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July 15, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:39
July 15, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #2
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I was not kidding when I told you what Dick Durbin said before the end of the last hour.
He said it, yes, it's from the state-run Associated Press.
Greetings, friends.
Welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, and the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
In fact, I'm going to contrast something here for you on this.
Sonia Sotomayor is relying on her 17-year record as a federal judge to rebut criticism that she is concealing a liberal agenda that will show up if she is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
And later on, it says Republicans are not satisfied with her answers.
Senator Lindsey Gramnisty, Republican of South Carolina, said he could end up voting for her, but he wants to make sure she's the judge with what he called a moderately liberal record, not a liberal activist.
That's what we're trying to figure out.
Who are we getting here?
They already know the woman, liberal law professors are already accusing her of committing perjury.
Liberal law professor at Georgetown.
And Dick Durbin.
In a story here that's basically about how Democrats enjoy being on the other side of the confirmation process.
Defending a Democrat nominee.
Rather than having to.
By the way, I know Sotomayor didn't have any kids, but her family's there.
And these hearings are not going to be complete until one of them starts crying.
Like Alito's wife was forced to cry.
I mean.
This is all just poppycock.
But listen to, here's what Durbin said.
Yeah, when we asked questions of the white male nominees of a Republican president, we were basically trying to make sure that they would go far enough in understanding the plight of minorities because clearly that's not in their DNA.
This is like Al Gore's extra chromosome statement in describing conservatives as people with Down syndrome.
This kind of thing would not be tolerated if it was said by a Republican about Democrats.
And to prove it, we now go to a different writer for state-run AP.
And the headline of this story is Senator Ricky Ricardo.
Senator Tom Coburn evoked a 1950s TV show in a quip responding to Sonia Sotomayor's scenario about what he might do if she hypothetically, of course, attacked him.
You'll have a lot of spleening to do, Coburn said, to laughter from the crowd and from Sotomayor.
What he said and how he said it was a riff on a Hispanic TV character, Ricky Ricardo, married to Lucille Ball, whose accent is now widely considered broad parody.
In the 1950s TV show, I Love Lucy, the Cuban-American band leader Ricardo, played by equally Cuban-American band leader Desi Arnaz, would often admonish his scatterbrand wife Lucy by saying she'd have some spleen to do.
The phrase, Lucy, you have some spleen to do, has become part of the popular culture.
Calling Coburn out for this might be going too far.
Those who know him say he often speaks like this, but it was hard not to notice his inflection and choice of words.
At the very least, it suggests a tin ear, particularly when you're speaking to a woman who may become...
So they rip Coburn.
AP rips Coburn.
And just for this little innocent thing that even Sotomayor laughed about, and they sit with no comment and therefore approve of Dick Durbin saying, yeah, we were basically trying to make sure these white male nominees will go far enough in understanding the plight of minorities because clearly it's not in their DNA.
You got a lot of spleen to do.
By the way, Coburn really got to the nub of things.
And one of his questions to Sotomayor, and that was, you think people have the right to self-defense?
Second Amendment question.
You think people have the right to forget his legalese, forget cases.
You think people have a right to self-defense?
The laughter started after Coburn, by the way.
Sodomyer said, yeah, after Coburn said, you've got a lot of spleening to do.
Sodomyer said she might go back home and get a gun and shoot him.
And that's when the laughter started.
Oh, yeah.
And then, oh, she said it before the explain it to do comment was made.
Okay.
And that's basically the question was basically, but do you have a right to defend yourself?
It was a Second Amendment question.
The laughter started, of course.
So here's this liberal activist.
They probably didn't have a gun.
Probably does have a gun.
They're hypocrites.
Threatening to go home and shoot a senator.
Anybody get a gun to come back and shoot a senator.
Everybody's laughing about it.
All right.
Now, I said we're going to have to praise Senator Lindsey Gramnesty.
Lindsey Gramnesty made this point to Judge Sotomayor yesterday.
He said, do you understand, ma'am, how if I said anything like your wise Latina comment and I justified it as saying I was trying to inspire somebody, that it would have my head.
The thing is, the thing is, Lindsey Graham would never think, we don't think that way.
