Archive
Obama gets his credentials for his next job… as a corporate lobbyist!
The Real News – Capital is Powerful, Not Rational
Reps Rush Holt and Raúl Grijalva on House Democratic Opposition to Obama’s Tax Deal with GOP
Julian E. Zelizer – Obama is dealing away FDR’s legacy
From Salon:
Obama is dealing away FDR’s legacy
With public attention focused on President Obama’s compromise with Republican leaders to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, there has been less discussion about a feature of the deal that could have enormous long-term consequences: the payroll tax holiday. Under the plan, which still must be approved by the House and Senate, the payroll tax would be cut by 2 percentage points for all wage-earners — meaning that a worker making $40,000 would receive an extra $800 in his or her paycheck over the course of a year. The White House and its defenders are touting this as a way to boost the stalled economy, and it might just do that. But they’re also playing with fire.
AMERICAblog – Obama gets FDR’s history wrong … again
From AMERICAblog:
Assange now expects to be indicted by US
More insider trader indictments coming soon
EU to announce banker bonus limits
WikiLeaks: Pfizer ‘used dirty tricks’ against Nigerian AG to avoid lawsuit
House caucus meeting: ‘F*** the president’
Poll: Cut the deficit, keep entitlements and tax the rich
Grayson, Hamsher & Nader discuss Obama & the tax ‘deal’
Citibank’s Peter Orszag thinks disabled Americans should work more
Halliburton discussing $500m settlement to avoid Cheney arrest
WikiLeaks: US conspired with China to block Copenhagen environment reform
Majority of Americans against Fed power
Obama gets FDR’s history wrong … again
by Gaius Publius on 12/10/2010 09:40:00 PM
Once more Obama distorts the FDR-era history of Social Security. The first time was here, during the famous Progressive Bloggers interview, when he passed as fact a blatant and false Republican smear about FDR and Hoover.
And he’s at it again. In his recent press conference, Obama said this during his anti-progressive rant:
This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.
Which is just flat false, not in any history of the era I studied. Krugman calls him out:
This is all wrong: both programs were huge from the start. From the beginning, Social Security applied to all private-sector workers, except those in agriculture, domestic service, or casual employment — and yes, those exceptions happened to exclude the majority of African-Americans. Still, it was by no means a small program that grew big. Medicare covered everyone 65 and older right from the beginning, although initially it only provided hospital insurance.
It is, as Rosenberg says, odd that Obama doesn’t know this history.
I included the last sentence to contrast the Professor’s characteristic politeness with my own opposite thought. No, it’s not odd at all; he passes on Republican talking points because … (your turn).
The Progress Report – A Taxing Decision
From The Progress Report:
Think Fast
Media Matters obtained internal Fox News correspondence authored by the network’s leadership, including D.C. managing editor Bill Sammon, which reveal that Fox bosses instructed their journalists not to use the term “public option” during the health care fight. Sammon wrote that Fox’s reporters should instead use “government option” and similar phrases. Polling by Frank Luntz showed that using “government option” language made the public option unpopular.
After leading the fight against gays in the military in 1993, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) reversed his position on DADT and now says it should be overturned as long as the Pentagon is given a year to prepare for the change. Nunn, who once believed gay troops would hurt cohesion and morale, said he was swayed by military testimony and recognized that “society has changed, and the military has changed.”
The House passed the DREAM Act last night along party lines. The measure “offers a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to this country illegally before age 16 and who have enrolled in college or entered the military.” President Obama said the vote was historic and urged the Senate to pass the bill, however the measure “faces a tough test” in the upper chamber.
Dealing “the final blow” to Obama’s pledge to close Guantanamo Bay, Congress passed a provision yesterday that blocks closing the prison or any of its suspected terrorist detainees from transfer to the U.S. for trial. The Department of Justice rebuked the provision, saying it limits “the tools available to the executive branch in bringing terrorists to justice and advancing our national security interests.”
Republicans have selected Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY) to lead the powerful House Appropriations committee, which oversees federal spending. Rogers, however, is a prodigious earmarker known as the “Prince of Pork” for the hundreds of millions of dollars he has steered to his state. The Wall Street Journal reports that “some fiscal conservatives are asking whether he’s the right man to chair” the committee.
Internet activists are declaring a “cyberwar” against multinational companies and other organizations they have deemed hostile to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. After Assange’s arrest in Britain this week, hackers attacked the websites of WikiLeak’s “enemies,” causing several of them “to become inaccessible or slow down markedly.”
