The California Supreme Court has upheld the ban on gay marriage in California.
Existing same-sex marriages will stand, but in California, the law of the land says opposite-sex marriage equals marriage.
Same-sex marriage does not equal marriage.
You know, we're getting to the day.
Are you married?
Yes, opposite-sex married will be the answer.
So the California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8 as constitutional, which banned gay marriage by 52% of the vote.
Now, the question is, will there be more rioting in California to follow?
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's El Rushbow, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all concerned, Maha Rushi, back at you.
Loads of empathy here on the EIB network.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program.
We'll get to your calls early in this hour.
800-282-2882.
CNN is polling me again following the appearance of General Powell on Slay the Nation on Sunday.
As Colin Powell fires back against Dick Cheney.
By the way, before I get into the guts of this, something that CNN does not highlight in their own poll is this.
It's in their poll, but they don't highlight it.
Vice President Cheney's approval numbers are up six points since he started speaking out.
Cheney's approval numbers are up six points since he started speaking out.
Here's what CNN says.
As Colin Powell fires back against Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh in the latest skirmish in the battle over the future of the Republican Party, a new national poll indicates Americans have a much more favorable opinion of Powell than Cheney or Limbaugh.
Sure.
Okay, CNN, the next thing for you to do is get him on one of your shows and ask him what he thinks about the issues of the day and then take a poll, particularly among Republicans.
CNN Opinion Research Corporation survey released today suggests 70% have a favorable opinion of Powell, which means he succeeded in rehabbing himself after what embarrassed him was the UN presentation, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
Only 30% of those polled have a favorable view of me.
Only I've got, I probably have a higher approval rating than most Americans.
30% of Americans approve of me.
53% say they hold an unfavorable opinion.
I dare say that most of those 53% have never listened.
But of course, a poll on me is irrelevant because I don't seek office.
I cannot raise anybody's taxes.
I can't send the nation off to war.
The Republicans want to make it, the moderate Republicans want to make a poll on me a big issue, but they miss the point.
37% of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of Cheney, 55% unfavorable.
But among Republicans, it's a different story.
The poll among Republicans suggests that 66% of Republicans have a favorable view of Cheney.
64% have a favorable opinion of Powell.
And 62% have a favorable opinion of me.
So in the Republican Party, my poll numbers, this is hysterical to even say, my poll numbers are tied statistically with General Powell.
And I've been evil incarnate for a long time, and General Powell has been Messiah number two for a long time.
I have been evil incarnate for a long time.
I have 62% approval in the Republican Party.
And Cheney just four points ahead of me at 66%.
This poll was conducted May 14th through the 17th.
1,010 adult Americans questioned by telephone.
The survey sampling error is plus or minus 3%.
So I'm in a statistical dead heat with General Powell in the Republican Party.
There is a post today.
Oh, let me read this headline.
I'm going to be getting to this headline in due course on the program this afternoon.
This is from doublex.com.
And it has been written about in other media now, but it is a big poll.
X.com.
Women are more unhappy than ever.
Right, here it is.
Right there, my friends, and my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
Women are unhappier than they have been in 35 years.
This, according to a study released earlier this week by the National Bureau of Economics, two economists at the University of Pennsylvania conducted an exhaustive study of happiness.
They found that women's subjective well-being has declined both absolutely and relatively to men as they put it.
Now, this wasn't supposed to happen.
With feminism and a lot of its ancillaries, women were supposed to be sitting on top of the world.
I wish they would differentiate.
Also, they didn't do this in the poll, but I wish they would differentiate between conservative women and liberal women or Republican women and Democrat women.
In fact, though women have historically had higher self-reported levels of happiness than men, today, women are reporting happiness levels that are even lower than those of men.
Now, men's happiness has dropped too, but not as much as women's.
Happiness is notoriously difficult to study, and as I noted a few years back when I wrote about progressive women and unhappiness for slate, but the findings are nonetheless noteworthy.
Though women have made gains in every area over the past 35 years, from education to their place in the workforce, these gains do not appear by the study's measures to translate into actual contentment.
Nor do women's gains in the marketplace translate into zero-sum declines in happiness for men, as some have speculated.