We don't think, this is the dirty irony of this.
We don't think that white male judges are better than anybody else.
We think white males are better football players than women, but we don't think they make better judges.
We would never think to ask or make a comment like this like she did.
I'm telling these people, Barack Obama's people are oriented like Durbin.
Everything is about minorities and racism.
Country's unfair, unjust, got a level of playing field, doesn't matter how we do it.
We got to return the nation's wealth to so-called rightful owners.
It's all wrapped up into this.
So Gramnesty, he says, do you understand, ma'am, how if I said anything like that and I justified it as saying I was trying to inspire somebody, they would have my head.
And Sotomayor said, I can understand how it could be hurtful, particularly if read in isolation.
And Gramnesty said, well, I don't know how you can justify.
If I said that because of my experience as a Caucasian male, that I'm a better person to represent the people of South Carolina, and my opponent was a minority, it'd make national news, and it should.
I'm not going to judge you based on that one statement.
I just hope you appreciate the world we live in and how you can say something like that, meaning to inspire somebody, still have a chance to get on the court, and others could not.
And let's talk about fairness.
See, she's running around thinking that she's got one arm tied behind her back.
She's discriminated against, Latina, the deck stacked against her and so forth.
It's just the exact opposite.
And that's the point that Gramnesty was making.
If they said anything like that statement, I mean, you can say that and you can still get on the court.
I couldn't say that and live.
Does that make sense to you, ma'am?
And Solomayor said it does.
None of it matters, folks, but it's well, it's not that none of it matters.
It was actually a pointed and good question from Senator Gramnesty and an illustration, which is, you know, if drive-bys are out there saying the Republicans are afraid to hit hard here because they're pandering, or they're afraid they're going to be compared to me, and they're pandering to me.
I think from sessions on down, they're doing a great job with this, given what they've got to work with.
Healthcare presented to the House yesterday, $1.3 trillion price tag, BS.
There's no way they can score the cost of this.
Nobody knows.
This is an abomination, this healthcare proposal, and they want to ramrod this thing through by August.
As I said yesterday, they want to do this before people figure out just how bad all of this is going to make this economy.
And by the way, Kathleen Sebelius is out there saying, it's the same game plan.
We can't wait.
It has to be done now.
It's a crisis.
It's an emergency.
They tried this with TARP.
They did it with stimulus.
And now they're doing it with this.
It can't wait.
It's got to be done now.
1.3 trillion.
Heritage Foundation ran the numbers here.
It's a thousand-page bill, 1,018 pages.
And the admitted price tag is $1.3 trillion.
That comes out to $1.264 billion per page of the bill.
Just as a comparative note, wait till you hear some of the taxes on this and like the 5.4% surtax on millionaires, but there is a 1% surtax on, now how many of you making $2.50 are adding up all the tax increases you've already faced?
You face tax increases to pay for stimulus.
You have tax increases coming for cap and trade.
And now you have another tax increase coming on healthcare.
And your Bush tax cuts expire at the end of next year, starting in 2011.
So you people at $250,000 and up, your effective tax rate by the time Obama gets through is going to be close to 45 to 50% by the time you add state taxes into it.
And it has been proven economically, scientifically, that once combined tax rates hit 50%, people stop.
They stop earning.
They stop investing.
50.
Once the combined state and federal payroll once it goes 50% or over then you have a net negative return on all the money you're taking out of the economy because people just at some point and yes, for the millionaires for the people over a million, the top marginal rate after health care,
45 point something percent, state added on, they're going to be 55 to 60% in some states depending on what the state income tax rate Now, I'm telling you, folks, and that's that is that 45% is just with the health care tax.
That doesn't count the carbon tax, and it doesn't count the stimulus taxes that are coming.
It can't happen.
It cannot happen.
There isn't the money to pay for this.
Even the Washington Post is editorializing today.
You cannot pay for all this from the rich.
You just can't do it.
The money isn't there.
Now, if the Washington Post is editorializing that you can't pay for any of this with the rich, it means they've reached their personal tipping points on paying taxes.
It means that the millionaires that work there that can tell the editorial writers what the hell to write, the editorial writers don't make that much money.
They pick them up from the homeless shelter and take them back every day.
