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Feb. 10, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:26
February 10, 2009, Tuesday, Hour #2
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It's even worse than I thought, ladies and gentlemen.
Mere moments ago, in the previous hour of this, the Rush Limbaugh program, I just fired both barrels and I said the Obama plan is not about creating jobs.
It's about targeting achievers, propping up losers, making as many people dependent on government as possible, and telling as many businesses how they have to operate.
And I use the General Motors example.
Here we're bailing out General Motors.
They have to fire 10,000 people.
They're cutting the pay of a bunch of white-collar people.
All of this to get in the structured restructuring mandated by the federal government and as terms of the bailout.
So here's Obama, and here are the Democrats saying all they're interested in is creating jobs for people, and yet General Motors accepting bailout money is having to let 10,000 people go, and a lot of other people are getting pay cuts.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, however.
That's just one example.
Oh, by the way, let me correct myself again.
On the final Senate vote, I mistakenly said it was a slam dunk of 6731 on the final stimulus vote in the Senate.
It was 6137.
And without the three rhino Republicans, Collins, Snow, and Specter, this thing would not have passed.
And these three Republicans, by the way, were hounded by the drive-by media.
How can you let Obama fail?
The new president, they were just hammered by the media, and they buckled to the pressure.
So now the whole thing goes to the conference with the House.
And we ask again, where's the saucer?
Where is the damn saucer?
The Senate's supposed to be the saucer that cools the overheated stuff in the cup, which comes from the House.
There's no saucer.
The Senate didn't slow anything down.
They didn't get deliberative.
Nobody knows what they've signed here, as is evidenced by national health care provisions being in the stimulus package.
I'm just watching a little bit of Obama at his town meeting down in Fort Myers, and this was quite telling.
Guy stands up during the Q ⁇ A. President Obama, thanks for coming.
I have a question.
It represents a question held by a lot of my friends and family down here.
Yeah, there's a question.
Well, we want to know about government benefits.
I just lost my job.
I lost my job a long time ago, actually.
I've been unemployed.
I haven't been able to pay all the bills.
I was making, what did he say, $3,600 a month?
I got laid off.
I got fired.
My unemployment benefits are $1,100 a month.
When is the government going to make up the difference?
How come when I lose my job that the government doesn't pay me what I was making when I got fired or laid off?
Now, I'm watching this.
Now, I have had fears that there is a growing segment of the population that thinks that way.
I just saw it.
And there was robust applause when this guy asked the question.
Not robust, but there was just some support.
Yeah, amen.
Well, how come I don't get all my salary when I get fired?
How come unemployment benefits?
And Obama's kind of taken aback.
Well, I'll be the first to admit that unemployment is not perfect.
Unemployment.
But I got to tell you, I got to tell you, they're never going to be $3,600.
I mean, we're never going to be that.
We might be able to increase unemployment by another $100 a month, but we're not going to be able to $3,600.
And the kid kind of had a look on his face of surprise.
Which takes me, ladies and gentlemen, to a New York Times story by Robert Peer, January 28th.
Relief scene for jobless and states in health care plan.
The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts.
There aren't any tax cuts, by the way, intended to jolt the nation out of recession.
For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured, and the unemployed in ways they have long yearned to do.
With little notice, with no public hearings, House Democrats would create a temporary new entitlement allowing workers getting unemployment checks to qualify for Medicaid, the health program for low-income people.
Spouses and children could also receive benefits no matter how much money the family had.
Spouses and children could also receive benefits no matter how much money the family had.
In addition, the stimulus package would offer a hefty subsidy to help laid-off workers retain the same health plans they had from their former employers.
Altogether, the economic recovery bill would speed $127 billion over the next two and a half years to individuals and states for health care alone.
A fact that has Republicans fuming that the stimulus package is a backdoor to universal health coverage.
Mike Burgess, Republican of Texas, is raining money.
Now, I'm not going to read the whole story to you, but if I did, it's a long story, but it makes it plain that all this is being done in coordination with Obama.
There is this myth going on out there that Pelosi did this on her own, that Obama farmed it out.
