Well, that trash has been replaced by newer, improved, smellier trash with no Democratic version of Gingrich to kick some ass and clean some mother-fucking hizzouse!
Well, I guess that's what I am here for. And you know what is really pissing me off this week? Do you know who is really slinging the stinkiest, sweatiest garbage around? It's our Vice President.
About a two weeks ago, Vice President Cheney (left) said that if wiretaps had been allowed prior to 9-11 that the attacks could have been prevented. He also said that "America has been protected not by luck, but by sensible policy decisions ... by decisive action at home and abroad ... and by round-the-clock efforts on the part of people in law enforcement, intelligence, the military and homeland security."These comments almost belong in Part Three of Leading the Nation Into Stupidity as it is incredibly misleading and, well, a complete sack of shit. How do I know this? Let's spend a little time taking a look at what the administration was up to in the months leading up to 9-11, shall we?
In May of 2001, Dick Cheney was appointed to lead the United States Terrorism Task Force. The president charged Cheney with assessing the threat of domestic terrorism and generating an administration plan to respond to coordinate government efforts to respond to new threats. Among the issues under discussion were whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency or some other government agency should take the lead in coordinating government responses to terrorist threats or actions. Cheney said he wanted to complete the terrorism task force by October.
According to public records and just about every news source, the Cheney Terrorism Task Force never met once. Not a single time. In fact, Cheney spent the entire month of August 2001 on vacation. Hmm, where have I heard that one before?
So, if terrorism was not a priority in the summer of 2001, what was a priority? Everyone who is now reading this please sit down and remove all potentially harmful objects away from your personage as violent laughter at the following sentence may cause uncontrollable physical spasms.
A Missle Defense System!
Yep, that's right. The Bush Administraton's identified their key issue of the first term as being missle defense. For those of you that longed for the days of the Cold War (see: Over in 1989), a nostalgic return to those thrilling days of yesteryear was in store for America. Hey, if 9-11 hadn't have happened, maybe my children would've been required to watch "Duck and Cover," an educational film on how to protect yourself in the event of a nuclear blast.
Think I am nuts? Well, it just so happens that every major news organization, on Sept 10th, 2001, received a copy of Dr. Condeleeza Rice's (left) national security speech on Bush Administration defense policy . The speech's main theme was to "address the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday "(Cue audio of uproarious audience laughter, please!) The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.The speech was set to be delivered on Sept 11, 2001. It was not.
Apparently the speech also chided the Clinton administration for not addressing the biggest threat to the US: long range ballastic missiles from Communist countries!! "We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
Interestingly, all of this jibes with what most administration officials were saying in the months leading up to the attacks. Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism rated lower on the list of priorities, as outlined by officials in their own public statements on policy. A review of major public pronouncements in the first eight months of 2001 found relatively few extensive statements by Bush, Vice President Cheney or Rice about al Qaeda, bin Laden or other Islamic extremist groups.
So, conservatives, once again, help me out here. I have heard you accuse Clinton of being soft on terrorism and you may have a point. According to the 9-11 commission's report released in June of 2004, he made at least four critical errors in assessing the Al Qaeda threat. Okay, that's fine. Rip away and I will be right there with you.
But missile defense? And Cheney not doing shit with the terrorism task force? These two things alone should illustrate that this administration, from the very beginning, does not have a fucking clue what the hell they are doing. Or doesn't care. I wonder which is worse?
To come out and say that wiretaps would've helped prevent 9-11 is just so thickly brown that even the heaviest duty baby wipe would not be able cleanse away that ass gobling comment. This administration was not and is not concerned about Al Qaeda. They were and are focused on making money for their pals in the defense industry and finding a way to justify a war in Iraq for their pals in the energy industry.
In addition, this administration, particularity Cheney and Rumsfeld, seem bent on destroying any sort of free will in this country in the interest of "national security." I would be willing to wager that this wiretapping, highly dubious in the legal realm of constitutional law, is for another purpose all together. What that purpose is remains to be seen.
I really want to undertand why the conservatives (see: distrustful of Big Government) are suddenly all for this wiretapping. Huh? And, um, lying about having sex with someone is an impeachable offense but possibly breaking constitutional law and abusing the power of the presidency is not? (see: Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States)
60 million of you elected President Bush in 2004 because you felt that he was a strong leader who would protect you against future terrorist attacks. Based on their own words and actions in the months leading up to 9-11, they were not at all concerned with terrorism. Based on what they have failed to do in the past four years, I wonder how you can listen to Cheney make the above remarks and NOT BE FRUSTRATED!!! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE??!!??
