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May 24, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:34
May 24, 2013, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Right here we are, folks, sitting tight, reared up, revved up, ready to go, Rush Limbaugh on Friday.
Let's hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Great to have you here, folks.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-288-2.
The email address, Lrushbow at EIB net.com.
It's open line Friday.
The greatest career risk taken in modern American big major American media.
Turning the content of the program over to rank amateurs.
Compared to me, highly trained broadcast specialist.
And that's when we go to the phones on Friday.
Whatever you want to talk about is hunky dory.
So have at it.
Whatever.
Question, comment, a brief sentence and a hang up.
If you want to call in protest, if you want to pretend you're code pink, you know, how about that?
How about and folks?
I must tell you, I've I uh at the end of the program, you know, right when the program ended, I I keyed the intercom and I said to the staff, you know what?
I I was gonna remarking remarking how long Obama spoke yesterday.
It was a minimum 45 minutes.
And he was basically proclaiming the war on terror over.
Because uh Americans are war-weary and we've had it, and it's over, and you know, aside from the onesies and twosies, as Christiana Manpor calls it, a war is over.
And I said, you know what I had an observation I wish I would have had it while a program was on, and that is no wonder the speech was going so long.
He's trying to change the subject.
And that's exactly what that speech yesterday was.
A change of subject, trying to get everybody off of the IRS and the and the Benghazi scandals.
And then this this code pink babe, Medea Benjamin shows up.
She was the protester.
That nobody will convince me that that wasn't set up.
Here comes this woman protesting while she's getting exactly what she wants.
The woman wants Club Gitmo shutdown.
By the way, that means we're gonna have to come up with a replacement in our thriving licensed merchandise business for Club Gitmo stuff.
I mean, it's gonna become collector's item stuff if they actually do shut it down, which remains to be seen.
But she was getting everything she wanted.
Her dreams were coming true, and yet there she is protesting, and there's Obama stopping and listening to her.
And telling everybody while he didn't agree with a thing that she had to say, we ought to listen to her.
We ought to listen to what that woman is saying, even though I don't agree with the thing she's saying, which is not true.
He agrees with pretty much everything she was saying, which is why this is the first time that Code Pink has not been thrown out of wherever they were protesting.
That woman went on and on and on and on and on.
So the whole thing was staged.
Like I got a note today from a friend.
Rush, what is with these wild guests hurricane forecasts?
And I said it's a political agenda.
What do you mean the political agenda?
Forecasting hurricane, it's part of the political agenda.
You see, you're asking me why do they make the forecast every year when they have no idea what's going to happen?
I said, have you ever, and I'll just ask you.
Have you ever, do you ever recall a hurricane forecast where they told you that fewer than normal storms were expected.
No.
Every forecast is it's gonna be an exceedingly active season.
Higher, more active than normal.
Everything is political, and it's a way to uh advance the political agenda.
We also had a bridge collapse, which kind of surprised me because you know we we spent almost a trillion dollars to uh repair the bridges in America, and I remember the president talking about it.
Let's go back.
November 22nd, 2008.
Uh this is wait a minute.
Yeah, this is after the election.
This is a but yeah, is his weekly YouTube address.
He wasn't president yet, but he was president-elect.
And he's talking about his uh stimulus plan, is it leading up to the stimulus which he would put in place a few months later?
It will be a two-year nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.
We'll put people back to work, rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges.
How's that working out?
Now the reason I'm playing this is because they're going to try to blame Bush for this before the day's over, if if they're not already.
Well, uh, they'll find a way.
You know that you know that Obama's not going to take responsibility for this, and we've had the stimulus was supposed to repair the roads and bridges.
I know they blame Bush.
That's why I'm saying they'd blame him for this one.
They blame Bush for the Minneapolis bridge collapse.
So here this is the day that Obama signed the stimulus.
This February 17, 2009, it was in Denver at the Museum of Nature and Science.
Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit, building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout our nation.
How many of you low information voters, and I know you're out there, you know who you are, and I know who you are, you know, you know you're there.
How many of you now remember this?
These were the heavy days, folks.