That's not true.
This is nothing that is said about these people is ever the total truth.
Obama is working hand in.
The New York Times reports this January 28th.
Obama is coordinating this effort.
But the first paragraph here, the stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession.
For Democrats, it's also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured, the unemployed in ways they have long yearned to do.
So you see, it's not just a war on the achievers.
It is an effort to buy votes to cement the power of the Democrat Party for generations, as I said.
When I was interviewed by Sean Hannity and when I wrote my response to Obama criticizing me, this is about fixing the problem that occurred in the early 90s when the Democrats lost power in the House of Representatives.
The idea this is about getting you a job, the idea that this is about reinvigorating the U.S. economy, it is not true.
This is about the Democrats being able to do what they've wanted to do for years.
Decades have been frustrated.
Now they've got the White House.
Now they've got the House and the Senate.
They've got some compliant rhinos in the Senate.
And they are all about implementing these new, well, it's not new.
They're just going to expand the entire notion that life's losers deserve the rewards.
And when I say life's losers, I'm talking about people that are not even incentivized to work.
I don't mean losers in the sense of their personality.
Now, let's go to the Obama press conference last night.
Just a couple of soundbites.
Watched this last night, ladies and gentlemen.
And I know that there are two Americas watching this.
The America of you and me saw one thing.
The America represented by the people in Fort Myers today at Obama's town meeting.
They represent the other America.
We have a little update tune here.
Obama liking the recession, wanting it to continue.
That's what this plan's about.
When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, Barack Obama and recession.
He's very happy about because of the opportunity it affords him and his fellow Democrats.
All right.
I don't know about you, but when I watched the press conference last night, I laughed.
I thought this is rambling incoherence.
I've never seen a teleprompter used at a press conference.
I've never seen a president start out with a teleprompter and make his opening comments with his head looking far above the multitudes, as Obama's was last night, reading off a teleprompter for an opening statement.
And it was a campaign speech.
It was right out of a campaign speech.
It was nothing specific.
It was just more platitudes and empty rhetoric.
And then they went to the questions.
The first question, he took 13 minutes to answer it.
I sent a friend of mine a note and I said, this is incredible.
He's trying to limit the number of questions that he's getting by going on and on and on with diarrhea of the mouth.
And it was incoherent.
He was not answering the questions.
It was just rambling.
And it got to be ridiculously funny to me.
Then Chuck Todd from NBC stood up and said, Mr. President, don't you think it'd be better if you tell people that if they get this, they should perhaps save their money and not spend it?
I mean, he actually started asking the president to tell people how to spend their money.
It was just, it was mind-boggling.
It was so incoherent.
It was unprofessional.
And when he left the prompter and went to the press QA, the difference was striking.
I get up today, and it's hilarious how the liberal media and even some supposedly conservative commentators are telling us how smart Obama sounded last night.
He was rambling.
At times, he was incoherent.
They act like we didn't see it.
They act like we didn't hear it.
He complains about the deficit he inherited, but he wants to massively increase it.
He voted for every piece of legislation that led to this deficit that he inherited that he's whining and complaining about.
But there's another America that looked at this and I am sure saw something totally different.
They saw an Obama that was articulate, they think.
They saw an Obama that was able to reflect his intelligence.
I watched some of the commentary after the press conference last night.
It was predictable.
I knew what it was going to be.
The drive-bys, whoa, this guy's so smart.
What a nice change from President Bush.
And I was saying, give us Bush back.
At least we got answers to questions here.
And we didn't get avoidance and we didn't get detours and we didn't get.
I mean, he did not want to answer anything.
And when he got the question about Geithner, well, I don't want to step on Secretary Geithner's toes.
He's going to make announcement tomorrow.
What do you mean?
Who works for who here, President Obama, step on the Treasury Secretary's toes?
He either didn't know what Geithner was going to say, or he didn't want to double whammy everybody with massive spending totals in one press conference talking about his stimulus bill plus whatever Geithner was going to propose today.
And then there was what there was one other thing that.
Oh, he threw Biden under the bus.