I, for one, am sick of all the garbage coming out of Cheney's mouth the last few months and wonder how a man who got four deferments to stay out of active duty in the Vietnam War has any sort of right at all to speak of how best to protect our country.
13 comments:
What was done leading up to 9/11 is pretty irrelevant to me at this point. Even now I’d say we know a lot but we still have our soft spots and they are not too hard to see...except from the inside. Smart folks exploited that fact on 9/11. Speaking right now, it makes no difference whether we could have prevented it or not: we didn't due to our own weaknesses(which stem from the belief "it could never happen here”).
If Dick Cheney’s policy decisions have nothing to do with stopping terrorism then why do you care about him being on vacation for the month of August? Hell, why bring the United States Terrorism task force together…you just got done saying that efforts of the part of our military, intelligence and law enforcement don’t have anything to do with stopping terrorism.
You must have missed the news out of Italy because our major media sure missed it…AP “The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media. Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S. Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and railway stations, and the terrorists' goal, he said, was to exceed the devastation caused by 9/11.
Italian authorities stepped up their internal surveillance programs after July's terrorist bombings in London. Their domestic wiretaps picked up phone conversations by Algerian Yamine Bouhrama that discussed terrorist attacks in Italy and abroad. Italian authorities arrested Bouhrama on November 15 and he remains in prison. Authorities later arrested two other men, Achour Rabah and Tartaq Sami, who are believed to be Bouhrama's chief aides in planning the attacks. The arrests were a major coup for Italian anti-terror forces, and the story was carried in most major newspapers from Europe to China. "U.S. terror attacks foiled," read the headline in England's Sunday Times. In France, a headline from Agence France Presse proclaimed, "Three Algerians arrested in Italy over plot targeting U.S."
Curiously, what was deemed worthy of a worldwide media blitz abroad was virtually ignored by the U.S. media. Only one American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is known to have published the story that the AP distributed. It ran on page A-6 under the headline "Italy Charges 3 Algerians." The Inquirer report also made no mention of the plot to target the U.S. - although foreign publications included this information in the headlines and lead sentences of their stories. Nor did it advise readers that domestic wiretaps played a key role in nabbing the suspected terrorists.”
God I love facts because they are always around to contradict liberals…get out the baby wipes. What you have done is prioritize your concern for the perception of evenhanded enforcement above the need for security and as long as Nancy Pelosi is around calling for GITMO to close so we can start with a “clean slate” (barf) with muslims and as long as Michael Moore is around saying that the terrorist "insurgents" - the guys who kidnap and murder aid workers, hack the heads off foreigners, load Down's syndrome youths up with explosives and send them off to detonate in shopping markets - are regarded by Moore as Iraq's Minutemen then the natural order of things in this country will be right on.
According to the 9/11 comission report? What happened to the column called “Flunk you” where you attempted to rip on GWB for not doing enough? Now in this column they are being criticized for going too far (well, they haven’t gone too far as noone on here can name for me one instance where anyone’s civil rights have been violated via the NSA program). Consitutional law? I already posted the court precedence that shows that this type of jazz has been going on for years and in the arena of national security it has been deemed legal. You saw it. But wait – Al Gore chimed in yesterday on the whole deal. Last time we saw him he was busy giving Howard Dean his highly sought after endorsement (hee hee haahaa ho).
Funny thing – the liberals don’t trust the government to seek out threats to our security because abuse “might” happen, yet they are completely willing to let politicians and government stooges run our health care system since evil businessmen are greedy and corrupt (as if politicians aren’t). If you think insurance companies are unresponsive try getting a hold of a government worker.
At least for this republican, it was not a sex in itself with Clinton. It was a flat out lying under oath to a grand jury about it. Some will claim that oral is not sex, well tell that to the thousands of "Johns" who are arrested for trying to pay a hooker for a hummer all over the country on a charge of soliciting a sex act for money. To a lesser degree it was also about when and where he got it on with Monica which bothered me just a tad bit. I personally do not give a damn if the man cheated on his wife and other than the fact that he got caught I am certain that she doesn't care either but cheating in the oval office while on a call with another head of state almost like a high school kid trying to see how far he could push the envelope. All that in the same room where Reagan would not take his suit jacket off out of respect.
