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April 7, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
April 7, 2010, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Oh no.
Oh no.
The New York City Housing Authority says it might have to revoke rent assistance vouchers for more than 10,000 low-income tenants.
The federal government gave the agency less money than expected for the Section 8 program.
Where did all of this stimulus money go?
Does this not prove, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn't a stimulus to anything?
It's a slush fund.
Even more hard times.
Police in Alaska say lawbreakers must be really getting desperate because somebody left 13 fake $1 bills in a bar's tip jar, an unusually small denomination for the crime.
So it's so bad out there counterfeiters are counterfeiting $1 bills and leaving them in the tip jar.
And the hard times continue.
Food stamps will not be helping a disabled man fill his service dog's food bowl.
Pennsylvania Appeals Court ruled yesterday against James Durris of a Philadelphia suburb of Newtown or Newton.
He had upheld a decision by the state welfare agency denying him additional support.
55-year-old is disabled, unemployed veteran, lives alone, and relies on a dog to pull his wheelchair and fetch items.
But the dog will not be allowed to buy food using food stamps.
The dog sounds a little bit more worthwhile and valuable, and some of the people are using food stamps.
Hard times continue in Washington.
Nearly 5,000 D.C. residents have become eligible for food stamps because of changes the city made to the program.
Under the new law, residents automatically qualify for food stamps if they participate in other low-income assistance.
Well, that doesn't necessarily mean hard times.
That just means transfers of wealth.
They're just taking people that don't qualify and automatically qualifying them.
Look at exactly the kind of thing the regime is inspiring.
The price for American astronauts to hitch or ride on a Russian spaceship is going sky high.
NASA, Tuesday, signed a contract to pay.
Wait till you hear this.
$55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014.
Now, that is some pretty high direct operating costs.
I thought $3,000 or $4,000 an hour was high, but $55.8 million per astronaut for six of them to fly into space on Russian space capsules.
NASA is now paying half as much, about $26.3 million per astronaut, when it uses Russian ships.
NASA spokesman said that the cost is going up because Russia had to build more capsules for the extra flights.
NASA had already agreed to pay as much as $51 million a seat for flights in 2011.
This is just, well, I'll tell you, it was great.
It was great at one time, our country.
Well, I mean, this, you know, the next thing you know, we're going to be, I don't know, buying space satellites from China.
After all, we gave them the technology to get them into orbit against the law during the Clinton administration.
All right, audio soundbite time.
These people, I don't have a word that aptly describes my disgust for the state-controlled media.
CNBC street signs.
This is yesterday.
Aaron Burnett, speaking with the chief on CNBC White House, Chief Washington correspondent John Harwood about the mine explosion, West Virginia.
Aaron Burnett says, we are learning more about the political influence of the company involved in the mine explosion.
John, what have you found out about Massey?
We've just got new numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics showing that Massey and its executives and its political action committee have contributed more than $300,000 to federal candidates since 1990, not all to Republicans, but mostly to Republicans at a time in which Republicans have been coming on strong in the state of West Virginia.
That includes $30,000 last fall to the National Republican Senatorial Committee at a time when the Republican Party trying to make a comeback against Democrats.
This is certain to be an issue in the wake of this mining disaster, and this is something we're going to be following in the days to come.
The Obama administration is trying to push back on regulation.
Now, wait, what the hell here?
The regime is, we're going to blame Republicans for this.
It was Bush's fault at the Sago mine.
Now we're going to blame this guy for contributing to Republicans because I guess Republicans fought new regulations.
And now the Obama regime is angry and they're going to, has the Obama regime not been in office for over a year?
Have they not had their own labor board people in there?
I'll tell you, I don't have a word to describe my disgust for these people.
To politicize.
Every damn thing that happens gets politicized.
And they wondered, I'll tell you what, folks, they are purposely dividing this country to create the chaos and the unrest that exists.
Here's Greenspan, even more.
It's on Capitol Hill this morning at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
While the roots of the crisis were global, it was securitized U.S. subprime mortgages that served as the crisis' immediate trigger.
The surge in demand for mortgage-backed securities was heavily driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were pressed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Congress to expand affordable housing commitments.