This was February 2009.
You go back to February 2009, I mean we were on the cusp of utopia.
We just elected our Messiah.
Everybody but me believed.
No, no, no.
I'm I'm leave me out of it.
Everybody believed.
You go back to January 2009, I'm telling you, there was this the air was crackling with optimism.
Uh everybody was really excited.
We had this brand new, never seen before politician.
Somebody who was going to eliminate partisanship.
The racial problems were going to be solved.
The country was once again going to be loved by foreign powers.
I mean, this was it.
This this was just almost a month after the immaculation, and here came the stimulus.
And remember everybody in the media, and everybody that voted for Obama bought into every word of this.
I just want you to take, think back.
Remember, because it w mindsets today are nowhere near where they were then.
The country today is in malaise, it's depressed, it's dispirited other than certain pockets, but for the most part, it's aimless.
Everybody seems like every day there's a new institution crumbling or change in the country taking place that people think is not good change.
But these were heady days, and this was the stimulus, and this was gonna put the economy back on track and get people back to work.
Now we were listen to what he said.
400,000 men and women are gonna go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America.
Upgrade mass transit, build high-speed rail lines that'll improve travel and commerce throughout our nation.
And you know the low information crowd that voted for Obama bought every syllable of that.
Now, we just had a bridge collapse, and none of what Obama described as being beneficiaries of new spending actually got any of it.
All of that money went to unions.
All of that money went to teachers and other public employee unions during the recession to make sure they were not laid off.
Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat voters.
Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat donors.
Eighty percent of the stimulus went to Democrat supporters.
None of it went to rebuild bridges and none of it went to rebuild roads and none of it went to rebuild schools.
But back then, back then it was it was exciting, and everybody was filled with anticipation.
Because over 50% of the country bought into this.
They believed it.
They thought this was what's going to happen.
They thought this was good.
They thought this was the proper way to spend money.
Especially to bring us out of economic doldrums.
And we've now learned, we now know, that the bulk of that money went to make sure unionized Democrats didn't lose their jobs because unionized Democrats is a money laundering scheme.
Teachers, other public employee unions pay dues.
Now Obama just can't go to the Treasury and write himself a $900 billion check for himself, the Democrat Party for their campaign coffers.
So what did they do?
They wrote a check for $900 billion and told you they're going to rebuild roads and bridges and schools and levees and broadband connections and high-speed rail lines.
And all they did was send it to states, who then used it to keep their public employees working so that they continued to pay dues.
And a percentage of that $900 billion check that Obama wrote came back to him and the Democrat Party in the form of campaign contributions.
A fantastic and never before described this way money laundering scheme.
Now the day may well come where Obama or a Democrat president can go to the Treasury and write himself a check for him and his party.
But we're not there yet.
So in lieu of that, this is how they have to do it.
There ought not have been a bridge collapse, folks.
We should have been shoring all this up.
The bridge should have held.
It shouldn't have collapsed.
But there hasn't been any work done on the bridge.
And there haven't been any new levies, and there hasn't been any new mass transit, and there hasn't been any new high-speed rail, and there hasn't been vast increases in critical broadband connections to businesses and homes, at least not that Obama has uh has done.
400,000 men and women rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges.
Did not happen.
Just want you to remember how you felt that day.
Now I know you didn't leave any of it.
I know you in this audience knew exactly what it was because you had me admising you.
And you instinctively knew on your own.
But we had low information fee.
We met a lot of people listening that day hoping to hear me sad and depressed and down in the dumps.
People that wanted to gloat over my misery.
And many of those people were Obamaites.
And of course, I wasn't sad and I wasn't giving them any reason to gloat.
I was telling them exactly how they had been defrauded and how they had voted for something that was never going to happen and couldn't happen.
So it's fun to go back, revisit.
Let's go to CNN this morning on newsroom.
This is a portion of how the anchor Carol Costello started her show today.
Happening now in the newsroom, bridge collapse, cars plunge into the freezing water below.
As you head out the door for Memorial Day weekend, how safe are you?
Oh, yeah.
