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June 20, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:52
June 20, 2011, Monday, Hour #2
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All right, folks, just so you know something, just so you know, I am being, what's the word, not taunted, I'm being manipulated.
People, oh, snur.
It's not possible to be manipulated, but they're trying.
The fact that I'm not manipulable doesn't matter.
I am being taunted, manipulated into talking about my tea.
Everybody's sending me emails and stuff that require an explanation or an answer to a question.
Like, Dawn, Dawn just sends me a note here.
My favorite tea is a diet original out of nowhere.
I know what that is.
I didn't talk about the tea in the first hour and say, why not?
That's what you're doing.
You only talk about the tea.
I've got this note here.
A friend of mine got a note from a friend and a friend sent it to me.
I have looked all over North Carolina for Russia's two if by tea.
Is it in a bottle?
Is it a tea bag or what?
And where?
I'm a tea drinker.
I'd love to buy it.
Folks, I'm sitting here minding my own business and I'm having this stuff sent to me.
I am being goaded into talking about my own tea, which I will do, of course, in due course.
Just sit tight.
By the way, Friday and Saturday, I told you there were going to be big days because that was delivery day and people got to taste it.
That was the next big stage in the evolution of two, if by tea.
And our anecdotal feedback on this, it was awesome.
It was superb.
Everybody loves it.
Loves it.
And telling us how much in great detail.
And we're reading all of your emails.
So we appreciate that, folks.
We really do.
I'll get to this, explain the details of it, how you get it and where.
And it isn't in stores.
And there's a reason for that purposefully as for now.
But I want to welcome you back, by the way.
Telephone number here, 800-282-2882, Rush Limbaugh in Los Angeles.
I'll be here all week long.
A super secret location.
Couldn't find it if you were paid.
Super secret what?
No, no, no, no, no super secret mission here.
I have a lot of friends who hadn't seen me in a long time.
They begged me to come out here.
And so I said, okay, we have the means and the mechanism whereby to do the radio program for Mount Hammond.
The friends called and I came.
They're desperate to see me.
I understand.
Well, there's a reason why you haven't seen me in New York and you know full well what the reason is.
Now look, I don't want to get distracted here on this on this John Huntsman business.
And let me say up front, I don't have anything against John Huntsman, folks, and I'm not endorsing anybody and I'm not trying to send any kind of subliminal or other message that you ought to not like anybody at this stage in the Republican field.
That's not the point here.
What's going on is so predictable and it's frustrating as it can be.
The reason why the media on both sides, the drive-bys and even the inside-the-beltway conservative intelligentsia, there is this paranoid belief that independents do not like conservatives.
It's no more complicated than that.
It is the belief that if Republicans are to get the votes of independence, that they have to nominate a moderate.
Now, the elections of 2010 throw cold water on that theory.
You know it as well as I know it.
It's BS, but it's a holdover.
It's etched in stone.
It's political consultant 101.
And the reason, put two things together to understand this.
If you are a political consultant and your objective, your job is to get somebody elected, then you automatically are going to believe that your work is made up of appealing to and persuading 20 to 25 percent of the voting population.
The rule of thumb is that 40 percent of the voters are going to go Democrat.
40 percent are going to go Republican.
And the remaining 20 percent, the great undecideds who are smarter than everybody else.
These are the wonderful moderates, the wonderful independents.
You know, these people, you go to the library and you read all about them.
You've seen the book Great Moderates in American History.
I'm sure you've seen that book.
I'm sure you've seen great independence in American history.
You've read those books, I'm certain.
The theory is, therefore, that if I as a consultant can get you elected, I have to do it by getting that 20% to vote Republican.
And they're not going to vote Republican if you're conservative.
And that's what they believe.
They genuinely believe it.
And then coupled with the fact that they themselves don't like conservatism or conservatives.
And it's because of the principle.
You know, conservatives are conservative and they arrive at that intellectually.
There's nothing chosen as a matter of convenience in a conservative.
A conservative is there because it's in his hearts, in his guts, in his soul.
It's not something that's been calculated.
Every other political position is calculated, even being a moderate, but particularly, especially being a liberal.
That is a calculated position.
And it is this devotion to principle, which scares everybody else.