Well guess who made Vietnam an issue? Kerry made an issue out of Vietnam, his medals, his band of brothers, yadda yadda. The libs spent 4 years calling GWB a draft dodger, then the libs expected Dick Cheney to not bring up the fact that Kerry once made some bizarre statements about US Military atrocities in Vietnam and that he once advocated putting the UN in control of our troops. Oh yeah, don't anyone dare mention Kerry's votes against virtually every new weapons system proposed during his time in congress, his votes to cut the intelligence budget, etc. etc. - that's "questioning his patriotism". [No it's not - it's questioning his voting record for those of you who have trouble discerning one from the other].
For the record, FDR wasn’t exactly dripping with medals himself. Using your standard of people not being able to comment on national security issues because they didn’t serve in the military…to be consistent I guess you had better turn the blog over to JustDave. So liberals who didn’t serve in the military can say anything they want but when a conservative who didn’t serve in the military says anything it is an outrage? At least Cheney wasn’t in one of the groups who spit on the troops upon their return to the states.
What would world opinion be of us if Bush had bombed Afghanistan on Sept 10, 2001? It would have earned him international condemnation as well. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan would have gone on Larry King Live and said the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal will be bringing charges of genocide against Bush. Bush would have also faced federal charges at home for his baseless arrest of 19 foreign nationals, many of them native Saudis, whose "crime" was attending American flight schools. The Council on American-Islamic Relations would have joined the American Civil Liberties Union in a joint suit against both Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, charging racial profiling, unlawful arrest and illegal search and seizure, and I suspect you know this to be true.
This was a great couple of weeks for conservatives. Why? Because lefties are simply opening their mouths.
“When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation and you know what I'm talking about” Hillary Clinton said that to a black audience in Harlem on MLK day. Does she mean that Democratic House members are treated like slaves just like black Americans in the 1700’s and 1800’s? Does she just mean that the GOP House leaders are really no different than the slave-owners of 200 years ago? What a nice sentiment of racial healing from Hillary on Martin Luther King Day, and a classic example of liberal political tactics when it comes to race. Just accuse the other side of being racist and walk away secure in your own moral righteousness.
Then we have Mayor Ray Nagin in New Orleans - who celebrated MLK Day with this line of tolerance and acceptance: “I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.” Then, for good measure, Nagin added, “It's the way God wants it to be.” It’s nice to know Pat Robertson isn’t the only one who is able to divine what God is thinking. Think I’ll cancel any thoughts I had of going back to that city ever again.
Then we had Ted Kennedy lecturing Samuel Alito on ethics and morality. Lovely. Then the other day, Ted Kennedy quit The Owl Club, a social club for Harvard alumni that bans women from membership. All those dem senators claimed that Alito didn’t stick up for the “little guy” in any of his rulings. I thought the purpose of a court proceeding was to render a just verdict; if some judge wants to end inequality then said judge had entered the wrong profession. He should have been a politician, a social activist, a clergyman, etc. But not a judge.
Then a lefty judge said that a child rapist in Vermont needs rehabilitation instead of jail time. So which one of you wants to let him “rehab” down the street from your house?
Then we have Al Gore who accuses President Bush of breaking the law in connection with the NSA intercept program and labels the president "a threat to the very structure of our government". I already posted the court precedence on this issue but let’s take a trip down memory lane (the 1990’s)……."The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General”. Later on in 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.
Boo-ya.
Most of the racism that you speak of is contained in the South which includes both Democrats and Republicans so both sides are equally guilty. Although the South has voted Red in the last two elections so hmmmm...
We all know that Democrats in the south have always been racist. I know plenty of people up here in the Northwoods that are liberal and are racist. In fact, one could argue that we all are racist to one degree or another. I know I am.
But you know what really cracks me up? People on the right who, all of a sudden, grew a fucking conscience and now AREN'T racist. Fuck you, dickheads. You are so full of shit that your hair follicles are brown.
We all know how you really feel about black people (aka the person serving drinks or carrying a golf bag at the country club) so just admit that you are laying at the "red carpet" for one reason and one reason alone: VOTES.
But the real topic here is the Cheney and the wiretapping thing. Crab, you know damn well that if President Kerry had authorized wiretaps, Trent Lott, Rick Santorum, and Bill Frist would have been all over him like white on rice.
Stop being partisan and look at the issue from the point of view of a conservative who distrusts big government. I don't know how comfortable I am with any president authorizing this type of action. Why are you? Or are you now a neo-con? (aka biggest hypocrite in the history of the USA)
Cheney's comments are just flat out bullshit. Rather than wiretaps, the various intelligence agencies should have dispensed with the bureaucracy, listened to people like Collen Rowley, and done their fucking jobs. And THAT would've prevented 9-11.