The enormity of these purchase was not revealed until Fannie Mae in September 2009 reclassified a large part of its prime mortgage securities portfolio as subprime.
I don't hear, I don't hear J.P. Morgan mentioned there.
I don't hear Chase.
I don't hear Goldman Sachs mentioned.
I don't hear AIG mentioned.
He's told the truth.
It was securitized U.S. subprime mortgages that served as the crisis' immediate trigger.
The surge in demand for mortgage-backed securities, heavily driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were pressed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Congress to expand affordable housing commitments, meaning loan money to people you knew couldn't pay it back so we could brag about how many people in our country have homes.
I can't believe he told the truth up there.
It must mean, it must mean that he's got to plans that don't involve Washington.
By the way, this mining design, what have you people in the meeting, Mr. Harwood, have you ever heard of Senator Jay Rockefeller?
Have you heard of Senator Robert Byrd?
Hell, I'm surprised the mine's not named after him.
Everything else in the state is.
It's because this guy donated to Republicans that this happened.
That's what they're trying to say.
Anyway, let's take a brief time out here, folks.
I have some discussion on the value-added tax.
It's coming.
And a lot of people don't know what it is.
And the Heritage Foundation Morning Bell, our blog today has a pretty good explanation that can supplement what I know about it.
Barack Obama, let's see, was asked two easy questions this week.
Are we overtaxed?
And he gave a 17-minute, 2,500 rambling answer that never answered the question.
And then he was asked, who was your favorite White Sox player when you were a kid?
We got two dishonest, insincere, confused non-answers.
We learned a lot about Barack Obama from two simple questions and his two convoluted answers.
One is boring.
Two, he's a phony.
He can't be trusted, but we knew that he can't be trusted.
Quick timeout.
Back after this.
Your phone calls on the other side, too.
This is just delicious.
Bodyguards shielding Tiger Woods at Augusta National confronted a golf fan and accused her of being his porn star mistress, according to the sun.
Guards accompanying Woods on his comeback at the Masters were given photos of at least a dozen girls with links to the shamed star.
I have a friend who goes to Augusta every year.
He works it.
And he's interviewing potential companions for Tiger.
He said there are some 11s running around town this week, not just 10s.
One guard mistook the attractive fan for X-rated actress and strip tease dancer Jocelyn James on Tuesday and approached her asking, excuse me, ma'am, are you the stripper?
This woman walks in there.
You got to wonder how she was dressed.
And a guard says, are you, excuse me, are you the stripper?
The fan was left speechless until the guard realized his gaff and apologized and showed her a picture of Jocelyn James.
He said, I'm sorry, ma'am, but you're a dead ringer for this woman.
And in other words, you're a dead ringer for a porn star.
And we have to be very careful here.
Zowie.
All right, the value-added tax.
And not only the value-added tax, Volcker at the Historical Society of New York, value-added tax, and we're going to need some kind of carbon tax to get rid of these deficits.
Pay down the debt.
It's coming.
We're just going to have to do it.
It is coming.
They are going to do it.
They're not going to reduce spending, folks.
This regime is not going to reduce spending.
There are 130 countries that use the value-added tax.
Hungary's VAT is 20%.
I think it's last time I was in the UK.
It was 15% there.
It's probably gone up.
19% in Greece.
And it's really helped them, hasn't it?
All this new tax money just gets spent.
It's not going to reduce any deficit.
It's not going to go into any pool to pay down the debt.
It isn't going to happen.
The reason politicians like the value-added tax is it's hidden.
You can't see it.
It's a tax placed at every level of production and sales.
Every level, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, wherever.
A little bit is added at every step of the way, but you don't really see it.
You end up paying for it all when you buy the product or the service.
It hasn't helped Greece in any way, shape, manner, or form.
Now, the value-added tax is how they're planning to pay for Obamacare, according to the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell.
And here's what they say, that the solution has been simmering for some time now.
Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, floated the idea to the Washington Post last May.
Pelosi told Charlie Rose it was on the table in October.
And yesterday, White House advisor Paul Volcker told the New York Historical Society, it should be considered.
The it is the value-added tax, a fancy way of saying a national sales tax.