And the confidence that comes with being attached to your principles, your core beliefs, it frightens people.
So that's why throughout the media today, everywhere, ours and theirs, the second coming is announcing tomorrow, John Huntsman.
And it's not so much that Huntsman's the second coming because there's anything particularly special about Huntsman.
It's that he's a moderate.
Now, I know, and you know, that the vaunted independents voted conservative in droves in November.
You might be shouting at your radio, they might have voted conservative, but that wasn't the choice they made, Rush.
They chose to vote opposed to Obama.
Okay, fine.
I'll take that.
They voted against Obama.
What was the alternative?
The alternative was conservatism.
I thought the independents didn't like conservatives.
I've always been told the independents don't want to go anywhere near the social issues.
And they made a B-line for him.
No, they didn't rush.
They made a B-line away from Obama.
Well, yeah, but they ended up someplace in doing this.
There is a mental block, folks.
The Republicans are, certain Republicans are content to lose elections if they maintain allegiance to the belief that conservatism will turn off moderates.
It's the most amazing thing to witness.
And it's frustrating at the same time because these are the people that lose elections.
We've got evidence and data overwhelming, voluminous in its amount.
And still, the Republican establishment will not accept that the coveted independents are conservative on every single issue according to polling data.
According to polling data, Obama's in the minority on every issue.
And if you look where the independents are, they are in the majority.
And they are with the majority, every single issue.
So we have to explain this.
And then you run the risk in explaining it of sounding defensive.
And that's the last thing that I want to do.
So here they're going out talking to John Weaver.
I got nothing against John Weaver.
I don't know him.
I don't think if I saw him, I would recognize him.
All I know is he ran McCain's campaign, and we know how that went.
By the way, speaking of McCain, folks, McCain, he's out there saying all these wildfires out in Arizona started by illegals.
McCain also went on meet the press yesterday and started ripping the entire Republican presidential field for being from the Pat Buchanan wing, for being isolationist, for wanting to enforce the War Powers Act and make sure that what we're doing in Libya is legal.
I mean, this is breathtaking.
McCain is like McCain's a dog and every Republican's a fire hydrant and here he comes.
You get the picture.
And I'm thinking, what is going on here?
There aren't any isolationists out there on our side.
There are people who want to know what vital American interests are at stake.
I have a simple question for Senator McCain and the Democracy Project types.
If your belief is the United States is going to go anywhere, I mean, his quote about, I mean, Qaddafi, he said Qaddafi was on the verge, he was on the people's doorsteps, of their front doors, and he's going to come in and run around and kill people.
Okay, and we should not let that happen.
We got to stop Gaddafi at every chance.
Well, why, Senator and the rest of you in this democracy project, why are you not urging military action in Sudan?
Why are you not urging military action in the Congo?
If it is our place in every case to use our military where there are human rights violations on this kind of scale, where's your demand for our intervention there?
So if Congo and Sudan are not ripe for our intervention, we got to know why.
Libya is good.
Libya fits the bill.
Okay, tell us why.
We need a clearer explanation and definition from all these people.
And I also like to know what they mean by isolationist.
I, myself, I, L. Rushboe, have supported our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I've been on the fence about Libya because I don't really know other than payback for terrorism, which we've already done.
I don't know what vital U.S. interest is there.
If somebody can explain, I think it's Obama using the issue to show his toughness and guts.
But if Libya is the example here that defines isolationist, let's get some definitions for it.
Now, these are the people who are telling us who we need in our next nominee.
And then here's the second paragraph here.
A lot of political handicappers, particularly those on the left who tend to view the Republican base as monolithic and somewhat medieval, doubt that Huntsman can even win enough delegates to earn himself a decent speaking slot at the convention.
Some of the lingo here, some of the more sober-minded Republican insiders in Washington and New Hampshire, though persuaded Matt Bay, writing this New York Times magazine piece on Huntsman, that by distancing himself from some of the party's more populist influences.
Now, who would those be?
Who would the Republican Party's most populist influences be?
Well, if he can distance himself from them, Huntsman is giving Republican and independent voters an option that could not be so easily dismissed.
This judgment has little to do with data and more to do with what Huntsman calls the vacuum in the Republican field.