But the executives look at it and say, well, baby, I am not.
Time D.C. gets through with me and I pay FICA and I pay Medicare and I got to pay losing the Bush tax cut and then this on top of it.
I'm over 50%.
And then you look at 43% of the American people paying no income tax, it ain't going to fly.
But the Democrats are going to ram this.
They're going to try everything they can.
And remember, there's nothing to stop them other than Democrats, certain Democrats in both the House and the Senate, seeing the light.
And it isn't going to happen in the House.
The House may as well have satellite headquarters in Havana.
That's how left they are.
But the Senate, you never know.
Anyway, quick timeout, more details on this.
I want to get some phone calls when we come back as well.
Rush Limbaugh, the fastest week in media, fastest three hours in media.
We're back after this.
Hear that soundbite from Dick Durbin.
This is him actually saying it.
This is at yesterday's hearing on Soto My Or.
When we asked questions of the white male nominees of a Republican president, we were basically trying to find out whether to make sure that they would go far enough in understanding the plight of minorities, because clearly that was not in their DNA.
This is a detestable man.
This is a reprehensible figure.
This is the guy who compared American interrogators to Pol Pots, Brigades, Nazis, and Stalinists and so forth in the way they treated prisoners, had to apologize for it.
Now he says that white male Republican judicial nominees are genetically racist.
It must be remembered that Miguel Estrada, nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush, did not even get a vote on the Senate floor.
Miguel Estrada, a brilliant jurist, did not even get a vote.
He's Hispanic.
So I guess it was not in Durbin's DNA to allow the vote, a vote on the Senate floor for a Hispanic.
Just wasn't in Durbin's DNA.
Here's the Tom Coburn-Sonia Soto Mayor exchange.
If I go home, get a cunt, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways.
Splaining to do.
I'd be in a lot of trouble then.
So his question was, do people have a right to defend themselves?
The splaining to do is a distraction here.
Do you have right, people have a right to defend themselves?
Well, if I go home and get a gun, that self-defense is not going home and getting a gun.
Self-defense is you're attacked at the moment.
And you go home and get a gun, but you've got other ways to defend yourself.
Oh, Lee.
This woman is just.
I understand.
All right, okay, all right.
In all fairness, yeah, and we are totally about fairness here.
We are about a level playing field here, the EIB network.
She made that point earlier on in her testimony.
This is Shannon in Somerton, South Carolina.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Rash Mega Ditto.
This is a real honor to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
I am the wife of a recently retired United States Marine Corps officer, 21-year served.
And I am seeing things in this country that are absolutely shaking me to the core.
You know, having, I mean, in the middle of raising two girls who, by the way, do not throw like our current commander-in-chief.
No, right.
But I'm seeing more and more that the days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill being able to come to a compromise in the Oval Office are over.
There's a line that's being drawn that needs to be drawn in this country.
Republicans need to quit being afraid of being called racist, of being called bigots, of being called small-minded for standing up for what is right.
And in this line, I see two sides now where you're either going to stand on the side of everything that made this country great, or you're going to stand on the side of what is going to be the fall of this country and everything ever fought for and worked hard for.
You know, that is profound.
We are at that point where it's time to choose sides.
You're either going to stand aside and let this country be remade in ways our founders would not recognize that will end the days of prosperity, or you're going to stand up for the country.
That standing mute is not an option right now.
So what are you reacting to?
I mean, it's a great point, but what do you react to the Republicans?
No, I just see, whether it's in the House, the Senate, these hearings, the White House using our Bill of Rights, the Constitution pretty much is a hand towel to wipe their hands with.
I mean, it's all over the place.
The media is in the back pocket.
You know, people are afraid to be, you know, senators don't want to be aligned with you because they're afraid they'll be seen as small-minded or in the minority.
And it's the minority that they're speaking about they need to be fighting for because that is the backbone of this country.
It always has been and it always will be.
And we've got to start standing up straight and be heard.
Forgive me here, but my ego is my ego.
And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that these senators who it is said are timid because they're afraid of being compared to me or they are pandering.
What you're saying is they should be in my back pocket, not running away from me, right?
Absolutely.