Now, why might women be less happy?
This is Megan O'Rourke, by the way, who's writing this at double X.com.
She doesn't know.
She's asking for her readers' thoughts.
But she does write this.
I'd have to go back to an answer I offered when I wrote the slate piece.
The drop in happiness in women is pegged to an anxiety caused by the plethora of choices available.
Now, I didn't read any further than that, but I think I can define this.
The plethora of choices means you have more.
For those of you in Port St. Lucie and Rio Linda, you have more choices.
And the more choices you have, the less likely you are to be confident of the choice you make.
The fewer choices you have, well, choose one and you're pretty much stuck with it.
But if there's 100 choices, you got 99.
Oh, did I make a mistake?
So you go through life thinking you've chosen the wrong thing from the husband to job.
So now, I need to add an addendum.
Women, this survey was done before Sonia Sotomayer was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, we probably need to redo this survey to see if the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor or to the Supreme Court has made women happier.
It's likely that women are measuring their happiness over time using a broader set of criteria because of more choices.
It may be paradoxically that the women's movement has decreased women's happiness at this moment in time because, quote, the increased opportunity to succeed in many dimensions may have led to an increased likelihood in believing that one's life isn't measuring up.
So, not only do you have a whole bunch of choices and the one you make, ah, there's so many others, I made a mistake, and then the one that you took might not be measuring.
It might not be the one that got you where you wanted to go.
So, all of this suggests that we need to start rethinking the way we conceptualize success in this country.
Girls are less happy than ever.
They are also increasingly attaching greater importance to 13 of the 14 domains studied, meaning that they feel that they need to succeed more in these domains.
The only one that hasn't risen in importance is finding purpose and meaning in my life.
I don't know what the other domains are, but the one that has not risen in importance as far as women are concerned is finding purpose and meaning in my life.
I don't buy that for a minute.
I think that's really, I think most people tend to get unhappy because they think their lives have no meaning, and they incorrectly believe that.
You know, every life has meaning, but what are they judging it against?
They're judging against fame, all these pop culture of heroes and famous people.
And if you're not that, if you don't get invited to a big party, whatever it is, it makes you unhappy.
They've chosen wrong.
Anyway, quick time up or time out.
I got confused because I'm looking at a headline for my next story: Burping of the Lambs Blows Roast Off Menu.
This is from the UK Times.
Government advisors are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting high-carbon foods such as meat from sheep, from menus, because sheep burping poses a serious threat to the environment.
So, you're going to get lamb thrown off the menu in the UK because of sheep burping.
Anyway, brief timeout.
We'll get to your phone calls when we come back.
Sit tight.
Once again, if you're just joining us, the California Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriage.
The court also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who got married before the law took effect will stay married.
So, now you might look at that, that's 18,000 who made it, but that's going to really make those people that waited are going to be really mad.
Will there be rioting in the streets in California, in San Francisco, over this?
By the way, if you're just joining us and you missed the first hour, the first transcript, the first half-hour transcript of this program on the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, What Republicans Ought to Do, is posted at rushlimbaugh.com.
This is so the media can take it out of context more easily.
Also, the second half hour of the first hour will be posted soon.
And that's my reply to General Powell and Tom Ridge on TV on Sunday.
But now to the phones, we'll start in Chicago with Lee.
Great that you called.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Thanks, Rush.
I think this is the perfect time for you to start your teaching tour and for Republicans to start your teaching tour with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to explain to the American people why originalist justice are the only option.
Because I think that attacking Sotomayor directly is going to make the Republicans look as the bad guys rather than proactively taking a step to explain why Article 5 of the Constitution should be the only means to amend the Constitution rather than a judicial fiat.
And I want to know what you think about that.
Well, you're asking me two things.
Should the Republican Party oppose Sonia Sotomayor?
And I will restate what I said in the first hour.
Yes, because opposing Sonia's Sodomayore is how you tell the nation who Barack Obama is.
And isn't that really what we're interested in having happen?
Aren't we interested in having the American people figure out who it is they really voted for?
Well, Sonia's Sodomayore illustrates who Obama is.