Major Garrett stood up and he said, Hey, Joe Biden said that even if you do everything right, there's still a 30% chance you won't get it wrong.
You won't get it right.
A 30% chance it'll go bad.
What was he talking about?
And Obama said, well, I don't know.
I really know.
You know, Joe.
I don't know what he was talking.
He may not know what he was talking about.
It just made it clear to everybody he thinks Biden has got diarrhea of the mouth himself and is just a blooming idiot.
Just threw Biden under the bus.
Well, I don't know what Joe was.
You all know Joe.
Hey, Chuck, stand up.
Let them see you out there.
Oh, God.
Love it.
What did I do?
Stand up for Chuck.
And then before we go to the break, there was one instance.
Again, he keeps going back and forth.
Here is a portion of Obama's remarks last night.
At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.
It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs.
And breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that's moving through Congress is designed to do.
It is not.
It's designed to prolong the cycle.
But let's go back to January 28th.
Remember in the East Room, the same place where the press conference was, surrounded by a bunch of CEOs who had probably flown in on private jets, but that was okay because they were supporting Obama.
He said this.
In the end, the answer to our economic troubles rests less in my hands or in the hands of our legislators than it does with America's workers and the businesses that employ them.
They are the ones whose efforts and ideas will determine our economic destiny, just as they always have.
For in the end, it's businesses, large and small, that generate the jobs, provide the salaries, and serve as the foundation on which the American people's lives and dreams depend.
All we can do, those of us here in Washington, is to help create a favorable climate in which workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and our economy can grow.
So that's January 28th last night.
Throw that out.
Only government at this particular moment, because the private sector is so weakened.
You people are worthless.
You people can't be counted on to do the right thing to bring the economy back.
Only government has what it takes to break us out of this cycle.
And of course, the shockingly sad thing about that is that there is no evidence to support it.
It's just the exact opposite.
The government will prolong this recession just as FDR prolonged the Depression.
I actually thought last night, while all these commentators are going out, wow, how smart this guy is.
Wow, what a great press.
Wow.
I thought I'm listening to Fidel Castro.
You know, this guy makes four-hour speeches.
This guy gave 13-minute answers.
Inside of the first 30 minutes, he'd taken two questions.
Ha!
How are you?
Welcome back, Rushlin Boy, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Remember all this talk about Obama's a centrist?
Remember all of the conservative media intelligentsia.
I don't need to mention the names.
You know who they are.
Hey, he's a centrist.
Look at these guys.
He's appointing to his cabinet centrists all.
And I was shocked and stunned.
Why, this guy is the most liberal president we've ever elected, and he's racing to the left as fast as we can.
I remember being admonished by people, Russia, you're really overreacting.
Obama's a centrist.
He's going to hold the line here.
He's a great moderate.
I can understand people on the left being bamboozled, but people on our side.
You know, this is the thing.
I mentioned the two Americas.
And I've got some sound bites coming up after the break.
Some of the questions Obama got today.
One of the questions, we don't have the...
Cookie, maybe you can find...
Would you say it was the first question?
The last question of the day.
Last question today from Julio.
Julio stands up, says he'd been work to Obama in Fort Myers.
I've been working at McDonald's for four years.
And I can't get any other job.
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do to get me a job outside of McDonald's?
There's another bite coming up here.
A crying woman named Henrietta asks Obama for a car, for a new kitchen and a bathroom.
I am not kidding.
We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom.
Please help.
And Obama says, well, what is your name?
And she says it's Henrietta Hughes.
And Obama tells her to talk to his staff.
After the town hall, she asks for a car, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
These are the people, I'm telling you, we saw what we saw last night.
These people saw, if they watched his press conference, they saw a guy who, in their eyes, only cares about getting them a job.
I don't care about anything else.
Or getting them a kitchen or a car.
And his own brother doesn't.
He's not even bought his brother a pot.
And we're working on the McDonald's dude.
So we've got one, two, three sound bites here from the Obama press con, well, the town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Florida today.
Now, I want you to stop and think of something, folks.
And by the way, those of you on the hole, please on the phone, please stay there.