See, since the bridge collapsed wherever it collapsed, yours could collapse over the Memorial Day weekend.
How safe are you?
Your bridge could be next.
Your tunnel could be next.
Your highway could buckle.
A sinkhole could open up and swallow up your house.
How's your weekend?
By the way, Carol Cups, I guess you have to hear this, folks.
Medea Benjamin, the Code Pink protester babe, was on CNN today.
Now you got to understand when Medea Benjamin or Code Pink show up at a Republican-led Senate or House hearing, or a Bush presidential speak in heckle.
Hero status.
They love Medea Benjamin.
They think she broke.
They love what she's doing.
Sheehan was her first name.
The uh Cindy Sheehan.
They love these people when they're harassing Republicans.
But Medea Benjamin showed up and harassed Obama.
I want you to listen to Carol Costello's question and Medea Benjamin's answer.
A lot of them said that you were hurting your own cause because one, you appeared rude to the president of the United States.
And two, you just seemed um a little crazy.
Well, I've gotten a fabulous response, and I think killing innocent people with drones is rude.
I think keeping people who are innocent in indefinite detention for 11 years is rude.
I think not uh uh respecting the lives of Muslim people is rude.
Now, the setup to this.
Carol Costello talked about all the Twitter that she had seen and the Facebook, and she had gone to her Twitter and Facebook pages, and she was just people were responding in ways that were angry toward Medea Benjamin.
They were unhappy with her, and Carol Costello was pained to have to tell her this.
Carol Costello was pained and strained, her face was taut with tension and grimace as she reported to Medea Benjamin that you know look.
They think you're crazy.
They would never say something like that if it had been a Bush protest.
And then you heard Medea Benjamin's answer.
We've got the protest itself.
The whole thing was set up, I'm convinced, because she wasn't rolled out of there.
But it was more of the same.
We've got that and other things.
It's open line Friday, too, so who knows what can happen.
You sit tight, much more straight ahead as we take our first obscene profit time out of the day.
Never hurt anybody.
We sometimes do that on purpose.
Rush Limbaugh, open line Friday.
Let me give you an AP story from July 31st of 2009.
Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier project like reprave repaving roads, according to an AP analysis.
President Obama urged Congress last winter to pass his stimulus bill so that some of the economic recovery money could be used to rebuild what he called America's crumbling bridges.
Didn't happen.
Even the AP admits it.
Now, what happened was a bridge collapsed because of a truck that was too big.
It exceeded the weight limit for the bridge.
So there might not have even been anything wrong with the bridge.
Truck was from Canada, by the way.
Truck was too tall.
Uh probably because the um Canadian driver, I'm just guessing, uh didn't know the clearance for the bridge because he was using metric.
And didn't know the difference between centimeters and feet.
Who knows?
Or he might have been two leaders into the sauce.
Who knows?
Now I don't want to say that.
I don't know that that's true or not.
But anyway, I just no, I don't think I can make too big a deal of it.
If you go back, that that stimulus is what got all of this fraud started.
The stimulus is what got all of this, this phony baloney plastic banana good time rock and roller, so-called economic recovery started.
And the stimulus was fraudulent from day one.
Even this AP story that that that claims that the states spent whatever money they got on easier projects like repaving roads.
That was Trump change.
The vast majority of stimulus money went to Democrat unions, particularly teachers' union in Wisconsin.
Forget the exact percentage.
70, 80 percent of The stimulus money there went to the teachers' unions for the express purpose of making sure that they stayed employed during the upcoming recession.
And it was a payback to them for voting for Obama for raising money for Obama.
They pay their dues.
You know what happens to union dues.
They end up being spent on Democrat campaigns buying ads for Democrat candidates.
It was a way that Obama could secure a percentage of $900 billion of stimulus from the Federal Treasury back to the Democrat Party.
And there was nobody going to oppose it.
He's in his honeymoon period.
He's the Messiah.
He's what everybody hoped we'd been waiting for, finally shown up.
Whatever he wanted to do, he was going to get, and whatever he was going to say about whatever he was doing, he was going to be believed.
We'll be back.
