whole entire time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

WALLACE: I want to ask you one other question about their offer, because this was a real surprise. Geithner also said they want you, Congress, to give up any powers over voting an increase in the debt limit forever.

BOEHNER: Forever. Silliness.

Congress is not going to give up this power. I've made it clear to the president, that every time we get to the debt limit, we need to cut some reforms that are greater than the increase in the debt limit. It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

WALLACE: You've talked about the fact that the president won and you came out with a concession the day after the election. They point out that the president campaigned on raising tax rates, you know, and it was the big issue, between him and Romney. And, they say, just as he had to cave, after your victory in the 2010 midterms, now, it's your turn to cave on tax rates.

BOEHNER: Listen, what is this difference where the money comes from? We put $800 billion worth of revenue, which is what he's asking for, out of eliminating the top two tax rates.

But, here's the problem, Chris, when you go and increase tax rates, you make it more difficult for our economy to grow. Half of that income is the small business income. It's going to get taxed at a higher rate. And as a result, we're going to see slower economic growth.



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Boehner is 'nowhere' because his owners, Norquist and the Koch brothers, will not let him go 'anywhere.'
~ comment by Mes on Yahoo News

Boehner reminds me of Sheriff Bart, in the movie Blazing Saddles, holding a gun to his own head.
~ comment by Zeph on Yahoo News

Well Mr. Boner..when 67% of Americans say tax the rich, you will be going somewhere...OUT ON YOUR (__!__) !
~ comment by Tim P. on Yahoo News

Operation Rolling Tantrum
Oh, boy. This isn’t going to end, even when or if a deal is reached on defusing the austerity bomb; John Boehner has just declared that he’s going to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage every time we hit the debt limit. Nor will it be a case of holding the nation at gunpoint until it meets GOP demands; Republicans are signaling that they don’t intend to make any specific proposals, they’re just going to yell and stamp their feet until Obama soothes them somehow.
~ Paul Krugman in NYT

Despite Boehner’s rhetoric, there is no economic evidence to suggest that taxing income above $250,000 hurts the economy. In fact, business thrived during President Clinton’s tenure, as the wealthy paid more.
~ Igor Volsky on Think Progress

Boehner just shot himself in the foot
. . . If he's saying that it doesn't matter whether we have revenue from the rich or spending cuts from the rest, this is pretty devastating. It shows how out of touch they are with the middle class, and if I was Obama, I would hammer that every day.
~ Coolelegans on Daily Kos

This is all a win-win for the President. If he gets what he wants in the negotiations he looks good. If we go over the cliff which is looks like we are, all the polls show the American people will mostly blame the Republicans.
~ comment by Jooce81 on Mediaite

Memo to Agent Orange: there was an election. Your side lost, big time.
~ comment by HuskersLoveBO on Mediaite











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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Romney Unhinged

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Mitt Romney Speech in Chillicothe, Ohio, August 14, 2012

Via Business Insider
For the first time, most Americans believe that our best days are behind us. This is an election in which we should be talking about the path ahead, but you don't hear any answers coming from President Obama’s re-election campaign. That’s because he's intellectually exhausted, out of ideas, and out of energy. And so his campaign has resorted to diversions and distractions, to demagoguing and defaming others. This is an old game in politics; what’s different this year is that the president is taking things to a new low.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In 2008, Candidate Obama said, “if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.” He said, “if you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.” And that, he told us, is how, “You make a big election about small things.”

That was Candidate Obama describing the strategy that is the now the heart of his campaign.

His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower.

This is what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like.
President Obama knows better, promised better and America deserves better.

Over the last four years, this President has pushed Republicans and Democrats as far apart as they can go. And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces.

If an American president wins that way, we all lose.