And that's the primary reason to oppose her.
I don't think she can be stopped.
I just, I don't, she's got the votes in the Senate.
So does Obama.
It's a cliché, but elections have consequences.
As far as my teaching tour is concerned, I take that under advisement.
I reach a tremendous number of people via the EIB network and the golden EIB microphone each and every day.
Now, you also wanted to talk about the originalists and why it is so crucial here that Republicans get the word out on it.
Let me tell you what, it's going to be very hard for elected Republicans to do.
If you didn't hear it, let me see if we have it here on the sound bite.
Well, we don't have the exact bite.
Cookie, I'm not looking for it.
You don't need to give me the exact bite, but he started out when Obama did today in making his announcement.
He told a personal story that had everybody in the White House East Room crying.
I mean, it's a touching personal story.
It is an amazing personal story, quintessentially American.
It doesn't say much about who she is, but it tells us a lot about this country.
The thing about this story of hers that is really, it is dynamic.
There's no refuting it.
And it's very personal.
It's very rewarding.
It's a deeply American story.
And I tell you, that's going to be first and foremost, we get the Senate confirmation hearings.
That's what people are going to hear.
And that's going to make it even harder for Republicans to oppose it.
Because Republicans stand for the American dream, the ordinary doing extraordinary things.
She even used that phrase today to describe herself.
I'm the first to use that phrase that I know of.
America is the place where ordinary people can become extraordinary, do extraordinary things.
So that personal story of hers is going to silence a lot of Republican opposition, and that's its purpose.
What needs to be said about her personal story is that it all happened during a period of time Barack Obama is ripping to shreds and criticizing tremendously.
It happened during the 80s.
It happened during the Reagan years.
It happened during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.
It happened during the Clinton years.
Now, this is important to me because Barack Obama is a president who is apologizing for America everywhere he goes.
America was imperfect.
It was not good.
It was not just.
It is now because he's been elected.
But it wasn't.
And yet, here is this minority female Latina.
She's Puerto Rican.
She grew up in the South Bronx.
Her father died when she was eight or nine.
She was diagnosed with diabetes.
As Obama said today, she was told that because of diabetes and her minority status, she'd never get anywhere.
And yet she got into Princeton, and then she got into Yale law, and then she got on all these courts.
She worked for Morgenthaug, the DA's office in Manhattan.
She's done it all.
That shouldn't have been possible in the America Obama believes in.
Sonia Sodomayor, if you listen to Barack Obama, should not be.
We should never have heard of her.
America was imperfect and unjust.
And yet look at what she did, how she triumphed.
I don't think anybody's going to get into how because it would only distract.
But nevertheless, she did.
All of these policies are supposedly anti-minority, all of the racism, all of the anti-women-ism, all of these isms that were supposedly preventing minorities from getting anywhere.
Sonia Sotomayor rises to the highest level of the appellate court system all during Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Bush.
Not possible.
So in confronting the personal story that they're going to tell about her, which will inspire some to tears, and that story is designed to shut any critic up.
How could you oppose this woman?
Have you no heart?
Do you know compassion?
Do you know empathy?
Look at all that she's had to overcome.
And so those will be the requirements.
Those will be the qualifications that they say Sonia Sotomayor has.
Then they'll get to her judicial record, which they're going to have to kind of softpedal because she gets overturned all the time.
She is reprimanded by other Democrat judges for not being on point, for not being constitutional.
She has said in public that a judge's job is to make policy.
Lady Justice is blind.
You're not supposed to know the race, the sex, the gender, the income level, all of these things that a litigant has doesn't matter.
Justice is blind.
Her justice isn't.
And neither is Obama.
So we've got a very radical pick.
We have a very radical president nominating a radical pick, and he's using her story to continue to convey this notion of empathy.
And that's what we need in the court.
Because, you know, there's so much discrimination out there.
And there's so much unfairness.
There's so much majority tyranny.
It's just so unfair.
And we need people like Sonia Sotomayor to recognize it and accommodate those realities in adjudicating cases.
And yet with all this unfairness, all this discrimination, all of this imperfection, all the rotgut that America is, she managed to overcome it all.