Open Mind Friday rolls on.
Before we get off of this subject of Obama yesterday claiming the war on terror is over and trying to change the subject.
And by the way, he's not going to get away with changing the subject on this program.
Don't worry about that.
I just I want to get in, get this, and get out.
I want to play you the two sound bites where Medea Benjamin of Code Pink goes in there.
Uh and heckles Obama.
He was at the National Defense University announcing the end of the war on terror.
It's over.
Just the ones and twosies are out there.
But what basically this means is the authorization to permit the use of force that was signed by Congress three days after 9 11 in 2001.
That's what's going to be retired.
That's what's going to be essentially expired.
And in that sense, Obama is claiming victory in the uh in the war on terror.
And that's one of the purposes of the speech.
And he's going to go up and close Club Gitmo, but he's going to keep the drone program alive.
So here he's speaking, and then Medea Benjamin of Code Pink intrudes on this.
And I think you could make the case that there's a little bit of limbaugh theorem to learn here.
Let me address it.
Why don't you let me address it?
Why don't you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I'm going to do?
That includes 57 Yemen.
Thank you, ma'am.
It includes Shakira Honor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You should let me finish my sentence.
Now, ma'am, let me let me let me finish.
Let me let me finish, ma'am.
You know, this is part of free speech is you being able to speak, but also you listening.
And me being able to speak.
That's not exactly true, folks.
I the First Amendment doesn't give anybody the right to be heard.
People don't have to listen to you.
The First Amendment doesn't guarantee that once she comes in and intrudes that she has to stop and listen to Obama.
I mean, that may be a nitpicking fine point, but that's not what the First Amendment is.
He's simply describing fairness.
The fact that she shut up tells me this whole thing was rigged.
Normally, Medea Benjamin shows up with three or four compatriots, and she doesn't shut up.
They don't shut up, they keep shouting, they throw things, pink underwear, pink bras, whatever, until it's time for people of the security to come and literally walk them out of there.
But she actually shut up.
After Obama asked her enough times to be quiet to let him finish, she actually shut up.
Somebody has to give her a ticket in there.
Somebody has to grant her permission to get in there, and then somebody has to let her pass when the crowd is entering.
Same thing with a Senate committee hearing.
She doesn't get in there by accident.
So she was in there to serve a purpose.
And I think the purpose is revealed here when it happens again here in the next bite.
Well, you compensate the innocent family victims.
That will make us safer here at home.
I love my country.
I love the Roman law.
And keeping people in that rule of law.
You know, I think that the uh and I'm going off script as you might expect here.
Um the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.
It is.
The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.
Is that why they dragged her out of there?
Because they did there in that bite.
They finally dragged her out.
That's why they dragged her out because she's worth listening to.
What's going on here?
I'll tell you what's going on here is the limbaugh theorem.
Obama ends up agreeing with the Heckler.
Now, he actually he didn't, he said, Oh, that woman, you know what?
The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.
And then he's after that he said, now, as you might imagine, I don't agree with much of anything she said, but it's very important what she said.
So he wanted that said.
He wanted a protester in there saying that, because if Obama himself is being protested by a far left wing fruitcake nut, normally thought to be one of his supporters, and she is, Medea Benjamin and Code Pink and Barack Obama are equal parts radical.
This whole thing had to be staged.
If this in addition to Obama's speaking very long and trying to change the subject, this makes him look like a reasonable centrist when this loony tune walks in there, and then they let her go on and on and on and shout all these grievances.
And then Obama, in true limb theorem style, ends up suggesting that what she is saying is worth paying attention to.
So he's got the left wing base, which is adamant that we close Gitmo, and adamant that every terrorist there be released and have their run of the country here.
So I think we got played again.
Folks, there's a story here from ABC News.
We do sometimes on Open Line Friday we go off the beaten path, and that's why I let callers do whatever they want to do.
Callers will sometimes bring us back to the uh the beaten path.
I go off of it sometimes.
I use open line Friday for things that have nothing to do with the daily ebb and flow politics.
And I've got a story here.