A VAT can be structured in many different ways, but the real world results are always the same.
You end up with higher taxes, more government spending because they don't use the money to pay down debt.
You get lower job growth because you're taking even more money out of the private sector, fewer jobs because you're taking more money out of the private sector.
And you have more special interest power because they all lobby for their business to be exempt from it.
Now, as the Heritage Foundation says, higher taxes don't believe for a second that a VAT will help offset other taxes.
International evidence clearly shows that a VAT is likely to increase the aggregate burden of government.
Europeans used to only have a slightly higher tax burden in the U.S., but beginning in the late 60s, European countries began to implement VATs.
And since then, the overall tax burden in Europe has climbed rapidly.
And once a VAT is in place, the evidence shows the tax rate rises over time, just like every other tax rate rises.
Higher government spending.
Not surprisingly, with more revenues, European governments turn around and spend much more than the United States does.
I can't believe that's true even now, but we'll go with it.
According to a study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, government spending grew 45% faster in VAT nations than in non-VAT nations.
According to the academic literature, there is a strong negative relationship between government spending and economic performance.
In other words, more government spending means less economic growth and fewer jobs.
And it only stands to reason there's taking even more money out of the private sector.
Because economic growth is driven by individuals and entrepreneurs operating in free markets, not by Washington spending and not by Washington regulations.
It would also make Washington even more powerful.
No VAT could ever be levied evenly on all goods and services.
It just won't happen.
Due to political considerations, a value-added tax, in addition to current taxes, would likely exempt politically sensitive items like food, clothing, health care, and housing.
Industries would lobby heavily for exemptions from the VAT for the economic benefits described above.
This would give Congress an even larger role in picking winners and losers in the marketplace.
Success would depend less on ingenuity and hard work and more on the ability to gain political favor.
And so all of the work that normally would go into creating jobs or doing a job well or creating a new product, whatever, will be spent lobbying Washington for exemption from all of these stupid draconian shackles that they're going to be placing on everybody.
That's where the energy is going to go.
And so Washington, even more, will be choosing winners and losers by virtue of deciding who's exempt and who's not from this new tax.
Our nation faces a financial crisis.
Low revenues are not the problem.
Spending is.
Now, here's a down and dirty little statistic by Brian Rydel at the Heritage Foundation.
Real federal spending remained steady at $21,000 per household through the 1980s and 1990s.
Before President Bush hiked it up to $25,000 per household.
But now, President Obama has proposed a budget that would permanently spend a staggering $32,000 per household annually, and that's before all the baby boomers retire and add another $10,000 per household in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare costs to the bottom line.
So the problem is not declining revenues, but rather a spending spree unlike any in American history.
If Washington insists on spending $32,000 per household, it's going to have to tax $32,000 per household somehow, or else we're going to run a deficit.
That is an unaffordable and an unfair tax burden regardless what kind of tax collects it.
Simply bringing real federal spending back to the $21,000 per household average that prevailed in the 80s and 90s would balance the budget by 2012 without raising a single tax on anyone.
Even returning spending to the pre-recession level of 20% of GDP would eliminate two-thirds of the projected 2019 budget deficit without raising taxes.
And we've been through, over the course of this program, we've given statistics like this.
At one point when the deficit was considered intolerable at $300 billion a year, simply freezing federal spending five years would have balanced the budget.
Freezing it.
Not, you know, and accounting for inflation.
Allow federal spending to go up every year by the inflation rate, but no more than that.
And the Democrats just cowed.
They crowd that you can't cut the budget like that.
We're not cutting anything.
We're just not growing it.
The dirty little secret remains, and this is what Obama's real objective is, is to totally reverse Reaganism.
And if he gets this VAT, hell, he's probably already done it with healthcare.
But the objective here is the creation of a permanent underclass and the total reversal of Reaganism, the Reagan Revolution.
If you get this healthcare, which he's gotten, if you get this value-added tax, you get the carbon tax, then the government is the central focus of everybody's life.
Everybody is going to be doing whatever they can to avoid whatever government is doing to them rather than being creative in their own self-interest.
So what Reagan showed, what are they so afraid of?