Huntsman's bet is that some critical mass of moderate Republicans and independents, and there's still plenty of both in New Hampshire, can be persuaded to rally around a less ideological candidate who isn't going to get personal or shape-shift, even if they don't love all of his positions.
If he can instigate a McCain uprising in New Hampshire, where the lack of a competitive Democrat race this year should make for a heavier turnout among independent voters on the Republican side, the fuse might then burn bright through South Carolina and Florida.
Is he just trying to get a little experience in the arena, maybe in advance of 2016?
Is he hoping for a bank shot to the vice presidency?
Does he just want to be heard?
This is paragraph three of about 15 or 20 in this early morning piece from Politico analyzing what it all means that Huntsman's getting in the race.
And he's a moderate, and this is what has them all excited because that's how you get the independents, and they couldn't be more wrong.
And again, Republican Party snatching sure defeat from the jaws of victory by enlisting the architects of defeat in previous elections to tell us what the voters who the voters will vote for and who they won't.
That's what we need.
Lessons from losers.
I don't mean that personally for crying out loud it happened.
How many Super Bowl losing coaches get hired?
Immediately after losing a Super Bowl, how many of them get hired?
That's our game plan.
That's what we need.
We need to get that coach that lost the game.
That's what our organization is missing.
How often does that happen?
That seems to be the Republican Party's way of doing things.
All right, we'll get to your phone calls when we get back right after this.
Okay, let's go to the phones.
I've been promising this, and people have been patiently waiting.
Rush Limbaugh, half my brain, as always, tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Starting in Greenwich, Connecticut, this is Gideon.
Thanks so much for waiting.
Hi.
Rush, two things.
I wanted to defend rhinos.
Also, give you a quick tea review.
In regard to rhinos, which we all know is Republicans in name only, at least on the state level, here in Connecticut, our rhino was Governor Jody Rell.
And it turned out she was the single bulwark against this tidal wave of taxes, which we now have facing us, or in fact, enacted because of Governor Malloy.
So at least on a state level, I think you can make the case for in a state like Connecticut, which like California has, you know, was the two states that did not go along with the Tea Party, shall we say, wave, completely resisted that, went the opposite direction.
At least here in Connecticut, a rhino governor was very valuable.
Well, look, there's no hard and fast rule that happens without exceptions.
And I'm not talking specifically and exclusively of rhinos here.
I mean, there are, you know, moderate Republicans who are not rhinos.
I mean, the real rhino is the full-fledged, unadulterated, no doubt about it, liberal Republican.
And the problem with them is that they end up destroying or corrupting or confusing the definition of what and who a Republican is.
In addition to whatever mistakes they make policy-wise.
Yep, I get it.
And plus, as you said, it's just a perhaps they take us on a slower road down the destructive path of the failed path of socialism.
It's a slower road, but exactly.
And of course, it's all based on a fallacy.
Where do you think the history is?
Where did it begin?
This notion that independents won't vote for right-wingers, that independents won't vote for conservatives.
Where did that start?
I can't imagine because obviously they voted in droves for Ronald Reagan.
Exactly.
So it had to be before that, right?
Who was it?
It was Goldwater.
That's how old this is.
Oh, yeah.
This dates back to Goldwater in 1964.
But since then, you can look this up.
No real conservative has lost a national election since then.
Here are the Republican losers.
Gerald Ford, Bush 41, Bob Dole, and McCain.
They're not conservative.
What do you say, Sterling?
Right.
They're total moderates.
They were the ones who we were told were going to get the independence and finally get the independence to vote for.
The independents did not.
The independents won't vote for conservatives is something that's a holdover from the Goldwater from 1964.
That's how wrong it is, but that's how embedded it's been in people's minds and how it's been passed down generation after generation.
It's bohunk.
All right, now the tea.
The tea.
Two for tea.
I ordered it, and three days later it arrives.
That should happen.
That's very good operation.
Very, very good operation.
Look for this.
It tastes exactly like tea you would make at home.
I have to agree this.
I'm not a paid announcer.
I bought it because I wanted to support the Marine Corps and Law Enforcement Foundation.
Plus, I have to support Rush Limbaugh because if I don't do it and your listeners don't, then you get in a bad mood possibly or worse, and then we lose you.
So we got to keep you.
We got to jolly you along.