It comes from ABC News, and it's entitled Nine Simple Steps to Happiness.
And I thought, well, let's read this because everybody wants to be happy.
Happiness is an expectation that people have.
It's part of being an American.
It's in the Declaration of Independence.
That we declared that the right to pursue happiness is a right granted by God, that it's part of the natural yearning of the human spirit.
People are constantly seeking happiness.
They're seeking contentment, they're seeking ways out of misery and melees.
So anytime there's a story comes along and tells people how to do it.
I think it's fun to recount it and share with you some of the tips that are offered.
This story starts this way.
A few years ago, Debbie Jankowski went hunting for a way to bring her life new joy.
She found the solution in her bank account.
Quote, I had always been thrifty, but I decided it was time to spend money on things that would broaden my world.
She's based in Philadelphia.
So she splurged on sightseeing in Ireland, jungle roaming in Costa Rica with her husband, along with a yoga retreat closer to home.
These outings have refreshed me and have given me perspective, she says.
New research confirms what Jankowski discovered.
Money can buy happiness.
you spend wisely.
We asked experts to explain this and other happiness strategies, none of which requires rose-colored glasses or doing anything with life's lemons.
And the number one, I don't know if these tips to happiness are in order, but the number one tip or number one step to happiness is buy some bliss, really.
You won't find it at the mall.
Purchasing things like televisions, clothes, and coffee machines, that will not make you happier overall.
But buying experiences maximizes happiness.
This from Michael Norton, a Ph.D., associate professor of business administration at Harvard.
He's the co-author, co-author of Happy Money, the science of smarter spending.
He says that research shows that people who purchased concert tickets or a series of croquet lessons, crochet lessons.
Or simply a Tuesday night dinner out, we're happier than those who spent their money on tangible material goods.
So you can see where this is headed.
That new car won't make you happy.
The new flat screen won't make you happy.
Tell this to the low information voter who's out of work.
And new cell phone, new iPhone that won't make you happy.
That new uh tiny room table won't make you happy.
A new gadget, new toaster won't make you happy.
You need to go live with the frogs in Costa Rica.
You need to go on some sort of life-building experience.
He says it's because we humans tend to get maximum pleasure and vitality from social bonding.
Yet the payoffs start before you leave home.
The anticipation of an experience can be as valuable a source of happiness as the experience itself.
Looking forward to that trip to the frogs in Costa Rica can be just as exciting as when you get there to hang out with the frogs in Costa Rica.
Just looking forward to it.
Can bring you as much joy as actually doing it.
For months afterward, recalling the event continues to make you happy.
You look forward to joining the frogs in Costa Rica, then you joined the frogs in Costa Rica, and you got home from joining the frogs at Costa Rica, and you loved it all.
The cherished memories effect can even work for outings that went wrong.
Other research finds that people tend to remember things as having been better than they were.
You know, that I believe.
I have a in fact, one of the undeniable truths of life.
Nostalgia.
You think back, most people when you think back to times in your life, you remember the good times and even the bad times, you remember the good aspects of time.
The music you liked back then that brings you certain memories.
I think this is actually true.
That people tend to remember things as having been better than they were.
I think there's that there's a psychological element of that that is that is true.
Not that there's anything wrong with a little materialism now and then, he says, but the emphasis is on now and then.
We get sick of even the most amazing things in life that we have them all the time.
Another strategy, buy now, consume later.
Economists talk about the pain of paying effect, the negative feelings of parting with your money.
The more time that lapses between shelling out for something and getting it, the happier you'll be.
So if you're gonna go buy a product that offers no financing and no payments for a full year, go buy it.
You'll be happy.
And then when the year's up and the bill comes due, then you'll be unhappy.
But you'll at least have had a year of happiness while you haven't had to pay for it.
Which is why certain businesses offer payment plans like that.
And more and more of them are.
I'm sure a lot of people, what the hell is that?
No debt, nothing finance, no nothing down, no financing, and no payment for a year.
And those things sell like hotcakes because people do enjoy it, and there's a sense of not having had to pay for it for a year.
So it's it's a it's exactly right.