But he won’t win that way. America is one Nation under God. American history has been a story of the many becoming one - uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness. Everywhere I go in America there are monuments that list those who have given their lives. There is no mention of their race, their party affiliation or what they did for a living. They lived and died under a single flag fighting for a single purpose. They pledged allegiance to the UNITED States of America. So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America. …




Governor Romney's comments tonight seemed unhinged, and particularly strange coming at a time when he's pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false.
~ Obama Press Secretary Ben LaBolt

Death of a High-Minded Campaign
~ Headline on Politico

Politico was all wet on that "death of the high-minded campaign" story. Three days?! As if. On Saturday, the story was "Ryan attacks Obama." That high-minded, number-driven campaign never existed outside of their imagination.
~ comment by mhwood on Atlantic Wire

"Desperate" Obama is leading in the polls. LOL Romney seems incapable of political spin 101. Calling the kettle black never works.
comment by FactualThinking on Business Insider

Romney seems to be projecting his maladies onto Obama. This is getting weird.
comment by TE on Business Insider




















Mitt Romney: CBS This Morning Interview 8-15-12
The President's campaign is all about division, attack, and hatred. My campaign is about getting America back to work and creating greater unity in this country, which of course has always been the source of America's vitality and strength.
...I think "unhinged" would be what we have seen from the President's campaign.
... I think if you look at the ads that have been described and the divisiveness based upon income, age, ethnicity and so forth, it's designed to bring a sense of enmity, and jealousy, and anger. And this in my view is not what the American people want to see.
...The President seems to be running just to hang on to power. I think he'll do anything in his power to try and get reelected. I want to get this country going again. That’s what brought me to the race and hopefully we can have a debate about issues and our differences on issues and contrast in that area. But these personal attacks, I think, are demeaning to the office of the White House and the comments yesterday by the Vice President, I think, just diminish the White House that much more…. I think the comments of this nature sink the White House just a little lower. The American people expect something better from the President than these kind of divisive comments.

CBS News: Romney on Ryan
Congressman Ryan has joined my campaign, and his campaign is my campaign now," the presumptive Republican presidential candidate told "CBS This Morning." "We're on exactly the same page."

"Are you running on his budget or on your budget?" asked CBS News' Anthony Mason.
"My budget, of course," said Romney, with a laugh. "I'm the one running for president."

Asked for specific examples of how Romney's budget differed from Ryan's proposal, Romney reiterated that the two are on the "same page" but noted that under his plan, "I'd get us to a balanced budget faster than the plan [Ryan] originally put forward" and that Ryan's proposed highest tax rate, at 25 percent, is lower than that of Romney, which is 28 percent.
"There are some differences, but they're very similar," he said.





















Pulling the Angry Black Man card on President Obama makes Romney the one demagoguing -- and -- wow clearly Romney is one desperate dude.
The sickest part is, Romney was reading those words from a teleprompter which is pretty effing scary if you ask me. Either Romney wrote that angry black man mantra himself - or - he is a puppet for some other bigot ... a mindless, classless, bigoted puppet.
Mitt Romney not only are you a pathological liar, you are a classless bigot, a hatemonger and, yes, a divider.
Mitt Romney is proof that money cannot buy you class. Mitt has no class.
~ Keepemhonest on Daily Kos

You only get so many chances to go off like that before the unwanted label of "unhinged" and "can't handle it" starts to stick.
President Obama will just glance sideways at Upset Mitt, raise a hand casually, and get. that. dirt off his shoulder. And keep going.
~ comment by Torta on Daily Kos





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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Romney's Fake Twitter Followers ~ Updated


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The story Via 140Elect.com
I’m not saying he bought them, but Romney’s follower stats have taken a sharp and sudden rise since Friday 5PM EST. Could it be a weekend blitz?

Twitter noticed. Here are the numbers:


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Romney was gaining around 3000-4000 new followers per day for the past month. Yesterday he acquired 23,926 new followers and is climbing well over 50,000 today. The hourly stats make it pretty clear where this began.

List of Mitt Romney's Followers ~ Now up to 776,036.