That's our number one responsibility.
Whatever works.
Excellent.
I actually like the, and I don't like artificial sweetener, but your artificially sweetened tea has a slightly stronger tea flavor than the regular tea.
I'm glad you noticed that because in our testing, the testers, there were two of them, Catherine and me.
And the one thing that we told ourselves with every different formulation, you better be able to taste the tea in this even after pouring it over ice.
After it gets diluted a little bit with ice, there must be a tea flavor here.
Otherwise, this isn't going to work.
And I'm glad you noticed that because we worked extremely hard making sure that with the raspberry, that the tea flavor was going to, and with the sweeteners, well, not to overpower the tea.
So you are, you're making my day here because you are, you actually came up with something that we work very hard on that matters greatly to this.
Thanks very much.
Brief time out, my friends.
We'll be back much more straight ahead right after this.
Starting a million conversations, Rush Limbaugh.
This is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
You're listening to the most listened-to radio talk show in the country.
It is true, folks, and I think this is even profound when you stop now and remember this.
The Republican Party is a party that is handcuffing itself to a belief that isn't true.
The Republican Party is dooming itself to defeat after defeat after defeat, tying itself to something that isn't true.
Now, I do believe that a number of elite Republicans want it to be true because I think a lot of elite Republicans don't like conservatives.
We've been through the reasons why.
We know that they don't make some nervous, the social issues, particularly abortion.
But when you run a party and your job is winning elections and you insist on getting it wrong, then there's something that needs to be looked at very seriously.
And this belief, and I always wondered myself, where does this come from?
Because recent evidence is always to the contrary.
We nominate these surefire moderate winners and they go down in flames.
And they never even really have a chance.
And the cycle repeats.
They are loved by the media.
I mean, the new McCain is Huntsman.
And before Huntsman, it was Mitch Daniels.
The Mitch Daniels wife says she didn't want any part of it.
So Mitch got out before he got in.
Huntsman's getting in.
And these people are having orgasms, whatever they're like for these people.
The last time independents did not vote for a conservative in a national election was 1964, the Goldwater race.
But since then, no real conservative has lost a national election.
Again, to go through the list of losers for you.
Gerald Ford, Bush 41, re-elect.
Remember, Bush 41 won his first campaign promising to emulate Reagan, promising to give four more years of the previous eight years of Ronaldus Magnus.
And we had Dole.
Then we had McCain.
And there's another factor with all these guys.
It was their turn, too.
They had been loyal soldiers.
They had been loyal to the cause.
They had sacrificed.
It was their turn to go for the gold.
And they fit the bill.
Yes, they were not embarrassing.
Serious people.
They didn't want to talk about the social issues.
All they did was go out and lose.
The winners, Ronaldus Magnus and George W. Bush.
And you throw in the Nixon campaigns, the one that he won, those were campaigns where, believe me, he was counseled to articulate conservatism.
He didn't govern that way, but he ran that way.
Law and order, yeah.
Law and order is a big thing in the Vietnam War and a number of factors there with Nixon.
Now, what was good, the 1964 campaign, there's a lot going on during that campaign, as you all know.
We're coming off the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
We are at the height of post-World War II prosperity.
And there has never been a blowout like that since for the Democrat Party.
That was a genuine blowout.
And it's interesting.
The Republican Party is allowing itself to be shaped by the 1964 race and alternately by Watergate.
Those two things are indelibly printed, imprinted in the collective minds of Republican leadership.
And it comes to independents voting moderate Republican.
They couldn't be more wrong.
And it's breathtaking to sit here and watch these guys recruit loser after loser after loser and then go out and find consultants who are the architects of loss after loss after loss.
And then to hear us or have us be told that these are the guys that know what they're doing.
That you, meaning us, you and me in the audience, we're what's wrong.
We represent the problem.
You pro-lifers, you people who go to church, you're the problem.
You embarrass us.
You're not serious.
Plus, some of you like Palin.
That's even worse.
And so the architects of defeat just keep triumphing and heading on down the pike.
And you know, these rhinos, and a guy from Connecticut called from the Rhine, the Rhinos, they're not moderates, they're leftists.
And I don't, you know, this business of calling us right-wingers.