Why do they have to wipe out Reaganism?
Top marginal tax rate, 1981, Reagan takes office, 70%.
Total take to the Treasury then $500 billion.
Reagan leaves office in 1989.
Top marginal tax rate, 28%, dropped from 70.
Total take to the Treasury, almost a trillion dollars.
Cutting tax rates from 70%, that was the top marginal rate at the time, down to 28%, doubled revenues.
We know how to increase revenue.
That's not their objective with taxation.
The regime is, I don't care about raising revenue with taxation.
No, no, no.
It's about growing government, creating a permanent underclass so that a majority of Americans never even have the chance to acquire wealth.
A permanent underclass will forever be dependent on the regime.
That is the regime's link to eternal power.
$32,000 a household, $32,000 per household is what we would all have to pay in taxes to pay for all of the spending that the regime has wrung up.
Now, what is it?
Yes, it would be a tax cut for some people, certainly, but that's not the point.
You're saying I should be in favor of that?
No, no, no.
$32,000, the average family income in this country is $40,000.
I mean, I want to try to put this in some kind of perspective.
The deficit is almost to the point where if all of our income was confiscated, it would barely meet the cost of the federal government spending.
It used to be true that you could confiscate all the income over a million dollars a year and run the government for two or three days.
Now you can barely run the government if you confiscate practically all household income.
I mean, there's a lot of talk about millionaires and billionaires, but the fact is that if you earn $60,000 a year in this country, you are in the company of 90% of the American people.
Now, this is just, folks, it is just unsustainable.
It's another way of saying that the national debt is at 90% of our GDP is the way you have to look at this.
And who does it punish?
It punishes those who are not dependent on the regime.
Desperately seeking revenue, the authors, Roseanne Altschuler, Catherine Lim, Roberton Williams, January 29, 2010.
This is from the Tax Policy Center.
The Tax Policy Center, don't confuse them.
They are a radical left group.
In August of 2009, the CBO projected the federal budget deficit would total $7.1 trillion between now and 2019 under current law.
The outcome would require the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to sunset as scheduled in 2011 and Congress to stop patching the ATM to minimize its bite.
This paper poses a simple question.
Could incremental reforms of the current tax system raise enough revenue to reduce the deficit to an average of 2% of GDP over the last five years of the 10-year budget window?
We use the Urban Institute Brookings Tax Policy Center tax model to simulate several revenue-raising tax changes, including raising all income tax rates proportionately, hiking taxes only for the high-income taxpayers, and either limiting or eliminating itemized deductions to broaden the tax base.
We conclude, after running all these models, from the Radical Left Tax Policy Center, we conclude that politically feasible tax increases within the current tax structure cannot generate sufficient revenues to bring federal budget deficits under control.
A radical left tax group says there's no way that we can come anywhere near reducing the debt by raising taxes.
This is something that the regime knows.
I'm telling you again, all of this destruction, this reordering, this transformation, this redistribution, all of it is by design and purposeful.
I want to know when this Tiger Woods news is going to stop.
Tiger Woods escorted radar online.
Tiger Woods slept with his neighbor's 21-year-old daughter, having a one-night stand less than a mile from his home.
Even as Tiger returns to golf, the wreckage of his secret life of cheating continues to grow larger.
A shocking new report says that Tiger slipped.
I'm going to name the woman.
First name's Rachel.
She lives in his Isleworth neighborhood outside Orlando.
She's now 22.
She was 21 at the time of the betting, which actually took place in Tiger's office, according to this.
She recently confronted Tiger when all his other mistresses were revealed because she was furious that she was just another conquest.
Now, it was a one-night stand, and she thought they had something going.
The National Inquirer says that Tiger and the girl began making out with inside of his house while Elon was at home.
And then they had sex in a private office that Tiger keeps nearby.
Staying true to his pattern with other women, Tiger texted the woman repeatedly after the tryst.
But according to the report, she felt guilty about having sex with a married guy and never got back together with him.
So I guess this is the Inquirer, first to reveal Tiger's cheating secret by detailing his relationship with Rachel Yucato.
Now, we also heard, it never ends.
It just never ends.
First, a woman walks on the grounds at Augusta today and they think she's a porn star and they try to kick her out.