My neighbor is afraid to be called right-wing, conservative, Republican.
We know all.
Look at that.
There's genuine fear.
The left has made this happen.
There is genuine fear in this country over speaking out.
A great call.
Thanks much.
We are working on an audio sound by the President Obama in an interview last night.
We walked out there to girly toss the ceremonial first pitch, and he was wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket.
Of course, he's from Chicago.
Well, actually, he's in parts unknown, but he lives in Chicago when he's not in the White House.
And everybody knows Chicago White Sox, the name of the park, the ballpark they play in.
You know what it is, Schneider?
Well, you're not a sportsman.
No, that's a Cubs.
Cubs play in Wrigley Field.
Kamiski, what?
Kamiski Park is right.
He called it Kaminsky Field last night, wearing a white sock jacket.
We're working on that audio even now.
Imagine, I mean, these faux pas this guy makes.
Bush would be on a spit being roasted for an Obama-Hawaiian luau with just half of these.
Well, there wasn't a teleprompter out there.
Now they got Biden's.
Yeah, Obama's prompter's dead.
He died.
Either committed suicide or was murdered.
So anyway, grab a call.
Abbeyville, Louisiana.
This is Pam.
Nice to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi.
Mark, can you hear me?
Yeah.
Okay.
My question is, what difference does it make what Sonia Maiar rents, watches?
What difference does that make to her character, who she is, why she should be put.
Oh, okay.
Well, I was.
You are relatively new to the political process, or maybe you're not old enough to have seen or paid attention to previous confirmation hearings of Republican nominees.
No, I'm pretty new to it.
Okay.
Back in.
When Obama got into office is when I really started getting into it.
That's believable.
All right.
Now, in 1986, I believe it was Ronald Reagan nominated a brilliant man by the name of Robert Bork to sit on the Supreme Court.
The liberals immediately went to the video stores in the neighborhood in Washington where he lived trying to get a list of the DVDs he rented so as to impugn his character.
They wanted to see if there was any pornography.
They wanted to see if there was any racy stuff, smoky and the bandit kind of stuff that he liked to watch.
The same thing happened with Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill claimed that he had sexually harassed her.
There was talk of pubic hair in a Coke can, and that Justice Thomas had rented movies, pornography movies, and so forth.
It's a standard Democrat tactic to try to impugn and destroy not just the character, but the lives of Republican nominees.
I was simply making the point that these Republican senators are in no way treating Sonia Sotomayor with the disgrace and the disrespect that Republican nominees are treated by Democrats.
And I illustrated that by saying, and these hearings aren't complete until we get a list of her DVDs.
It is irrelevant.
You're exactly right.
But the Democrats traditionally try to get that kind of information on Republican nominees to destroy them.
Okay, I understand that because she's a liar.
I mean, she's crawfishing out of everything that they're asking her.
Have you noticed something else?
Have you noticed that when she I think the Democrats sent her their questions because when she this was this observation was made to me just moments ago and I hadn't noticed it myself, but it rings true now that it's been put in front of my mind.
When the Democrats ask her questions, she's smooth and clear and right on the spot and the answer is there.
When the Republicans ask her questions, it's him-haw around, not sure of what she's saying.
That's where she's lying and crawfishing around.
She doesn't have the Republican questions in advance.
She did get rehearsed on what they might ask, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Leahy and the boys sent her their questions in advance.
Exactly.
That's what it sounds like to me.
All right.
Well, I'm glad you called, Pam.
I'm happy to help explain this to you.
Well, thank you so much.
My pleasure.
It's always a thrill and a delight to be able to inform a relatively new arrival of the political process.
And there's no better place to come than this program for that kind of education and information.
All right.
Remember last week, well, the week before last, I had a somewhat lengthy monologue on how fruitless and ridiculous it is to predict the future of the economy until we see every program the Democrats are going to pass and sign into law.
For example, until we know that cap and trade is actually going to be passed and signed into law, we can't tell anybody.
We can't predict what kind of economic growth there's going to be, what the employment number is going to be.
And we can't do it because if cap and trade happens, it's going to devastate the U.S. economy.
And if healthcare happens on top of that, it's going to double devastate the U.S. economy.