It's the tax increases with the f the future generation.
You can sit around here today and you can agree with tax increases on your kids and grandkids that you'll never have to pay, and you'll be happy as hell that you're doing something for the deficit.
Well, you're not doing diddly squat.
You see how this works.
And there are practical political applications to all this, which is where I'm going, but I have to take a brief time because it's ABC News folks.
Don't think this story has nothing to do with politics, because everything in the drive-by media always has to do with politics.
Now I'm not going to go through all nine steps on the keys to happiness right now.
But look, the next uh let's see, let's do the next three.
Number two, simple step to happiness.
Get older.
Well, you know that I agree with that.
Every phase of my life I wanted to be old.
When I was 10, I wanted to be 15.
When I was 15, I wanted to be 18.
When I was 18, I wanted to be 21.
At 21, I wanted to be 30.
When I was 30, I wanted to be 40.
When I was 40, I wanted to be 50.
I have always wanted to be older because life gets better.
And I'd always seen that.
When I was young, I wanted to be an old person in charge of my life, making my own money, in charge of myself with my own responsibilities.
I wanted to be under the thumb or out from under the thumb.
I wanted to be out there doing what I want.
In my case, it's been true.
Every year has been better than the year before.
Every year has been better than the year before.
I'm now 62.
Now I can't, I'm not going to honestly say I'm looking forward to being 75, but I'm not afraid of it either.
I'm not sitting here wishing I was 40.
I don't wish I was 30.
I mean, you fantasize about that.
You'd love to go back and be 30 knowing what you know now and be able to run rings around people, but can't do that.
But it's true.
Getting older.
I'm amazed how many people fear that.
It's just for me, it has been right on point.
These desires I've had to be older were no matter.
When I was 15, when I was 12, I wanted to hang around with adults.
They were having more fun.
It was just that simple.
And their lives had meaning.
They weren't looked upon as a bunch of know-nothing schlubs.
Number three, simple step to happiness.
I love this one too.
Forget self-improvement.
Forget all these books about how to make yourself better.
And by the way, self-improvement has been the cornerstone of being a baby boomer.
The baby boomer generation has had it so comparatively easy to their parents and grandparents.
I've always said we've had to invent our traumas.
We've had to invent traumas to tell ourselves how hard our lives are and how stressful our lives are.
And all the sacrifices that we're making.
And everything being relative, lives for people today are stressful.
But in a comparative sense, what our parents and grandparents as baby boomers had to go through, we haven't had anything like those challenges.
But nevertheless, we've invented our traumas, and we have created the same amount of stress they had.
Point is we had to.
And so after we created all of our traumas, then we created the self-improvement books.
And this whole phenomenon of self-improvement.
Basking in what's already great about yourself is more effective than trying to fix what isn't great about yourself, according to Willebald Ruck.
PhD, a professor of psychology, University of Zurich, who studies character strength and happiness.
Identify your strong suits with the free values and action inventory of strength survey that they provide here.
And think about the good things about yourself.
Think about what's already great instead of focusing on what's wrong with you.
But we baby boomers have been obsessed with what's wrong with us.
We baby boomers have been assessed, obsessed with our traumas and our trials and tribulations.
We've been obsessed with the pressures and the stresses that we face.
And rather than focus on the good things that we've got, the greatness that's achievable.
And it's true, this I think this is very true.
The other tip that I like here, make tough stuff work.
Even layoffs and broken bones can have silver linings.
I'll never forget those three days of shows that we did with these laid-off 50-year-old white-collar workers.
And we took calls from these guys, and then uh stayed in touch with them some months later.
And the vast majority of them who could not go out and get jobs to replace what they had been fired from, decided to start their own businesses or at least do what they'd always loved to do, but never had done because they were too busy with their job.
And age 50, they said they were never happier.
Never happier.
They finally were doing what they'd always wanted to do.
Make tough stuff work.
That's what that's wrapped up in.
Fastest three hours in media.
First hour is in the can, and it's on the way over to the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum, the virtual museum, the forerunner of what's to come.
You ought to see it at rushlimbaugh.com.
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