Shouldn't be possible, should it?
So if I were a Republican on the committee, I'd acknowledge the story.
I congratulate her on the story.
I congratulate her and her mother, father for raising her right, and her mother for inspiring her.
And then I'd point out this isn't supposed to be possible in America prior to today, and yet look what she did.
America is a great country.
And then start talking about her lack of judicial qualifications to be on the Supreme Court.
You can do it all.
Will they?
No, because the Republican moderates are just dying to get as many Hispanic votes next elections as they can.
So they've been boxed in here.
Back to the phones, El Rushbo on the EIB Network.
This is Todd in Detroit.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
Mega Self-Employed Ditto's Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, listen, I just was wondering if we could do worse if Judge Sodomeyer was rejected.
I mean, the thought of Jennifer Granholm being appointed to the Supreme Court just frightens me, especially a life appointment.
I mean, coming from the liberal utopia of Michigan slash Detroit, I just can't imagine it.
Well, but wouldn't you like to get rid of her?
Yeah, but then we've got to deal with her for life.
And look at the damage she's done to Michigan.
Can you imagine?
Yeah, but she's just one vote on the court.
In Michigan, she's a whole show, and we see what's happened to Michigan.
Well, she's termed limit.
She's out anyway.
I don't think what, I really don't think Grandholm's on anybody's short list.
Well, the way they talk around here, the liberals think she's the best thing since Swiss cheese.
Yeah, of course.
So is Sonia Myers.
I'll tell you who everybody thought it was going to be was Diane Wood.
Look, I don't think you can, Todd, this is really tough.
You can't do worse than this.
And the reason that you can't do worse than this is that this woman does not use the law.
I don't care what liberal judge Obama finds, it's going to be bad for the law.
It doesn't matter who it is.
This woman may be as radically bad as the Supreme Court could get simply because of her jurisprudence.
I mean, she's got been smacked down by appellate courts, by the Supreme Court.
She'd been smacked down by fellow judges on the appellate court, Jose Cabranis, who went through all this in the first hour.
But, you know, here's the thing.
I want to deal with his theory.
Hey, she's better than a lot of others we could get.
Do you realize that the purpose here is not really keeping her and stopping her because it ain't going to happen?
Now, I'm just being realistic.
I'm not trying to be negative, but you do have an opportunity here, or at least the Republican Party has an opportunity here to educate the American people about Obama and who Obama is via his picks.
You could do that with whoever he picks.
If he would have chosen Diane Wood, you could have done the same thing.
If he would have chosen Granholm, you could have done the same thing.
That's the opportunity that exists here.
You always have to be positioning yourself for the future.
There are more elections coming up, 2010, 2012.
You know, there are votes in the Senate.
She's probably going to get 75 or 80 votes in the Senate.
I can't see the Republicans filibustering this in the committee.
She's Hispanic and she's female.
There's no way they're going to stop this because they don't want to.
They're trying to get the Hispanic vote.
Anyway, Todd, I appreciate it.
Monica in St. Louis, you're next.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi, thanks.
I think that the Supreme Court decision is like one of the most important things that Obama is going to do in his presidency.
And it's so important that it seems to me that if a true conservative wanted to distinguish himself and come out, as you might say, this would be the time for he or she to really come out whatever way you can and publicize the fact that they are so opposed to this woman and why.
And, you know, it'll get, they'll be in the spotlight.
People will identify with this person right away as a conservative who is not afraid of liberals or the media or anybody.
And the credibility of the people.
Wait, Hold on.
Besides me and some of my buddies on Talk Radio, could you name somebody, a conservative in electoral office, is not afraid to come out and do this?
You know, let me finish.
I think if no one in our current Republican world right now comes forward and does this, then I think that is proof enough for us to know that there is nobody who is going to be who is going to do that from that group and that we should cross them all off the list completely.
And the top conservatives in our country should go candidate shopping, just like I think the Democrats did to find Obama.
Go out and find somebody with every gift the president needs, a conservative president needs, and bring that person out now, start them appearing in public, just blasting the liberals all over the place.
I understand, I think, what you're saying.
We need to find our own conservative Obama.
Exactly.