Folks, the way the ideological turf has been carved up today, I don't think we're right-wingers.
I think we are mainstream.
I think we are in the middle of common sense.
The midterm elections last November should have proved that once and for all.
I mean, the people who voted in those elections in November, they had a clear alternative.
They knew they had two years of a far-left near-socialist administration.
And they showed up and drove to say they don't want it.
They didn't want any part of it, don't want any more of it.
And yet, look, even now, the press in desperation, story after story, say, you know what?
Voters have changed their minds.
Voters are regretting what they did.
Really, you can see these stories.
No evidence for it.
They're just saying it.
And it works with the Republican elite, the intelligentsia.
It works, makes them nervous.
And you really, in addition to everything else, I don't think you can't put too much emphasis on the effect of that election on the JFK assassination.
He was behind in the polls.
The reason he went to Dallas and was on that trip was because he was, at that stage, he was looking at a loss, a re-election loss in the polling data at the time.
Now, those of you who weren't alive then, probably hearing me say this, that you can't believe that.
But don't doubt me because JFK was that Camelot had not been created.
I mean, that Camelot came about after the assassination.
All this buildup, there was paranoia and fear.
John Kennedy was bungling everything.
Bay of Pigs, Bobby wasn't doing so hot with the mafia.
was destined to lose.
What's one of the trip's purposes?
Trip to Dallas.
Anyway, let me go back to the phones.
This is Ken in Detroit.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
I really appreciate it.
How are you?
Doing great, Rush, and thanks for taking my call.
Yeah, I just wanted to comment that John Boehner made a really big political mistake this past weekend playing golf with the president.
When we conservatives went and voted the Republicans back in power back in November, we sent a strong message that we wanted them to be a clear opposition to the president and the Democrats.
We don't want them to be drinking buddies.
And so I think that for Boehner to be going out playing golf, it just sends a bad message to the voters.
And another thing is also our country's at war, Rush.
And just as George Bush gave up golf when he was president, I think that we should also take an example from that.
I'll tell you, you have a point.
I think one of the problems with Boehner playing, and I understand the lure.
I mean, Boehner loves to play golf.
I myself have played golf with Boehner.
Boehner is a six-handicap, six or seven.
He's a good golfer.
And I'm sure he would never admit this, but I'm sure that Boehner, in part, relished the opportunity to go out there and just shellac Obama on the golf course.
But that aside, president calls you, says, let's go play golf.
You're the speaker of the house.
It's tough to say no because then the media is going to take you over to calls, refusing to be civil, refusing to help get together with the president, solve the nation's problems, blah, blah, blah.
That's going to happen in the golf course.
But I think it's just a matter of respect, too.
President calls you to go play golf, you do it.
But the problem with it is two problems.
One is now you can't criticize Obama for playing golf because Boehner did it too.
So if we start making jokes, I mean, it's 13 weekends in a row.
He's played golf, but the retort is, well, so did Boehner.
But the thing to me is, we've got people losing their jobs left and right.
People's homes are under war.
We have dire economic circumstances.
We have war in four different places around the globe.
If these guys are going to get together, do it in a place and under the auspices of actually working on these problems rather than photo ops playing golf, trying to show that everybody can get along, and that only helps Obama.
Showing that everybody can get along, that's another premise they put forth that we somehow think we have to respond to, that people not getting along is our fault.
It's our problem because of the way we are.
This is the guy, Obama, who refused to meet with Boehner or any other Republican leader for the first year, maybe even longer.
If you're going to get together, get together and read the riot act of this guy over what his policies are doing to the country.
Now, maybe that happened on the golf course.
I don't know.
Well, I know the golf course is really not the place where that would happen, but you don't know.
I have no idea.
It wouldn't happen.
Obama is not going to invite me to play golf.
It's already been outside my auspices against my wishes the second time.
Somebody already tried to make it happen.
And it's that, gosh.
No, I'm not concerned about that.
But if I, no, no, no further.
I got to lock my, no.
I don't know what I would say.
I'm not going to respond to a hypothetical with another hypothetical answer.
Snirdly's badgering me here in the IFB.
I know what you want me to say.
Go pound sand, Mr. Obama.
I wouldn't dare waste my life.
That's what you.
Everybody wants me to go do their dirty work.
