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March 27, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:35
March 27, 2015, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Doing that which I was born to do.
My name is Rush Limbaugh.
I am America's real anchor man.
I am the guy that drives the left insane.
I'm the guy responsible for making them insane.
I'm the guy responsible for infusing the left with an out-of-control, out of containment, even possibility of being contained hatred.
And for that, my friends, I gave a gold star, and I take it proudly.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
You might say, what's Rush talking about?
Well, I'll tell you what I'm talking about here in just a second.
And this could happen every day.
I mean, I can I can talk about something like this after every day because it happens every day.
I just don't talk about it as often as it happens.
Anyway, it's Open Line Friday.
It's great to have you here as we wrap up another exciting busy broadcast week on the one and only EIB network.
Open line Friday, as you now know, means that there are fewer restrictions on what callers can discuss.
I have at it.
Whatever is on your mind is fair game.
800-282-2882 is the number.
So a friend of mine, Jay Nordlinger, who is uh a prominent writer and editor at National Review, sends me an email this morning.
And he's just feeling just sick.
Just sick to his stomach.
He happened to be at Avery Fisher Hall last night, Lincoln Center in New York.
He went to hear a uh a concert by a noted classical composer named John Adams, who I've never heard.
You know what?
I ought to actually print this out and read it rather than paraphrase it, and I didn't think of that, and now.
Well, I'm I'll paraphrase it first, and then when I get to a break, I'll print it out.
I wasn't thinking.
I wasn't even going to mention this.
I don't know what caused me to bring it up now, but I've uh I'm gonna mention it since I'm committed to it.
So anyway, I actually the note came from Jack Fowler at National Review, who informed me of a post on the corner blog at National Review that Jay Nordlinger uh posted last night about 11 o'clock.
And essentially what what Jay said, and this is the paraphrase, he'd gone to Avery Fisher Hall to enjoy a concert.
Some new composer, not new composer named John Adams, classical composer, and this was a symphony for violin and uh some such movement or whatever.
And the composer decided to take to the microphone and explained to the audience, it's a black tie audience, Avery Fisher Hall, what it was that inspired this particular symphony or piece or movement that he was performing, conducting whatever he was doing last night.
And he said he had been in Paris in Europe, and he was reading Arabian Nights and he was reading other tracks, and he was just stunned when he found out all of the discrimination and hatred and mistreatment of women in the Arab world.
And then he paused and said, You can find that here on Rush Limbaugh.
And he said, What happened next sickened him.
The audience in Avery Fisher Hall applauded for nearly two minutes.
The composer referencing me as no different than militant Islamists in their treatment for women.
He said made him sick.
It reminded him of Orwell, writing in 1984 of the two-minute hate.
He said, This applause went on not for two minutes, but it was sustained and it made him sick because it literally so off the wall it was it was ridiculous that here we had a composer who Jay happens to admire.
I have since delved into this guy, and I found out that not a whole lot of people do.
But Jay happens to admire his work, is going to review it later.
And he's sitting there, obviously one of the few conservatives and maybe only conservative in this audience at Avery Fisher Hall.
He said it just sickened him to see these ignoramuses, my word, start applauding the reference to me as no different than military Islamists in terms of how women are treated and so forth.
And he uh he then went on to castigate the composer and said some nice things about me.
Um here it is.
Let me let me read to you exactly as Jay wrote the piece.
Tonight, the New York Philharmonic, that's what it was.
The New York Philharmonic, premiered to work by John Adams.
Adams, probably the most famous and important composer in the world, classical composer.
His new work is Sherazadi, number two at Dramatic Symphony for Violin and Orchestra.
And before the performance, Adams himself took a microphone and spoke to the audience about the work that he described and how it came about.
He had seen an exhibition in Paris about Shahera Zadeh, and then he read Arabian Nights, and he was appalled by the casual brutality towards women depicted therein.
At the same time, he was reading of the brutality toward women around the world in Egypt, Afghanistan, and India, for example.
But we were not to think we Americans were exempt from this brutality against women.
For example, you can find it on Rush Limbaugh.
To this remark, the audience responded with sustained and robust applause.
In 1984, Orwell writes of the two-minute hate.
The applause in Avery Fisher Hall did not last for two minutes, but it went on long enough.
And then Jay goes on to describe, you know, how it it sickened him and so forth.
And it did just, it it was classic.
It's another example of just the mention of my name sends these people into orbit.
And he makes the point, quite obviously true, that probably nobody in that audience has ever taken the time to listen to this program.
I have just, I am the official bogeyman of the left.
And so we had a little email back in straight back back and forth today.
And I told him, I said, no, this stuff doesn't I long ago ceased being bothered by this.
In fact, I've had to learn how to take this as a measure and sign of success.
And uh, and it clearly is.
So anyway, that's what I was talking about, the opener of the program being the one who inspires the most hate among people on the left who are already engaged in hate.
Uh, ladies and gentlemen, have you heard about Harry Reed?
Harry Reed saying no mass.
Harry Reed announced that he will not seek real.
By the way, does anybody believe that Harry Reed really had an accident with his exercise machine?
Anybody really believe that's why Harry Reid is still bruised and is still wearing dark glasses.
What months after this accident with his exercise machine?
I don't believe for a minute that whatever happened to Harry Reed has anything to do with an exercise machine unless somebody repeatedly threw him into it.
Harry Reid looks like and is acting like, and now with this announcement, behaving like somebody who may have been beaten up.
Nobody, I've never seen anybody have an accident with an exercise machine.