We will see in November how great things are for the conservatives.
And in 2008.
Thanks, Crab, for bringing up the terrorist plot story as it pertains to wiretapping. I think our real concern should be that we were not the ones to uncover it. I would go on to suggest that we need to get better at it! - how 'bout that. Delpia, next time you go do Wrigley, give a quick thanks to Italian intelligence for allowing you to enjoy the game without poopy in your pants. Game, set, match, Crabby.
Got nothing to hide? Got nothing to worry about. Not to throw another log on the paranioa fire, but I'm sure the blog readers at the FBI are loving this installment.
Chocolate . . . that's just plain funny.
And yet another conservative turns his back on everything he has ever stood for to stand firmly in....
NEO CON LAND!!!
....where rules and beliefs are discarded (as often as Sybil changes her mind) to blindly follow a partisan agenda that has no rhyme or reason.
Do you hear that applause? It's the sound of 60 million people that are happy with the end of democracy....
Saying “both sides do it” has nothing to do with it. Wasn’t Trent Lott run out of town for making comments on race? The double standard here is on display big time and if dems keep up this juvenile behavior all year then November will not be kind to them. I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know what will happen in November. All politics is local anyway.
I never said I got rid of any subtle racism I had, just pointing out the obvious double standards that exist when politicians of both parties comment on race. Has anyone called for Hillary to resign? Not to worry – intelligent blacks see right though the democratic party pandering for their votes ever couple of years, the dumb ones are the ones who think some republican congressman is keeping them down. For too many leaders on the left, the greatest evil is not injustice, it is not cruelty, it is not murder, it isn’t even terrorists…it is inequality (so they say). Too bad for them the lefty leaders who promote this division of society/class warfare rhetoric don’t come close to practicing what they preach…having a trust fund kid (T. Kennedy) lecturing Alito (the son of an immigrant) on anything to John Kerry, who married into a family worth a half a billion dollars and owns 10 SUV’s, to Jesse Jackson (who is nothing more than a shake-down artist) to Ruth Bader Ginsburg who, while ruling in favor of racial quotas even though no evidence of intentional discrimination was done by the employer, operated her office in a majority black city for 10 years and didn’t even hire 1 minority in that time period.
VOTES? Same can be said of Hillary. Way to bring us all together there Hillary. Libs have been doing this same thing every other year for 20 years, yawn. So the republicans RESPONSE to Hillary is pandering for votes? How would you describe Hillary’s comments?
I am completely comfortable with anyone listening to my phone conversations because they will be pretty bored. I DO want my government to listen in on conversations involving phone numbers belonging to known terrorists. So now GWB and co. are going too far…about a month ago on this blog they weren’t doing enough(read: Flunk you). Kind of hard to keep up with what libs really want.
Trent Lott? Bill Frist? Did they have a problem with Clinton doing the exact same thing to catch that spy they caught in the 90’s? If Trent Lott and Bill Frist “would have” had a problem with it I sure wouldn’t have. Al Gore and the ACLU have been out there recently but no elected dem politicians have. That’s because they have their internal polling that show people support wire tapping potential terrorists. Do you think Al Queda would give 2 shits about the legality of something before they did it? No, they would just do it. See the limited war we are fighting?
This will all be forgotten in 3 weeks and the libs will move on to their next batch of trumped up charges.
You know I don’t agree with all of it but I will gladly follow this agenda out there now – taking out nutjob dictators, spying on potential terrorists within this country by any means necessary, standing up to critics who think that Al Queda setting off 1 bomb a day in Iraq constitutes the US “losing” the war, and so on. So is the groundwork is being laid for the totalitarian government? As opposed to the socialistic government the left would prefer? Totalitarianism and socialism are two flavors of collectivism, which is the opposite of individualism and freedom. The difference is that while it's doubtful that the right's policies will lead to totalitarianism, the left openly embraces socialism. Look at it this way - you’ll have universal healthcare either way! Is blind hatred of an agenda any better than blindly following an agenda?
With regards to Colleen Rowley, hindsight is always 20/20. Besides, what would the ACLU have said if GWB detained 19 muslims on 9/10/01 whose “crime” was attending American flight schools. Again, I can see it all…John Ashcroft goes on TV and says they were detained because there was a report that they “might” fly planes into buildings. If they would have “done their fucking jobs” like that you lefties would have blown a fuse and you know it.
If you have evidence the wire tapping was misused then I will be right with you, but you don’t have any evidence that supports that thus far.