Former GOP Florida governor Jeb Bush said yesterday that he opposes Arizona-style immigration laws that allow law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they deem suspicious — something that lawmakers in Florida are now proposing. Bush said his children might look suspicious to police and “[i]t’s the wrong approach.”
The House of Representatives “narrowly approved a stripped-down budget bill Wednesday evening, cutting nearly $46 billion from President Barack Obama’s requests.” At the end of the process, the budget totaled $1.09 trillion.
And finally: While the White House scrambles to line up the votes for its tax cut deal, one Democratic congressman isn’t budging. Appearing on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) said that members of the House Democratic caucus are asking, “Why should we take this vote? We’re going to get blamed for adding to the deficit. This isn’t the dream act, this is the Republican wet dream act.”
President Obama’s $900 billion tax deal with congressional Republicans gained “a wave of new Democratic support” yesterday, signaling that the measure will make it through Congress, provided most Republicans support it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the Senate could vote on the package as soon as today or tomorrow, suggesting he is confident of its prospects in the upper chamber. Congressional Democrats have been largely displeased with the deal — which will extend for two years the Bush tax cuts for all income brackets, including the wealthiest two percent of Americans, in exchange for extending unemployment benefits and middle-class tax breaks — but many appear to be coming around. Democrats strongly objected to extending the bonus cuts for “millionaires and billionaires” because it will greatly increase the deficit while providing little stimulus for the economy or the middle class. A large number of Democrats had threatened to vote against the package, and, calling the deal an “absolute disaster,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has even threatened to filibuster it. But their most strenuous objection to the compromise was directed at the estate tax provision, which sets a 35 percent tax rate on estates worth more than $5 million. The White House has lobbied aggressively to win support for the deal in the last few days, sending Vice President Biden to Capitol Hill and other administration officials across Washington “to press their case.” And White House economic adviser Larry Summers delivered a grave warning to members of Congress yesterday, saying, “If they don’t pass this bill in the next couple of weeks, it would materially increase the risk the economy would stall out and we would have a double dip [recession].” But despite the fact that many in the party support the measure, and that the compromise appears poised to pass, some “Democrats in the House and Senate were still seething with anger — both about the substance of the deal…and the way they were iced out of the negotiations,” the New York Times reported yesterday. In a non-binding vote within the House Democratic caucus today, the caucus voted to reject the tax cut deal.
Daniel Tencer – Obama-GOP deal raises taxes on poorest earners
From The Raw Story:
Obama-GOP deal raises taxes on poorest earners
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 — 5:50 pm
Quarter of tax savings will go to richest one percent
The plan to extend Bush-era tax cuts that President Barack Obama struck with the Senate Republican leadership will result in lower taxes for wealthy and middle-class Americans but will mean a tax hike for the very poorest earners.
According to an analysis in the New York Times, the Obama-GOP deal will mean that individuals earning less than $20,000 and families earning less than $40,000 will see a small tax hike.
“It will come to a few dollars a week,” Roberton Williams, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center told the Times. “But it is an increase.”
As part of the deal, Obama agreed to drop the Making Work Pay credit that was created as part of the stimulus package, and replace it with a lower payroll tax. That lost credit — of $400 or $800 — is greater than the amount low-income earners will save from the lower payroll tax, meaning, in total, they will pay more.
Of the estimated $900 billion in new and continued tax breaks in the deal, about one-quarter — $225 billion — is expected to go to the top one percent of earners.
Obama shows he’s a spineless republican suck-up
Keith Olbermann – Special Comment On Tax Cut Deal
Keith Olbermann – Outrage grows over tax deal
AMERICAblog – Frank Rich on Obama and the Stockholm Syndrome
From AMERICAblog:
Frank Rich on Obama and the Stockholm Syndrome
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 12/05/2010 10:45:00 AM
You really have to read the entire piece. Here’s the start:
THOSE desperate to decipher the baffling Obama presidency could do worse than consult an article titled “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” in the online archive of The F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin. It explains that hostage takers are most successful at winning a victim’s loyalty if they temper their brutality with a bogus show of kindness. Soon enough, the hostage will start concentrating on his captors’ “good side” and develop psychological characteristics to please them — “dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.”
The Young Turks – Obama’s Tax Cut Cave
David Corn – WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe
From AlterNet:
Is the White House Still Fighting for Unemployment Benefits?