I'm going to get you.
Elquo.
It's going to happen soon.
But I've got to get these in.
And I want you, as you listen to these, I want you to imagine yourself at the town meeting.
The President of the United States arrives.
You are in the same room as the President of the United States.
You are chosen to ask the President of the United States a question.
You listen to the questions that are asked of the President of the United States by people who will have one shot in their lives to talk to him.
It's disgraceful.
I'm just telling you here in advance, it is an absolute disgrace.
However, let's not be too hard on our fellow citizens who showed up in Fort Myers today with their one opportunity to talk to the United States, the President of the United States, and they beg for a car and a kitchen.
Let's not be too hard on them.
Something had to give them the idea that that's what his presidency was going to be about.
Something had to make them think that's what was on tap for them.
And I remember seeing video on YouTube during the campaign of people in various parts of the country saying Obama was going to make sure their gas tank was always full.
There are people who thought, for some reason, I wonder why, that that's what his presidency would mean to them.
So first is Obama explaining the health care provisions in the stimulus bill.
And now that we know what questions were asked, we know how this probably was received.
This was probably boring.
They were just impatient.
I imagine all of this just went over the heads of the people at the town meeting.
Our healthcare system is so inefficient.
You go into the hospital, and what's the first thing you've got to do?
You've got to fill out so many forms, and there's paperwork.
Then you go and you get your examination, and they've got a clipboard with all this paper on it.
We've got all this bureaucracy.
One of the simplest, most effective things that we could do is to convert from a paper system to an electronic data system.
So in this plan, one of the things that we do is we say we are going to computerize our health care system.
Institute health IT.
That creates jobs right now for people to convert.
Okay, so this crowd's all they want's a kitchen.
You know, all they want's a car.
And he's talking about their medical records being computerized and hiring a bunch.
Can you imagine most of the people in this crowd?
What's IT?
What does he mean, IT?
If you're just now leaving the town meeting and you're listening, IT's information technology is going to go out and hire a bunch of key punchers to enter the data into the national computerized healthcare database.
Your health records.
All right, here's the woman.
It's really sad.
I mean, as an American, this is embarrassing, and it's sad, but there's a reason why.
There's a reason why this woman takes her one chance to talk to the President of the United States and ask and beg for a car and a kitchen.
I respect you, and I'm so grateful for you.
Thank you.
I've been praying for you, but I believe in prayer, so I appreciate that.
I have an urgent need.
Unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in.
We need urgent.
And housing authorities have two years waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to.
We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom.
Please help.
Well, listen, what's your name?
What's your name?
It's Henrietta Hughes.
Okay, Ms. Hughes.
Well, we're going to do everything we can to help you, but there are a lot of people like you.
And we're going to do everything we can.
All right.
But I'll have my staff talk to you after the town hall.
All right.
Do you think that the people who chose these people to ask questions and the Obama staff might have jobs right now?
Did they purposely select these people for these questions?
Do you think so?
If they didn't, then some heads are going to roll.
If they did purposely scour that crowd for these kinds of questions, and there was more than just this one.
So you have to assume this is what they wanted.
They want people looking at Obama this way.
Whoa, whoa, okay, go, go.
We're going to do everything we can to help you.
A lot of people in your position.
A lot of people, we can't help you.
In fact, heavy talk staff after the town hall.
Do you hear the applause?
When the woman says she needed a car, new vehicle, new house.
Yeah.
And when Obama said, a lot of people like you.
Yeah.
So we can sit here all day long and we can wax eloquent about how this guy comes off and how he's just wandering aimlessly to incoherent.
But these people watching him last night, listening today, they think he's going to get them a job.
Here, here's the guy I told you about, the unidentified guy who wants his full salary to be made up in unemployment compensation.
Usually what happens is when you apply for governmental assistance, they say, well, you made too much money.
If you go from making $3,000 a year or a month to $1,100 a month, how are you able to take care of your families?
Why can't we have that to be automatic that goes along with your unemployment tenure that you can get government assistance that's an automatic for you?