So all these predictions that you're hearing from Obama, yeah, well, we're going to start the jobless recovery is going to start turning around the end of the recession here, economic growth, doesn't mean diddly squat.
Even if next quarter, even if the next quarter shows growth, and if it does, then there are going to be all kinds of celebrations, stimulus work, and so forth.
But then they pass these two things.
If they do, bye-bye growth forever, folks.
That's how bad all of this is.
Bye-bye.
Sayonara growth for a generation or two.
And I'll tell you something about healthcare.
People ask me, Russia, you keep saying once they get that, we can't roll it back.
How's that?
Why can't we just, if they pass a law and they nationalize health care and it goes bad, why can't a future president in Congress simply pass new laws saying, no, we're not going to do it anymore?
Here's one of the reasons why.
And this is just one of the reasons.
Where is Obama going to get these promised cuts in health care?
He's going to doctors, the AMA, he's going to hospitals.
He has announced that he's going to squeeze insurance companies and doctors, meaning they're going to earn less.
Now, if you are an enterprising person, you have the aptitude, the education, or the intelligence to go to medical school, graduate, either be a GP or a specialist.
Why are you going to bother?
Why are you going to bother if you're not going to make any money?
After all, it's going to cost you to go to med school.
You want to go for altruistic reasons to a point, but it's also a living.
And if it's not going to provide you the living, because you're going to be squeezed in order for government health care to so-called be affordable.
So with fewer doctors in the picture, you just can't, okay, we're getting rid of this.
Where will the doctors be?
We will not have a supply of doctors to pick up the demand once you go back with tax cuts.
But if they raise taxes, say to 90%, well, you could roll back tax cuts.
You can roll our tax rates, tax increases, you can roll them back.
But with the intricacies of healthcare and all of the interdependence of thousands of government agencies and doctors and Medicare, and by the way, it's going to be modeled after an abject failure, Medicare.
So rolling it back is not going to be easy, and it's not something that can be done on a dime, stopped on a dime like lowering tax rates can.
Now, when you talk about predicting the future of the economy, you can't, as I said, until you know what of this agenda is going to pass.
Any of this madness gets crammed down our throats.
Every economic prediction you're hearing today is worthless.
And this is such an opportunity for the Republicans right now, given Sonia Sotomayor illustrates it.
The idea to contrast, like our last caller said, this is it.
You stand up, take a side.
You choose to have two sides now.
We don't have time to pander to moderates.
We don't have time to pander to people who don't have a courage of their own convictions.
We don't have time to pander to people who don't know what they think until they figure out what the majority thinks and they agree with them.
The two choices are, are we going to remake America and destroy the elements that made it great and have permanent poverty and lack of opportunity, disguised and called fairness?
Or are we going to maintain this country as it was founded as a beacon of freedom and liberty around the world to people everywhere who wish to come here that offers unbridled economic opportunity depending on how much you want to put into it?
Those days will be over if the Obama agenda succeeds.
There won't be enough capital.
There won't be enough money in the private sector.
It's all going to be taken over by government.
The car companies, an example, the mortgage industry, health care, that's one-sixth, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, one-sixth of our GDP.
You take that out of the private sector.
That means the private sector has shrunk by one-sixth.
That means there's less capital for people to compete for and earn.
And there's less opportunity for that remaining five-sixth, and it's going to be less than that because all this other stuff's going to take even more out of the private sector to grow.
So it's time to choose sides.
It really is.
And for the Republicans, this is not the time to start debating the future of the Republican Party.
And do we need to get rid of the social issues?
Do we need to get rid of the conservative Christians?
Do we need to become more moderate and seek out the Hispanic vote?
And do we have to go after the blank vote?
Do we have to go after the female vote?
Do we have to go after the Asian vote?
We don't have the luxury of playing those kinds of political games because the future of the country is at stake.
And there is only one choice in opposition to Obama.
We cannot say that as a party to survive, we must recognize that the American people want big government.
They like government doing things for them.
And we must find a way to reach them and the people in the middle class.
And we must find a way to get there and tell them that we can do it better for them.
Do not.
This is not a time to compromise on the belief that limited government, personal freedom, is the definition of greatness of this country.