Well, who is it?
You say conservatives need to go out and bring forth the conservative Obama.
The way leadership works, Monica, is that the conservative Obama will come forth on his own or her own.
How can we do it?
Well, but they only come forth in the Liberal Party by unethical manners.
We want to find somebody who's ethical.
So it may take, you know, shopping around at all the conservative offices around the whole clubs or whatever, around the whole country, a group of people to go around and find possible candidates and find one who can beat Obama.
And it would be even better if the one they found was a minority.
No, Wait a second.
Wait a second.
We're going way off the path here.
In the first place, this is not how these things happen.
We don't go find whoever it is.
Where do you know to look?
Where is this conservative Messiah?
You're calling from St. Louis.
Is it a Missouri Assembly?
Missouri legislature?
Where is it?
Where is this person?
These people surface on their own.
They surface as a result of events.
I mean, we don't need our own Obama.
You're reacting.
What you want, and I hear it plain as day, and I know a lot of people want it, and I think we're going to have to understand it's never going to happen.
You want somebody the media is going to love.
You want somebody that's not going to get criticized and ripped to shreds personally and so forth in the media.
And any conservative that shows any aptitude to squiring the left around toward defeat is going to get creamed.
By definition, they will invent these so-called ethical lapses.
They will rip to shreds any conservative nationally that shows any indication that he can win the presidency.
Whoever that is is going to have to be able to put up with it.
But we're not this they.
We're going to have to go out there or we are going to have to go out and find whoever it is.
Sadly, that's not how it works.
And besides, who are we?
Do you form the committee in St. Louis that was going to become this national search to find the conservative out there?
And how are you going to find them?
The conservative Obama that's ethical and all this.
But it boils down to the fact you want somebody the media is going to love, and it ain't ever going to happen.
Media hated Ronald Reagan.
And you're old enough, Monica, to remember that.
They despised Ronald Reagan.
They despise any conservative.
They despise me.
And they don't even know me.
Even liberal Democrats who know me, I'm not going to name any names.
They're people you see on TV who know me personally, who know I am in no way the kind of person they portray on TV.
They know me personally, and they've known me for years.
Their policy is destruction, personal character destruction.
That's how they do it.
We don't do that.
We don't.
We go after people on issues, so forth.
But this is the lament that, and I hear this, and it's very frustrating to me too, so don't misunderstand.
But at some point, we're going to have to realize there's no possibility that we're going to have a Republican.
We're not going to have a conservative that is loved as much as Obama or JFK was or as much as even John Kerry was or as Clinton was loved.
It ain't going to happen.
Now, we could have a Republican who could be as loved, but he won't be a conservative.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Hi, we're back.
Rush Limbaugh, America's truth detector, the real American anchorman and the doctor of democracy, all combined as one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Now, Dawn sent me an instant message during the break saying, what Monica from St. Louis wants is somebody like you, Rush.
She was saying they want somebody the media has to report on, whether they love him or not.
And that's someone who doesn't care what they say about him, who will be able to get the message out simply by getting up there and speaking.
Now, Monica, if that's what you were saying, that's a little easier to do, although I don't know who that person is.
I don't know who the Republican is right now that will get up and do this.
Somebody's going to surface at some point, though.
They just will.
Mike in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Great to have you, sir.
You're next.
Yes, Rush.
How are you doing?
Fine, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, first-time homeschool family dittos.
I've got a question about the two remaining axis of evils.
Within the last month, we've heard of Iran shooting their long-term missiles, and yesterday with North Korea detonating their nuclear device.
What do they have to prove by doing this?
It's a two-part question.
Are they inviting attack, and will Israel react on its own?
Why are the Iranians and the North Koreans inviting attack?
Why are they doing it?
I know it's saber-rattling, Rush, but it seems that they're being...
All right, let's go back.
Let's go.
Remember, Joe Loudmouth Biden, before the, I think before the nomination, said they're going to be tested.
And it's going to be bad.
And he's begged the people, support us and love us then as you do now.
We may make the wrong decision in your eyes.
Now, I don't think the big test has happened.
I don't know what Biden was talking about.