They are petrified.
They are petrified, folks, that one of these women is going to get in there and cause a scene.
Now, Jocelyn James, the porn star, I've been reading up on this.
She has a gig at something called a stone pony over in Atlanta.
It's a well-known gentleman's club.
Not to me, but it's a well-known gentleman's club.
It's a stone pony this weekend.
Now, I don't know if you know your geography, but Atlanta, not that far from Augusta.
And her gig is late at night.
And the master shuts down every night about six or seven whenever the sun goes down, basically.
So it wouldn't be much to get back into.
They're scared to death this woman's going to show up.
Or one of them's going to get in there and try to make a scene.
With cameras, you know, reality TV show maybe hinging on this.
Book deals.
They are, these people guarding Tiger, I'm telling you, they are, they're frazzled.
They got, there is so much riding on these guys doing their job right this week.
If even one of them gets in there with all the security, there is going to be hell to pay.
Remember, folks, we were told that once the Democrats signed a health care bill, everybody was going to love them.
And they were going to have no problems getting re-elected.
Pelosi told them that.
The regime told them that.
Bill Clinton, for the old regime, told them that.
So let's go to the audio soundbites.
Monday night in Fort Lauderdale, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the most radical left members of Congress, had a town hall to talk about jobs, the economy, the Porculus plan, and the healthcare reform.
And we have about a minute here of her exchange with unidentified audience members.
Now, remember, she was very prominent leading the raid for passage of this bill.
She's supposed to be loved.
Our historic health care summit led by President Obama to review the details of the healthcare administration.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Oh, excuse me.
I'm going to ask everybody to continue to be respectful.
To continue to be respectful.
Be respectful not when you lie.
And do not be respectful when you lie.
Excuse me.
Okay.
Everyone, let's just have this helpful.
You're welcome to be here and ask me a question.
Like I said, you're going to support some of the things that people say.
You're going to oppose some of the things that people say.
You are not welcome to disrupt this meeting.
And if you want to ask a question, I'm happy to answer it.
And I've answered that one.
Now, you can't get more liberal than her district.
And I'm told that she had a bunch of SEIU thugs there early to guard against things like this happening.
You know, this is what did I see?
I saw a poll today.
Greenberg, this is a Dick Morris column.
Carville and Greenberg have one of their polls out, Democracy Corpse, as Obama would say it, that says Republican momentum is peaked.
Then Dick Morris says, you are crazy.
The momentum is increasing.
The opposition to the regime and the health care bill is still increasing.
The Republican momentum is building.
The anger is not being quelled.
It is building.
And Morris went on to predict that the Republicans are going to win both the House and the Senate.
Win them both.
He's the first to come out of those who do what he does.
To put it as bluntly as that.
Brief timeout.
We'll be back right after this.
Say, folks, if there was a Final Four competition for colleges that produce students of exceptional character, students that had to compete in the arena of ideas all four years of their undergraduate education, you would see Hillsdale College in that Final Four competition.
This is a college where even if you are right, you have to find numerous ways of explaining yourself that satisfy the most discerning of professors and administrators.
Dr. Larry Arne told me, even at Hillsdale, you're wrong if you're right.
You have to be able to say it as though you don't have it memorized.
It's in your heart.
You know it.
It's in your soul.
And they probe and make sure that you know it, that you just haven't memorized, that you know it as a result of critical thinking.
He described for me one of the most enlightened students he has ever had in one of his classes.
He said it took him 10 minutes to break her down.
She was so right.
She was so good.
It took him 10 minutes to break her down.
He didn't hurt her feelings.
It's just tough.
They've got standards.
When you graduate Hillsdale College, you have graduated from something serious.
They educate 1,300 students a year, a variety of undergraduate degrees, all of them with a foundation of understanding the Constitution and our core values.
They also educate many millions of Americans every year because they publish a digest called Imprimis.
They distribute it to more than 1.7 million subscribers and they do it free with no strings attached.
Nobody's going to get your name off of this list.
Imprimus features one notable speech after another, espousing the many virtues associated with Hillsdale and conservative values.