House Votes to Extend Tax Cuts for Middle Class
WATCH: The Dumbest, Most Hilarious Abstinence-Only Metaphors
Glenn Greenwald on Joe Lieberman’s Thuggish, Authoritarian Attack on WikiLeaks
Shameless: Drug Companies Hired Ghostwriters to Pose as Doctors
Interpol Arrest Warrant for Dick Cheney? Nigeria to Charge Former VP in Bribery Scandal
WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe
In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A “confidential” April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution. Read more
By David Corn | Mother Jones
Posted on Thursday, December 2, 2010 @ 08:25 AM
Firedoglake – Catfood Delirium: US Pretends It’s Not Repeating Europe’s Mistakes
From Firedoglake:
Catfood Delirium: US Pretends It’s Not Repeating Europe’s Mistakes
By: Scarecrow Wednesday December 1, 2010 9:22 am
My dead-tree New York Times aptly depicts the mass economic insanity now gripping the US and Europe. There are several related articles, none referring to the others, but they’re all part of the same story: Governments are on their knees from bailing out insolvent banks and rescuing their economies after the financial collapse, but further crippling themselves by pretending that punishing citizens via austerity will keep their economies from tanking further.
On the Times front page, top-right, we read about America’s hysteria over federal deficits. The article frets over whether Obama’s failed Deficit (aka “let them eat Catfood”) Commission can get even a majority, let alone the required 14 of 18 votes, to endorse measures already widely panned, partly because Simpson-Bowles merely wave their hands on health care costs that are the principal driver of structural deficit. Even worse, in the aggregate their proposals shift more wealth from the middle class and elderly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, while restricting the government’s ability to right the inequality. It doesn’t occur to the Times to hope enough members will have the courage and wisdom to just say NO!
techdirt – President Obama, After Traveling With Naked Scanner CEO, Defends Naked Scans
From techdirt:
President Obama, After Traveling With Naked Scanner CEO, Defends Naked Scans (Privacy)
by Mike Masnick from the well,-look-at-that… dept on Monday, November 22nd, 2010 @ 7:19AM
As the whole mess with the TSA scanners has received a lot more attention in the last week or so, a few folks are noticing that ex-Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff, who’s been quite busy defending the naked scanners, happens to be making a ton of money from one of the main ones, Rapiscan, made by OSI, a client of Chertoff’s consulting firm. Of course, similar concerns were brought up a year ago when Chertoff was busy promoting the scanners, but it appears that many in the mainstream press continue to highlight his old Homeland Security title, while downplaying his current role making money from seeing those scanners sold.
However, perhaps even more interesting is the news that President Obama was finally asked to address the whole thing this weekend, and (not surprisingly) defended the scans and the pat downs as “the only [procedures] right now that [the TSA] considers to be effective,” to prevent terrorism (while also admitting that he doesn’t have to go through security to get on airplanes, so he hasn’t experienced the scans.
No surprise there. Of course, what he didn’t mention is that he just got done traveling with the CEO of OSI, the parent company of Rapiscan, the makers of the main naked scanner that is being purchased and put into all these airports. Apparently, OSI CEO, Deepak Chopra (no, not the new agey guy), “was selected to accompany US President, Barack Obama, to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting…”
Now, of course, all of this may be perfectly legit and reasonable. There may be plenty of reasons why all of these things happened. Chertoff and Obama may really believe these scanners are the best way to protect us. But, as Larry Lessig has been fond of pointing out lately with his anti-corruption project, it’s these kinds of “connections” that make the American public lose trust in their government, since it can certainly be read in a rather corrupt manner.
Chris Floyd – Obama’s Peace Dividend: War Profiteering in the land of Gandhi
From the Empire Burlesque:
Obama’s Peace Dividend: War Profiteering in the land of Gandhi
By Chris Floyd
Sunday, 07 November 2010 23:14
The Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama, who in his prize-claiming speech boldly claimed the mantle of Mahatma Gandhi, is now visiting India. And why has he made this pilgrimage to the homeland of his spiritual mentor? Has he come to drink more deeply of the wellsprings of satyagraha, to steep himself more thoroughly in the Gandhian principles of courageous, active, non-violent resistance to evil, to the Mahatma’s ceaseless dedication to the poor and the outcast?
No: he has come to seal the deal on the sixth largest sale of war weapons in the history of the United States: $5 billion for the bristling, burgeoning Indian military, currently waging war on millions of its own people in Kashmir and the poverty-devastated state of central India, where the despair is so deep that suicide among the poor is epidemic.
Economic Populist – Obama, Say What? India Creates American Jobs, Are you Kiddin’ Me?
From the Economic Populist:
Obama, Say What? India Creates American Jobs, Are you Kiddin’ Me?
Submitted by Robert Oak on Wed, 11/10/2010 – 02:47
Anyone else wondering how a President, who just received a red tidal wave that was a protest vote can run off to Asia and declare India as a creator, not a poacher of U.S. jobs?