It's time for the Republican Party to put aside its primary calculation of how can we win elections and instead focus on how can we save America.
And in the process, they will win elections if they are oriented towards saving the country.
Because those are the two choices.
The lady from Louisiana was right.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Wow, it's our lucky day here.
We have three more audio sound bites from President Obama.
And the first one, he was being interviewed on the MLB network last night by Bob Custis.
And Bob Custis said, that white sock jacket, that White Sox windbreaker, make no bones about it.
You're a Southsider.
You're a White Sox guy, not a Cubs guy.
Listen, I'm not a Cubs hater.
There's a certain type of White Sox fan that actively roots against the Cubs.
So when the Bartman, there were people who celebrated on the South side.
I'm not one of those guys.
I wish them well, unless they're playing the White Sox.
But I do think that there's a different quality to what used to be Kaminsky Field versus Rickwood.
What used to be Kaminsky Field, it's Kamiski Park.
There's no in there, but this guy was brought up by communists.
So all these Inskis have made an indelible impression in his mind, like Saul Alinsky.
And so things is Kaminsky Park.
Kaminsky Field is Kamiski Park.
And by the way, the Cubs now play, the White Sox now play in U.S. cellular field, nicknamed the Cell.
And the White Sox won the World Series in 2005 when Obama was there.
You would think that comparing the Cubs and White Sox, he's got a Wrigley Field of Kaminsky field.
And of course, Bob Costas went right along with it.
We're talking to the president of the United States here.
He's talking about this Bartman guy.
That's the guy that in the playoffs, the Cubs, forget who they were playing with.
That's the guy in the left field bleachers that, or the down the left field foul line.
Might have been the Marlins.
I don't know who it was, but this guy reached out and Moises Alou was about to make a crucial out on a pop fly down the left field line.
His kid reached out and caught it, and they've crucified the kid in Chicago ever since.
And Obama has to show in this comment that he's not a hater.
He doesn't hate Bartman.
Is that even his name?
We got a Bart Bart.
He was trying to think of it too.
But, well, there's certain White Sox fans that hate the Cubs.
I, of course, am not a hater.
I didn't think it was unfair what they did to Bart Bart Bartman.
Steve Bartman.
Yeah, I knew it was Steve.
I just couldn't remember the last name.
Let me read these transcripts here.
We'll see if these soundbites are worth playing.
Oh, he's lying through his teeth about it.
Soundbite 28.
Rose Garden at the White House this afternoon during a break in the Sodomayor hearings.
Little rev them up on health care out there.
If you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them.
They won't be around.
If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too.
It won't be around.
But here's what else reform will mean for you.
And this is for people who have health insurance.
You will save money.
If you lose your job, change your job, or start a new business.
You'll still be able to find quality health insurance that you can afford.
Note, he didn't say it's portable.
People that lose their jobs, lose their health care, and they want portability.
His plan doesn't have that, folks.
That's your big deal.
He does not have portability in his plan.
The point is, the public option is going to wipe out everything in the private sector.
You're going to see businesses offload their coverage to the public option.
A lot of them are eager to do it even as we speak.
So your doctor, your health care provider, you can keep them.
Your insurance, it may not be there.
The odds are it won't.
And Tom Colburn, by the way, who has some spleening to do, introduced an amendment yesterday that actually got some Democrat votes.
It'll never pass the seat of light today, but it was Resolve that we will abandon our current health care plan for the public option.
Only three different, but this is something that's gaining steam.
We urged you to do this two or three weeks ago.
Call your congressman or your senator.
Say, hey, babe, you're going to give up your current plan for the public option.
You are mandating that we join.
You're going to do that.
They won't.
The elites will have their own plan set up as they do now, and it will not change.
Back after this.
I just checked in an email during the break, and I got an email from a guy who wants an update on how Pumpkin and the new puppy, the old English sheepdog named Abigail, Abby for short, are getting along.
And there is an update to this.
It's not pretty.
It happened yesterday and this morning.
And I'll briefly, I'll tell you about that.
We come back.
And I found the greatest external battery case for the iPhone.
It's called a Mopi Juice Pack, M-O-P-H-I-E.
I'll tell you about that too.
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