I got to take a brief time out, but we'll be back.
Don't go away.
Okay, we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh.
We are in Los Angeles.
We will be all week.
If you're just tuning in or if you're trying to find the program on the Ditto Cam, I'm really sorry to tell you, we do not have a Dittocam set up for our California studio because this really isn't a studio other than the days that we are here.
So it's not a broadcast studio at any rate.
And our time out here has been so infrequent, and this trip was a spontaneous decision.
There really hasn't been time to set a Ditto Cam up here.
I think if we begin to come out here more frequently, it is something that we'll look into doing.
But for now, for this week, there is, sad to say, no Ditto Cam.
Here's Ron, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
You're up next.
Hi.
Hello, Rush.
I think Rick Perry is more like John McCain than you know.
He wants, I was watching Greta, and they were flying with the helicopter over the border, and he was talking about how much of a waste of money building the fence would be, as well as the Trans-Texas Corridor or the NAFTA Superhighway, which he's in favor of.
I don't know if you're aware of those two things.
Yeah, there's some things about all these people that I have problems with.
When Mitt went out and answered the question about global warming, oh, yeah, I think it's getting warmer.
I think people are causing it.
I cringe and said, oh, geez, not that.
I mean, it's a hoax, and we know it's a hoax.
And then I found out that Perry believes in in-state tuition for the children of illegals, has talked about the highway stuff that you just mentioned.
As well as the amnesty.
He's more in favor.
He's like Bush.
He wants to push it down our throat.
And I just don't want to see that in a Republican nominee.
Yeah, I don't know about push it down our throat.
I think this is one of the inherent realities slash problems with politics.
And I don't know.
I don't know how you really change this.
What is he?
He's governor of Texas.
What do you have to do to win in Texas?
He obviously thought that he had to appeal to a lot of Hispanic voters.
And the assumption is Hispanic voters want free tuition or very low-priced tuition for in-state illegals, want amnesty and this kind of thing.
Large Hispanic population in Texas.
It's no different than pork and members of Congress and the Senate being regaled and credited for bringing home a lot of bacon and federal spending in their states and so forth.
But every candidate is going to have something like that that's going to disappoint somebody in their support group.
You wait.
Something's going to be up.
Michelle Bachman, they'll find something that will surprise you, that'll surprise people, things that she may have said or believed years ago.
Nobody's pure.
And I haven't, I'm going to be very crystal clear about this.
I have not endorsed Rick Perry, but I'll tell you, When I hear these soundbites, when I hear what Rick Perry said to the Republican Leadership Council over the weekend in New Orleans, forget specifics.
What do you think?
Ask you this very off the top of my head here, Ron.
What was the thing, if anything, stood out to you in listening to Rick Perry?
I didn't listen to his, I didn't listen to the speech.
Okay.
Well, to me, okay, go ahead.
What?
I was going to say, the one that I like best is Jim DeMitt, and no one's even talking about him as a presidential candidate.
He's got the muscle.
He's got, he's consistent.
He never does this pandering like Rick Perry.
Oh, I better try and get the Hispanic vote or whatever.
Is he running?
Well, I'd like to see you push his name in the circle.
That's not.
No, no, wait a second.
I would get to the bottom line.
I'm supposed to do all this.
Well, you got the muscle.
Yeah, that's why I have to be very careful in flexing them.
I agree.
There's a tremendous amount of responsibility that goes with this awesome power that I've got here.
The thing about Rick Perry, if you look at this speech, and we played the soundbites from it today, let me ask you a question, folks.
How many candidates?
He's not the only one, but how many candidates do you hear talking about the greatness of this country?
Do you realize how badly people want to hear that?
Do you realize how badly people want their leaders to believe in the country too?
Do you realize how fed up people are with a current crop of leaders that feel a need to apologize for this country or to criticize it?
That stands out, I'm telling you, because it sadly is something that's so rarely said by elected people in high positions of power.
Folks, look, the only candidate that I have said that I would vote for is Elmer Fudd.
I have not said I would vote for anybody else.
I have made it a point of saying I'd vote for Elmer Fudd over Obama.
So if you want to chalk, yes, it's an endorsement if you want to call it that.
All right, sit tight.
We'll be back before you know it.
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