Maybe it’s because he has the queen of offshore outsourcing, Diana Farrell on his National Economics Council. Regardless, President Obama is wrong. India is indeed a poacher of U.S. jobs. How else do you think their offshore outsourcing industry is $50 billion a year, with 60% of that coming from the U.S. representing 1.32 million U.S. jobs lost.
Right now we have 17 million college graduates working as waitresses and sales clerks. We just saw in this 60 Minutes report PhDs, Masters degrees, people with advanced skills, grateful to get a part-time job at Target. We have 11 U.S. industries not employing Americans, U.S. workers, but where most workers are offshore or brought in as cheap labor.
Think Progress – Obama’s Pro-Israel Record
From Think Progress:
Wallace Suggests That Radio Host Mike Gallagher Be ‘A Man’ And Hire An Escort To Cure His Loneliness
Bachmann Invites Sean Hannity And Two Radical Tenthers To Teach Lawmakers About The Constitution
Fox News Stands Behind Beck’s Latest Soros Attacks While Jewish Groups See Anti-Semitism
On Veterans Day, Conrad Invokes Veterans To Praise Proposal Adding Co-Pays To The VA
More…
By Benjamin Armbruster, George Zornick, Matt Duss, Alex Seitz-Wald, and Tanya Somanader
Earlier this week, Israel announced plans to build more than one thousand new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem, the first such announcement since a similar move in March during a visit by Vice President Biden led to serious tension between the two governments. Settlements have been a major sticking point in the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, with the Palestinians refusing to continue direct talks in the absence of a settlement freeze, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu refusing to extend a partial moratorium on their construction. President Obama criticized the announcement, saying, “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations.” Before meeting with Netanyahu in New York on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the proposed construction “counterproductive,” and said the U.S. was “deeply disappointed” by the announcement. A statement from Netanyahu said Jerusalem was “not a settlement” and there was “no link” between peace talks and settlements. The two leaders had a “marathon” nearly seven hour meeting, after which a joint statement describing “good discussions” that involved “a friendly and productive exchange of views on both sides.” Veteran Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller told Politico’s Laura Rozen that the long meeting was a good sign. “Six hours means negotiations; that means that they’re ironing out differences between the U.S. and Israel on a formula for resumption.” Mark Rosenblum of Americans for Peace Nowhere predicted that “There is a new game plan, and there will be a new trade-off to get to a partial moratorium on settlements.”
Democracy Now! – Obama Arrives in Jakarta
- U.S. Defends Right to Assassinate U.S. Citizens
- Move to Repeal DADT Stalling in Senate
- Connecticut Couple Sues to Overturn Defense of Marriage Act
- Commission: Cost Cutting Had No Role in BP Spill
- Netanyahu Speech Disrupted in New Orleans
- U.S. Offers to Drop Sudan from List of Terrorist Nations
- Lori Berenson Released on Parole
- Anti-Nuke Protests Continue in Germany
- Federal Court Holds Hearing on Mumia Abu-Jamal Sentencing
- Hedge Fund Manager Escapes Felony Charges Thanks to His Job
- Bush: Waterboarding Was Legal “Because the Lawyer Said It Was”
- Bush: Kanye West’s Remark Was “Disgusting Moment, Pure and Simple”
- More Headlines…
From Democracy Now!:
President Obama arrived in Indonesia today on the second stop of a ten-day trip to Asia. It’s Obama’s first state visit to Indonesia after having lived there for four years as a child. We go to Jakarta to speak with investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn, who has just released secret documents from Kopassus—the feared Indonesian special forces—which has been responsible for human rights abuses since the 1950s. Earlier this year, the Obama administration lifted a 12-year funding ban for the training of Kopassus. While Obama talks about human rights, the documents indicate that Kopassus targets churches and civilians and includes a Kopassus enemies list topped by a local Baptist minister in West Papua. Nairn will continue to release documents on his website AllanNairn.com. [includes rush transcript]
We look at the case of Munir Thalib, an Indonesian human rights activist and a prominent critic of the Indonesian government and military. He was poisoned to death aboard a flight to Holland in September 2004. An off-duty pilot was found guilty for his death, but prosecutors ignored the findings of an independent investigation that pointed to the involvement of Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency. We speak with his widow, Suciwati Munir, who has led the struggle for justice in her husband’s murder. [includes rush transcript]
Amy Goodman – Obama in the Company of Killers
From Truthdig:
Obama in the Company of Killers
Posted on Nov 9, 2010
By Amy Goodman
If a volcano kills civilians in Indonesia, it’s news. When the government does the killing, sadly, it’s just business as usual, especially if an American president tacitly endorses the killing, as President Barack Obama just did with his visit to Indonesia.