Now, if you're not benefiting from the college education at Hillsdale, you can with their Imprimus publication.
Just log on to rushforhillsdale.com and subscribe to Imprimus Today.
Or you can phone them up, 866Hillsdale, 1-866-Hillsdale.
It's an amazing place.
I'm still going to go there and sit in on a class.
I have to see how this happens.
Hillsdale College, rushforhillsdale.com.
Don't you know, don't you just know?
AP really got pained to have to write this.
Gallup poll breakdown showed the Tea Party is mostly white, much the same way America is mostly white, 75%.
They've been called Oreos traitors, Uncle Tom's, are used to having to defend their values, but now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white Tea Party movement.
There are black people in the Tea Party movement, and this is throwing everybody off, this racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobe characterization that everybody's trying to tie the Tea Party to.
Here from the Fox Business Network, this afternoon, Jerry Willis spoke to a Cato Institute guy, Dan Mitchell, about the value-added tax.
And she said, Well, look, the math on the surface looks pretty simple: 1% VAT, $1 trillion in revenue.
But what would a VAT in this country put on top of an income tax due to our economy and really our way of life?
Well, VAT is just a way of spelling big government in Europe because that's exactly what we've seen happen there.
They put in the VATs, they promised to reduce or get rid of other taxes.
They didn't.
The same thing would happen in America.
The end result, after all these years, is they have much, much bigger governments.
They didn't reduce deficits.
Deficits in places like Greece and Ireland and England are higher than what we have, and their national debts are higher than what we have.
The only argument for a VAT is if you're a big government politician and you want a brand new tax, so you have new loopholes to auction off to campaign contributors, and you have more money to spend buying votes with the tax money of the American people.
There you have it.
That's exactly what it does.
Plus, it takes more money out of everybody's pocket.
It turns everybody, the lobbyists and so forth, loose.
Bribing, negotiating, paying off whatever members of Congress in the Senate to exempt their companies, their industries.
Chris in Lavonia, Michigan, as we head back to the phones.
Thank you for waiting, sir, and hello.
Hey, Rush, 24-7 Ditto.
See you.
Thank you very much.
Listen, I was at lunch today, and in the little diner I was at, they had TV going with CNN on it, and they had this program they were running for the Catholic Church in crisis that was running, I mean, at least 40 minutes, and it looked like it was going to go on all afternoon.
And I just wanted your opinion.
It seems like this is a rehash of old news.
And believe me, I'm not defending what went on in the Catholic Church at all, either on behalf of the church or the priests.
But it just feels like this might be retribution for the Catholic bishops stepping up against and speaking out against Obamacare.
Just wanted your thoughts on that.
Well, I think that's part of it.
You're right to say the Catholic Church is not innocent here.
But this is really one diocese in Wisconsin that everybody is all bent out of shape here, underwear in a wad over this, added on to what they learned in Boston and so forth.
But what really is going on here is that the forces of the left are in the process of trying to tear down and destroy every institution in America that stands for something other than big government, other than liberal Democrats.
The Catholic Church is despised by the left because of its abortion stance.
It is despised because it is a religion other than the earth.
It is a religion other than liberalism.
And so they full court press in trying to discredit the church.
What they're going to end up doing, though, it's like I just said, if we bail out California, Washington gets more powerful.
If the Pope finally figures out, you know what, these local Catholic churches in their areas of diocese can't control themselves.
Well, we're going to have to do the Vatican may end up getting more powerful here.
It could be a dual-edged sword for these people trying to destroy the church.
Anyway, I got to go.
Quick time out.
We will be back after this.
Don't go away.
You know, I knew this is going to happen.
I was checking emails during the break and I got a bunch of questions in there.
Hey, Rush, you said you got a guy.
You have a friend up at Augusta working the event, and you said he said that there's a bunch of 11s in town.
Where are they?
I'll tell you where they are.
Great little restaurant right across the street from Augusta on Washington.
It's a restaurant called T-Bones.
That's where the 11s are.
That's my T-Bones.
T-Bones, T-B-O-N-Z.
T-Bones.
That's what my Intel says, and I believe my Intel.
So if you're in Augusta, that's where the 11s are.
It's a great menu too.
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