Well, look, unemployment insurance is not ideal.
People want a job.
They don't want unemployment insurance.
Wrong.
But when the jobs aren't out here, it's tough.
But I want to be honest with you.
We are bumping up unemployment insurance.
As I said, tens of thousands of people will be getting an extra $100 a month, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that means an extra bill that you can pay.
I'll be honest with you, though, we're not going to be able to take it from $1,100 up to $3,000.
So our priority has to be on job creation.
I think he realizes here that he's talking.
This is the Knight of the Living Dead, you know, that has the daytime.
The Knight of the Living Dead showed up.
Here's Obama, the smartest guy in the room, talking about all these magical, wonderful things in the stimulus that he's going to do and is going to make these people's lives instantly better.
And it's not enough.
All they want, they want a car.
They want a kitchen and they want a new house.
And this guy wants his full unemployment paid by the government.
If that was the case, nobody'd ever go back to work if the government paid you your full unemployment.
So Obama's sitting there.
I know how he feels.
I know how he feels.
There have been times in my career, and this is Snerdley's fault.
There have been times in my career where I have done the most brilliant monologue.
I think, my gosh, this is going to finally cement me as one of the world's greatest thinkers.
And the first call I get is from somebody who didn't get it at all.
I'm saying, my God, why am I wasting my time here working so hard to be so smart when people don't even understand it?
I'm thinking, Obama, he probably, I think he probably likes this.
I think liberals appreciate this dumbed-down attitude.
I think that these poor people are exactly what Democrats want.
I think these people who are looking to the government for a house, for a car, for a job from McDonald's or something, I think that's exactly the mindset they want.
That's why they want illegal immigrants to be legal.
That's why they want amnesty because they want people who are not that educated, who are looking to the government for the answer to every problem they have.
Democrats love to say, we have the answer.
We are your solution.
They never provide it, but they make everybody think they're the only ones that do care about them because the Republicans are so cold-hearted, mean-spirited.
This is a disgrace.
It embarrasses me that this is my country.
These people have been made to think this is what government's purpose is.
Now, here's Julio.
This is the guy who's stuck at McDonald's, wants Obama to do something about it.
Mr. President, I'm currently a student at Edison State College in my second semester.
And, okay, I've been at the same job, which is McDonald's for four and a half years because of the fact that I can't find another job.
Now, with the fact that I've been there for as long as I've been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they've already received?
All right, that's a totally incoherent question.
I don't know how the guy got in college.
Oh, don't it?
I do know how he got in college.
Hell, high school graduates that can't read get into college, particularly if they play football or baseball.
But this guy, what does he want here?
I'm going to read here, play it again.
You heard right.
I don't know what his question is.
He just wants more benefits.
He just wants more benefits.
He's been working on McDonald's for four and a half years, can't get under there, wants more benefits.
He wants more benefits.
And he's a little bit frustrated.
When's Obama going to come through?
Mr. President, I'm currently a student at Edison State College in my second semester.
And, okay, I've been at the same job, which is McDonald's for four and a half years because of the fact that I can't find another job.
Now, with the fact that I've been there for as long as I've been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they've already received?
With the fact that I've been there for as long as I've been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they've already received?
So what he's saying is, look, I've been there four and a half years and I'm still getting screwed by this outfit at McDonald's.
Do you have a plan to get me any better compensation or better benefits?
I'll tell you what.
I don't know what he's going to do with Henrietta Hughes.
The woman that wants the house, the car, the kitchen, I don't know what their staff is going to do about that.
My guess is we won't hear anymore about Henrietta Hughes.
You don't think so?
You think we'll hear any more about Henrietta Hughes?
I'm not so sure, Dawn.
This is a PR opportunity for these people.
We'll wait and see.
As for poor old Julio here, I tell you what, I think everybody out there, if you want a new house, if you want new kitchen, new car, even a new job, you need to contact the White House.
You need to call the office of the president.
You need to call Barack Obama.
If the line's busy, call Nancy Pelosi.
If that line's busy, call Harry Reid.
They'll try and help you.
Get your new house, your new car, and your new kitchen.