Spiegel – ‘Obama Comes Across as Cold, Arrogant and Elitist’
From Spiegel Online:
The World from Berlin
‘Obama Comes Across as Cold, Arrogant and Elitist’
It was a failure of historic proportions. With US President Barack Obama’s Democrats having lost control of the House, there seems little hope for progress during his two remaining years, say German commentators. Obama himself, they say, bears much of the blame. more…
Obama’s Election Debacle: A Settling of Accounts with Mr. Perfect
McClatchy – Obama says he’s out of touch, but offers no concessions
From McClatchy:
Obama says he’s out of touch, but offers no concessions
After leading his party to the worst midterm drubbing in 72 years, President Barack Obama all but conceded Wednesday that he’s lost touch with the American people. The president appeared subdued and at times reflective but not outwardly chastened and offered no change in direction.
AllGov – Obama Signing Statement Rejects Wider Sharing of Intelligence Info with Congress
From AllGov:
Obama Signing Statement Rejects Wider Sharing of Intelligence Info with Congress
Monday, October 11, 2010
President Barack Obama continues to refuse to notify the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees about covert operations, reaffirming his position in a signing statement attached to his approval of an intelligence authorization bill recently approved by Congress.
Normally, if a U.S. president objects to a law passed by Congress, he vetoes it. But a president can ignore a certain section of a law if he says he considers it unconstitutional or if he claims that it might “interfere with his ability to conduct foreign policy.”
The legislation in question includes language telling the White House that the president has to at least give the committee members a “general description” of secret military activities. President Obama responded in his signing statement that he interprets the “general description” requirement as meaning he has to notify lawmakers only that he’s not telling them everything.
Rather than inform the full intelligence committees, the president prefers to keep briefings limited to the so-called “Gang of Eight,” which consists of the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
In ‘Signing Statement,’ President Obama Affirms Right to Keep Tight the Circle of Congressmen in the Loop (by Jake Tapper, ABC News)
Statement by the President on the Intelligence Authorization Act (White House)
Both Parties in House Slam Obama Signing Statement (by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Jonathan Cook – Obama’s Cave-In to Israel
From CounterPunch:
Letter Suggests US Not an Honest Broker
By Jonathan Cook
Nazareth.
The disclosure of the details of a letter reportedly sent by President Barack Obama last week to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will cause Palestinians to be even more sceptical about US and Israeli roles in the current peace talks.
According to the leak, Obama made a series of extraordinarily generous offers to Israel, many of them at the expense of the Palestinians, in return for a single minor concession from Netanyahu: a two-month extension of the partial freeze on settlement growth.
[…]
According to Makovsky, in return for the 60-day settlement moratorium, the
US promised to veto any UN Security Council proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the next year, and committed to not seek any further extensions of the freeze. The future of the settlements would be addressed only in a final agreement.
The White House would also allow Israel to keep a military presence in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, even after the creation of a Palestinian state; continue controlling the borders of the Palestinian territories to prevent smuggling; provide Israel with enhanced weapons systems, security guarantees and increase its billions of dollars in annual aid; and create a regional security pact against Iran.
Who What Why – What Obama Is Up Against
From Who What Why:
The first anniversary of Barack Obama’s historic election finds many of his supporters already grousing. Fair enough: Obama has been more vigorous in some areas than others. But one essential question goes unasked: How much can any president accomplish against the wishes of recalcitrant power centers within his own government? We Americans harbor a quaint belief that a new president takes charge of a government that eagerly awaits his next command. Like an orchestra conductor or perhaps a football coach, he can inspire or bludgeon and get what he wants. But that’s not how things work at the top, especially where “national security” is concerned. The Pentagon and CIA are powerful and independent fiefdoms characterized by entrenched agendas and constant intrigue. They are full of lifers, who see an elected president largely as an annoyance, and have ways of dealing with those who won’t come to heel.
Compound that with the Bush-Cheney administration’s aggressive seeding of its staunch loyalists throughout the bureaucracy, and you have a pretty tough situation. Obama, then, has to contend not only with the big donors and corporate lobbies. His biggest problem resides right inside his “team.”
Glenn Greenwald – Obama argues his assassination program is a “state secret”
From Glenn Greenwald:
Saturday, Sept 25, 2010 15:26 ET
Obama argues his assassination program is a “state secret”
At this point, I didn’t believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki’s father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That’s not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”: in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.
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