A quick check of the link reveals that it indeed appears that rmoney has purchased countless followers with similar computer generated names and email addresses. Notice they have no tweets and follow the same few "people?"
There are some profiles with tweets -- some of which make no sense and/or are in other languages.
~ Illustrated Analysis by joeschmeaux on Daily Kos

Every time i refresh he gets 50 or so new followers. Most followers are following exactly 4 people. Most have no tweets or one generic quote tweet from a semifamous person.
The tweets these people have made are almost all done in the last minute or so for the new additions to the list.
While that is evidence of nothing, it certainly is suspicious.
~ comment by delirium2K on Reddit

So the random name generators obviously designates the person a first and last name.
For instance: Cotton Dundermuff
More interesting, there's another random generated string which helps determine the username. Usually it's 3 or 4 letters tagged onto the first name.
"Cottonsytit" "Dennisplr" "Sallyeddcd"
This saves the script from having to guess names that already exist. These random text strings will help us find all the robo accounts once they are FULLY INTEGRATED INTO SOCIETY.
~ comment by jessepots on Reddit

Yeah, I work for a social media firm (which doesn't purchase twitter followers), and I can all but guarantee that that is a bot of some sort. You don't get organic follower growth like that without following accounts.
~ comment by dabernathy89 on Reddit

Look at this trend: http://twittercounter.com/compare/MittRomney/month/followers Yesterday, he gained the same amount he normally gains in a day TIMES 20. The statistical probability of this actually happening is on the order of 2.2204460e-16, which is 1 out of 4,503,599,730,000,000. You can expect this to happen once every 12.33 trillion years. To give you an idea, the age of the universe is about 14.6 billion years. So if Romney campaigned for the entire age of the universe times a thousand, it would happen approximately once.
~ comment by OddOliver on Reddit
























Dear Mitt Romney, the internet is aware that you are buying fake Twitter followers
We track these Twitter stats since September 26, 2008. You can see how many followers Mitt Romney lost or gained and what the prediction is for tomorrow or the next 15 days, together with all kinds of other stats like rank compared to all Twitter users, tweets etc.
~ The Progressive Mind

Mitt Romney Twitter Counter:












From NY Alt News
Romney’s account had over 673,000 followers on July 20 following his typical numbers, but his graph made a “hockey stick” leap yesterday, climbing to over 767,000 as I write.

With some onlookers assuming the Romney campaign is buying accounts to pad his numbers, we highly doubt they would be so clumsy. Last summer, Newt Gingrich received embarrassing national press when he had 1.3 million followers at a time no other GOP candidate even had 100,000 followers. The news then had sport reporting over 90% were fake accounts.

Just yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was exposed as it was discovered that New Delhi was the most popular source for “shares” on his “Rush Babes for America” Facebook promotion. This suggested he was outsourcing “astroturf” by paying experts in India to pad his traffic figures and perceived female support.

But Romney’s followers are not necessarily being bought. It could be that he has become more popular because his account is promoted more heavily by Twitter as a “you might want to follow” suggestion. Many of President Obama’s 17 million followers are also spambot or questionable accounts, but his numbers have been climbing predictably where Romney’s sudden spike invites more questions.



We have reached out to Twitter to find out additional information regarding the rapid growth.
~ Zac Moffat, Romney's Digital Director, on BuzzFeed

I have many fans and suc.....devotees on my side here and abroad. In fact, I'm having a wonderful campaign fundraiser in London with a few very dear foreign friends of mine from Barcley's.
Of course, I wouldn't expect any of you people to understand the complexities of being a Swiss account owner such as I.
~ Rmoney on Democratic Underground












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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Conservative Women Rush to be Rush Babes


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Rush Babes for America (a.k.a. The National Organization for Rush Babes) is a Facebook Page dedicated to the millions of conservative women who know what they believe in: family, American Values, and not being told by Faux Feminist Groups how to think.
If you want to be a Rush Babe, join us by pressing the "Like" button on the top right of this page!
~ From Rush Limbaugh's New Facebook Group Rush Babes for America
 