Even a new job.
That's who to call?
Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid.
Here, by the way, is Obama's answer to Julio, who wants more benefits and wants to know what Obama's going to do about upping the benefits that this guy's getting shafted on from McDonald's.
The fact that you are working as hard as you're working at a job that I know doesn't always pay as well as some other jobs, I think that's a source of pride for you.
That shows that you're doing the right thing.
Now, the second thing is, is that you will actually benefit from the tax breaks that we're talking about, so you'll be able to keep a little bit of extra money because we're going to offset your payroll tax.
That's going to help.
And this kid, I'm not talking about that.
I'm not talking about that.
That means I have to keep working.
We'll be back, folks.
All right, folks, if I were President of the United States and I had a town hall meeting, I don't care where it was, and I was asked to give somebody a car, kitchen, and a house.
And then the next guy said, look, I work at McDonald's.
I'm getting shafted.
What can you do about getting me benefits?
And the next guy said, look, I made $3,600 a month, but I got laid off.
Now I only make $1,100 a month with unemployment.
When's the government going to make the difference?
I quit.
I would consider myself an abject failure.
I'd turn it over to my vice president and I would leave and go someplace.
But the difference, Obama eats this up.
Everybody's saying, you know, I asked the staff a moment ago a little trick question.
Henrietta Hughes, she's the woman in Fort Myers that wants the house, the car, and the kitchen.
And everybody thinks, well, it's the last rule here of Henrietta Hughes.
No, it's not.
I will bet you that inside of two weeks, Henrietta Hughes will be on Oprah, at which time she will get all of that stuff.
Oprah's company will buy it.
Oprah and Obama will share the credit.
And we will see how the new America works together to solve problems.
And then we will be told, all you have to do is ask.
All you have to do is, now if you're poor old Julio, Julio's probably saying, what the hell did I take the day off for?
This is all I get?
I show up.
I'm at McDonald's for four and a half years.
I'm getting screwed on benefits.
I ask the president for more benefits, and he tells me, the president of the United States tells me, hang on, pal, I'm going to cut your payroll tax.
So you'll have a little bit more to spend.
I might know Julio said, well, that's exactly what I need.
I need enough money for another happy meal every month.
Yippee, yippee, yippee, yippee.
If you don't laugh at this stuff, you get depressed.
You get really depressed.
All right, Susan in Pittsburgh, as we go to the phones.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Nice to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
Megha Diddos from Sixburg, Pennsylvania.
Thank you.
I just wanted to voice how disgusted I am with Senator Specter voting for the Porculus bill.
You know, if he would have read Betsy McCarge's article at bloomberg.com about the health care provision.
He was asked about it this morning.
He was asked about it on TV on Fox.
He knows all about it before he voted on it.
Yeah, but does he realize that had his cancer been diagnosed under this bill, he may not have been treated because he's too old.
And this national coordinator of...
I hate to say you're wrong, but members of Congress are exempt from all this.
They have their own health care.
But he's not going to be.
They said, Obama, nobody else can be subjected to this.
You don't understand liberalism, Susan.
I hate that the liberal elites are not going to have to use the same program they devised for us.
Specter will still have his own Senate government health care plan.
That's true.
You know, because, I mean, look at all of his friends.
They get sweet mortgage deals.
They're not being prosecuted for tax evasion.
Exactly right.
Exactly.
What was I thinking?
Exactly right.
They go out.
They can cross run on banks and be celebrated and re-elected.
Chuck Schumer.
Oh, God.
Well, I call him daily, and, you know, I voice my disgust.
And it's all for naught, I think, because he just doesn't listen to his constituents.
Well, a lot of constituents have that opinion about their representatives and senators.
But I think they'll now, the excuse, okay, well, we'll see what happens here in the conference.
But I just saw David Bonyer, the Pitt Yorkie, was on some show.
He was MSNBC.
And he was echoing, you know, Obama's now out there saying that comprehensive health care reform is a must under the stimulus.
I'd like to go to one of these town halls, get a chance to ask the president a question, if this is the way it's going to go.
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