Found this to be GREAT...
North Dakota News
This text is from a county emergency manager out in the
western part of North Dakota state after the recent snow storm.
WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a
Historic event --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical
Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of
motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and
cut power to 10's of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come....
FEMA did nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one blamed the government
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit
Our Mayor's did not blame Bush or anyone else
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else either
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snow storm
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something
Nobody expected the government to do anything either
No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera
No Sean Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found
Nope, we just melted the snow for water
Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snow bound families
Families took in the stranded people - total strangers
We Fired up wood stoves
Broke out coal oil lanterns or coleman lanterns
We put on an extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die"
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a
welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it
ourselves.
Victims of natural disasters can either whine, blame, and complain...or work together to rebuild lives.
I don't really understand what the above means except that you think that the New Orleans debacle was another example of "race mongers" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton exploiting a situation.
George Bush himself admitted that enormous mistakes were made by the federal government and he took repsonsibility for them. I actually respect that.
What I do not respect is your myopic, neo-con view of a world in which conervatives don't actually make mistakes. It's just liberals on the warpath again and we all better watch out!!
Comparing the blizzard in ND to what happened in New Orleans is like comparing Iraq War to World War II....two completely different situations.
Just keep on believing that propaganda that they are feeding you.....I will not question my government. I will not question my government. I will not question my government.
I’m not sure where I said conservatives didn’t ever make mistakes...just because I point out the follies of the left is not equal to giving a pass to all the stupid stuff conservatives say. Just dishing it out to the left as much as you dish it out to the right.
Indeed the hurricane was worse than the blizzard in the context on natural disasters but I viewed it as 2 natural disasters, 2 different sets of values on display. What was that whole “Ask not what your country can do for you...”? A lost ideal.
I question my government all the time but like I said – if they suspect someone is a terrorist then I support them probing and spying by whatever means necessary. Just saying it “could be” misued isn’t good enough for me. I don’t want the government to run health care or public education but I do want my government to investigate any lead they get to the fullest extent by any means necessary with regards to anyone who is planning on blowing up buildings and taking as many of us infidels with them to the promised land. It's clear to me that the liberals are on a warpath(Al Gore, ACLU)…they're trying their best to make this NSA program to be an impeachable offense, saying it is directed at ordinary Americans. That's why they keep referring to this as a 'program of spying on Americans' whereas GWB keeps pointing out it's a program designed to uncover Al Queda operations on American soil. Also, I have no problems with Bush giving contracts to his buddies. From what I understand, those large contracts tell the suppliers(bidders) where the army is supposed to be, at what times, and the armaments they will need to fight a battle. I don’t want that information to be given to the enemy since free and open bidding means anybody can get hands on that contract. Frankly, unless you want even higher body counts from allowing the enemy to get a logistics bid and seeing where we'll be, when we will be there, and what military hardware we're bringing, not to mention where it will be delivered enroute so you can sabotage it, then learn to love those no-bid Halliburton contracts.
Regardless of the realities, the dem leadership is already viewed as spineless PC wimps when it comes to national security and the key is that they know it. I hope this story stays in the news for weeks. If you have evidence of misuse of the program then lets hear it (Paul Bolin doesn’t count).
Markadelphia,
You gotta admit it's a pretty clever ploy by the Bush administration to release a new "Bin Laden" audio tape that says that plans are underway for another attack in the US. That's clearly going to stoke the fire for allowing wiretaps within the US.
We may not have insanity on our side like many lefties do, but we've got some pretty clever tricks up our sleeves, nonetheless.
PL,
Yeah, I have often wondered how "real" the threats are when they release those tapes.
I think in the end it just makes me sad because our country really is at risk from Al Qaeda and I think that our government, left or right, exploits that fear for its own gains.
It makes me yearn for the days of WWII when good and evil were clear cut and everyone was on the same page with what we had to do.
Then again, that was a horrible time too so what the hell am I talking about?
The liberal media is evil.
Homosexual people are gay.
The ACLU is evil.
Environmentalists are evil.
Country music is evil.
All liberals are evil.
Just trying to help. ; )
Mark. What aload of crap. Try reading about Judicial Watch. A truely non-patrisan group that really gets to the bottom of what is going on in Washington. Both Dems and Repubs are to blame for the shit that goes on there. All the bums should be thrown out along with the boys and girls on K street. Please step back from the Koolaid keg and put something useful between your ears. You call yourself a conservative. I'm not sure you know what that is.Judicial Watch read and learn.
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