“I happen to know the women in this audience in total number dwarf the membership of the National Organization for Women, and yet there they are teaming up with Media Matters, a combined program designed to convince everybody I should be taken off the air. Well, what about the women who listen to this program? What about the women who like this program? What about the women who believe in this program? What about the women who agree with the political concepts, the values, the objectives as stated by your host on this program? What of them, what of all of you women who seemingly don’t exist to the media, to the National Organization for Women. There are many, many more of you than there are of them. And Rush Babes for America at Facebook is where you go to be officially counted and tabulated and to make a difference.” 
~ Rush Limbaugh quoted by Inquisitr.com

“I don’t think conservative women want to associate themselves with his hate. I don’t think they would want to associate themselves with his bullying. I don’t think conservative women would want to associate themselves with his vitriolic attacks.
~ NOW president Terry O’Neill quoted Here

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s latest jab at the National Organization for Women has attracted more Facebook “likes” in 24 hours than NOW’s main page has collected in a little under four years.
~ The Daily Caller

Rush Babes for Rude Dudes! Come forward all you self-loathing women!
~ comment by JVG on Slate

"Unleash the Rush Babes"
~ Headline on ABC News

No doubt the group name he originally wanted to use was "Rush Babes Gone Wild" but the lawyers told him he'd have trademark problems.
~ comment by Take Cover on Slate

 Cripes. Talk about trying to put out a fire by pouring kerosene on it. 
~ comment by missroserose on Slate

 Limbaugh has labeled dozens of women "babe," ranging from Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan ("this babe is hot for socialism") to numerous female reporters and TV news anchors to the women who accused former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment ("sexual harassment babes"). His kneejerk use of the "babe" label led to Limbaugh making a fool of himself in 2010 when he called male Salon.com reporter Sasha Abramsky a "stupid babe."
~ Media Matters for America - link includes a list of 61 women labeled "babe" by Rush Limbaugh

That bumper sticker of his?  Reminds me of the mudflaps on 18-wheelers.
~ Linda Carbonell on LezGetReal Blog

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Monday, April 30, 2012

Irony Lost on Dan Savage as He Bullies Christians (Now with Nearly Non-Apology Apology and More Comments)



The Bible. We’ll just talk about the Bible for a second. People often point out that they can’t help it — they can’t help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong.

We can learn to ignore the bull**** in the Bible about gay people. The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bull**** in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bull**** in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn’t say “Christians don’t own people.” Paul talks about how Christians own people.

We ignore what the Bible says about slavery, because the Bible got slavery wrong. Tim — uh, Sam Harris, in A Letter To A Christian Nation, points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery. What’re the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent.

The Bible says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night — if a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, she shall be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they’re not virgins. At least not yet. We don’t know where the GOP is going these days.

People are dying because people can’t clear this one last hurdle. They can’t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.

Um, one other thing I wanna talk about is — [chuckles] — so, you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back now, because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-a**ed some people react when you push back.

I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings. But. I have a right to defend myself. And to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible, and insisting we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.
~ Gay Activist Dan Savage, founder of "It Gets Better," speaking to a group of journalism students in Seattle. After the Bible slam, a group of Christian teenagers walked out, so he insulted them further. Quote from Care2.com.

He had the bully pulpit, if you would say so, so to speak. And, basically, this is their way to say, you know what? I’m going to take a stand. And, frankly, it took a lot of guts and these students that you see there that are walking out, I mean, it occurs to me as I see this video, is this is what we teach kids to do when they’re being bullied to walk away. That’s what they did.
~ Rick Tuttle, teacher who gave his journalism students permission to walk out on Dan Savage, quoted Here

The man is just trying for a job with MSNBC.
~ comment by Russell on The Christian Post

...We want to make our point very clear: While as a journalist it’s important to be able to listen to speech that offends you, these students and advisers had simply reached their tolerance level for what they were willing to hear.
~ National Scholastic Press Association which sponsored the conference where Savage was speaking, quoted Here













Apology from Dan Savage in The Stranger:
I would like to apologize for describing that walk out as a pansy-a**ed move. I wasn't calling the handful of students who left pansies (2800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walk-out itself. But that's a distinction without a difference—kinda like when religious conservatives tells their gay friends that they "love the sinner, hate the sin." They're often shocked when their gay friends get upset because, hey, they were making a distinction between the person (lovable!) and the person's actions (not so much!). But gay people feel insulted by "love the sinner, hate the sin" because it is insulting. Likewise, my use of "pansy-a**ed" was insulting, it was name-calling, and it was wrong. And I apologize for saying it.