Whatever it is, hasn't happened.
Let's stick with Iran first.
Barack Obama last week, I give you to the end of the year.
What's Mahmoud Ahmadinezad do?
Launches a test missile.
Continues talking about wiping Israel off the map.
Mahmoud Ahmadinezad is going to win re-election by a landslide.
Doesn't mean anything, but it's going to be reported around the world.
Mahmoud Ahmadinezad, who serves at the pleasure of the mullahs.
It doesn't matter what the people say.
He's going to be re-elected by a landslide.
The media loves reporting dictators being re-elected, even if they might pose a threat to Obama.
They just, it's a tough call for them, but a dictator gets re-elected and they love it.
This will embolden Mahmoud Ahmadinezad.
Ahmadinezad is also out there rattling even further sabers, indicating they don't care what Obama says and they don't care what Netanyahu says.
The Iranians and the North Koreans, the two remaining members of the Axis of Ivil, are both defying the United States of America.
They are conducting a trade show for nuclear weapon sales.
North Korea is aiding Iran.
North Korea on our Memorial Day supposedly lights off an underground nuke and launches three missiles.
Did they wake Obama up for this?
It happened Sunday night at 1 o'clock.
You were all asleep, I'm sure, when North Korea lit off its underground nuke and launched three weapons.
Did they wake up Obama?
Contrary to what was reported after the Netanyahu-Obama meeting, the media reported that Netanyahu walked out of there with his mind right, that Obama had given him the what for.
It's just the opposite.
Netanyahu said, screw you, we are going to continue to build in our settlements, and if we have to take them out, we're going to take them out.
Meaning the Iranians.
Which doesn't surprise me, Netanyahu being who Netanyahu is.
The American thinker has a piece on this today.
The remnant of the Axis of Ivil delights in torturing our president.
Not just with words, but with carefully timed 3 a.m. nuclear detonations and launches of intercontinental missiles capable of delivering WMDs.
The North Koreans did so on Memorial Day as well as in April in response to Obama's apology trip to Europe.
Iran launched its own provocation last week.
Here's the North Korean news agency.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Hardy Harhar, successfully conducted one or more underground nuclear tests on May 25th as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.
They added the test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology control.
Obama responded by saying this.
North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community, and then he told the UN to go do something about it.
And the UN supposedly had a meeting.
Big whoop.
The trouble is, every time they do something provocative, we sort of back off.
We issue words.
By the way, let me find it here.
I think I put it at the back of the stack, but it involves the Vice President Dick Cheney.
Yes, here it is, ladies and gentlemen, right here.
This is a story from MSNBC, and I found this over the weekend.
Dick Cheney tried to block North Korea nuclear deal during the Bush administration.
The exchanges between Cheney's office and Condy Rice's people at state got very testy.
Ultimately, Condi had the president's ear, persuaded him that his legacy would be stronger if they reached a deal with Pyongyang, but Cheney opposed it all along.
Bush warned the world about Iraq, Iran, North Korea in his 2002 State of the Union speech.
They ridiculed it on the left.
Bush later offered carrots to North Korea to suspend their programs at the urging of Condi.
Didn't sit well with Cheney, according to this account in MSNBC.
Dick Cheney tried to block North Korean deal.
So they're testing.
They are conducting a trade show.
They're showing what they have to sell to people like Hugo Chavez, the North Koreans and the Iranians.
So it's, you know, it's pretty serious stuff when these little malcontents start flexing their muscles on our Memorial Day.
And particularly after Obama has said, I mean, when he says, I'll give him a year.
I'll give them to the end of the year.
Give the Iranians to the end of the year to accept our terms or whatever.
Mahmoud and the Mullah say, Yeah, take this, and they launch an ICBM.
Anyway, I've got a, it doesn't matter, folks, because the world is going to love us even more.
We're close Gitmo, he says, and we got Sonia Sotomayor nominated to the court.
So all this has now been taken care of.
Try this headline: MSNBC exercise, not like later, rev up your metabolism.
Experts flabbergasted.
It's just more proof on why people just need to trust me.
Just trust me and don't doubt me.
It's not one scientist, it's one scientist and me.