As for what I said about the Bible...

A smart Christian friend involved politics writes: "In America today you just can't refer, even tangentially, to someone's religion as 'bull****.' You should apologize for using that word."

I didn't call anyone's religion bull****. I did say that there is bull****—"untrue words or ideas"—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bull****… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying "motivated by faith")—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don't believe.
~ Read More HERE

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If the students had been disruptive & heckling him, I can see that. But no, they were there for a student conference, the key note topic was how to cover bullying in their school papers, not debating over whether the Bible is "bull ****" or not. He wasn't being persecuted at all. In fact, since he had the stage, I'd say he was the one in control (not to mention, the adult in the room). The kids simply did the only thing they could do, vote with their feet.
~ comment by WolverineDG on Democratic Underground.

Not news: Dan Savage talks vulgar and bullies student audience.
News: Dan Savage was paid to teach against bullying.
Addressing a national conference of high-school journalists, Savage was calling the Bible bull**** repeatedly. Students started to leave. So he called them pansyasses. When the adult presenter calls 17-year-old students names isn't that bullying?
~ Ron Hebron on Sound Politics

Mr. Savage: 1) Pick on someone your own age. To rant like you did to HS kids is not acceptable. 2) It's unfortanate that people of many beliefs, Christian, Muslim, Druids, whatever, don't act in accordance to the teachings of the belief. It's the individuals issue not the belief systems. 3) You don't have sufficeint knowledge to cooment on the bible. Get some education, learn from someone who understands that teachings, not what they want to believe or have the bible say Hope things work out for you.
~ comment from Wayne Gebhardt, Eastern Washington University, from Seattle Post Intelligencer

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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Eatin' Broccoli with the Supremes

Originally Posted April 2, 2012 on Livejournal



Last week the Supreme Court spent three days debating Obama's Health Care Bill. Unfortunately at times it was more like theater of the absurd, as several Justices compared complex health insurance problems to whether or not we could be forced to eat our broccoli. *sigh* And it turns out, sadly, the whole broccoli example came from . . . Rush Limbaugh. You can't make this stuff up. Justice Scalia is just another Ditto-head.

Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment (about cruel and unusual punishment)? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? (Laughter.) And do you really expect the Court to do that?
~ Justice Antonin Scalia, quoted on Think Progress

We have a Supreme Court that thinks corporations are people, money is speech and broccoli is health care.
~ LOLGOP on Twitter

Talk of mandated broccoli and cell phones illustrates a general rule: ALL SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENTS ARE STUPID.
~ Richard H. Thaler, Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago on Twitter

I was appalled to see that at least a couple of them were repeating the most tendentious of the Tea Party type arguments. I even heard about broccoli. The whole broccoli argument is beneath contempt. To hear it come from the bench was depressing.
~ Charles Fried, Former Solicitor General under Ronald Reagan, quoted in The Washington Post

Maybe, the GOP Five should just drive down to the National Archives, pry open the case holding the Constitution and pencil in some new words. After the relevant section about Congress having the power to regulate interstate commerce, the GOP Five can scribble in “except for things like purchases of broccoli, gym memberships, cell phones and health insurance.”
~ Robert Parry on Consortium News

I wonder how the Supreme Court would vote if they didn't have the world's best health plan?
~ Albert Brooks on Twitter

The Supreme Court needs less Homophobes and more HMO-aphobes.
~ John Fugelsang on Twitter

Free question for Justice Scalia to use against Obamacare: Why doesn't everyone just get a lifetime appointment with free healthcare?
~ Stephen Colbert on Twitter


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