It ends up suffering symptoms, much like Harry Reed's for as long as uh as Harry Reed has.
Well, no, David Coke is a close second, but I think I inspire more hatred on the left than David Koch does.
But it's a tight race.
You know, David Koch donated 25 million dollars to some hospital, and the nurses protested, wanting him to give the money back because he didn't really mean it.
He was only giving him 25 million dollars to hide the fact he's a racist pig and a sexist.
And interestingly enough, Avery Fisher Hall sits right across the quad there from the David H. Koch Auditorium at Lincoln Center.
He donated enough money to either renovate or have a new auditorium built, and they named it after him, of course.
So the left shows up at the place seeing David H. Koch Auditorium, and they walk into whatever they go to at Lincoln Center, enraged when they see this guy mentions my name before the uh the performance of his stupid symphony.
So anyway, Dingy Harry, the tough tactician, let me read it as the New York Times, the tough tactician, who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek reelection next year, bringing an end to a three decade congressional career that culminated with his push of Obama's ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance.
Dingy Harry, 75, who sustained serious eye and facial injuries in a January one accident with his exercise machine at his Las Vegas.
See, it's my point.
January 1st, it's March 20 with three months.
And you still have signs of injury for an accident running into your exercise machine.
Anyway, the point here, ladies and gentlemen, I I think as we look at the political landscape, a number of prominent Democrats are resigning and retiring.
And it's a trend.
It's not just now.
We've had a number of Democrats announced they're going to go.
It's also rumored that Pelosi may get out.
And when this kind of thing begins to happen, the Democrats don't want to be there if they're not running the show.
They don't want to be in Congress when they're in the minority.
And I think I'm pretty safe in saying it, Dingy Harry's retirement, and there could be numerous reasons for it, many reasons, including those that could have led to him being beaten up by his exercise machine, has just decided he doesn't want to be in the minority.
And he's probably figured out the Democrats are not going to win the Senate back and may not win the White House in 2016.
He doesn't want to be there.
Wants to go home, spend more time with the family with the grandkids.
He wants to teach him how to do screwball land deals before time runs out.
Maybe spend some more time on a new exercise machine.
Maybe build a bunker underground where people that threw him into the current exercise machine can't find him to throw him into the new one.
But we've had a very famous run-in with Dingy Harry on this program.
Dingy Harry once attempted to have your host, your beloved fuzzball leader, me, censored and silenced.
Dingy Harry applied pressure to the chief executive officer of my then syndication partner, Clear Channel Communications, a man by the name of Mark May.
You remember this?
It was over this totally made up controversy involving the phony soldier.
Let me take a break, come back.
I want to, because this is one of the high points of the EIB network, what happened.
One of the major victories that we have had here over the Democrat Party and a leader in that party, a humiliating, overwhelming defeat of Harry Reed.
And what we did on this program was an illustration of how you can fight back to these people and win if you just have the desire to do so.
For those of you new to the program, maybe at Avery Fisher Hall last night, listening for the first time today, uh, and are not aware of what I'm talking about.
Do not go anywhere.
You don't want to miss this.
For those of you who remember it, it'll be fun to relive it as we go back to the grooveyard of forgotten favorites right after this.
It happened eight years ago.
It's unbelievable to me how fast time is going.
Eight years ago in 2007, it was it was in September and October.
And the short version of this is that a man claiming to be a veteran of the Iraq war, came back to the United States and began bashing the American military, bashing the war effort, bashing George Bush.
We did a little research and we determined the guy was a fraud, that he had never been to Iraq.
He had never been in the U.S. military.
He was a leftist plant, much like Cindy Sheehan was.
Totally made up, and the media was supporting Him, and the Democrat Party was supporting him, and he was a total fraud.
And I ended up calling the guy a phony soldier.
And this irritated Harry Reed, who only knew about this from reading from a propaganda website called Media Matters for America, which was also lying about all of this.
So Harry Reed or somebody in the staff reads the account and thinks that I have maligned a real hero as a phony soldier.
Now, what made this exciting or enticing to the Democrats is that they had already coined the term phony soldier.
The Democrats, if you, if you remember in this period of time, this is 2007, they were doing everything they could to impugn the war effort.
They were doing everything they could to secure defeat for the armed forces because they wanted to hang that defeat around the neck of George W. Bush.
And so they were any military person that came along and told any tale about how rotten the military was, about the atrocities we were committing, and this was part of this phony guy's story, the Democrats ate it up.
They ate it up, and it didn't matter that it was as big a lie as Harry Reed's lie about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes.
They ran with it.
Well, they were using the term phony soldier, and Harry Reid, somebody staff comes across the propaganda piece on media matters and thinks they've got me.
Harry Reed goes to the floor of the United States Senate and reads a letter that he had sent to the then CEO of Clear Channel Communications, my syndicating partner.
Man's name is Mark Mays.
Harry Reed called him Mark May.
And the letter begged or asked, and it's, you know, you're a CEO of a major American communications conglomerate.
Many of your properties are regulated by the federal government, the FCC.
You get a letter from the Senate majority leader suggesting you do something, and there is a lot of implied intimidation.
And Harry Reed knew this.
And the letter that Dingy Harry composed and sent to Mark Mays, he read verbatim on the Senate floor.
And he asked Mark Mays to censor me, to make me apologize, and to think seriously about allowing me to continue.
And then after reading the letter, he then did indeed send it.
And Mark Mays did indeed receive it.
At which point I had an idea.
I got hold of Mark Mays, syndication partner, CEO, Clear Channel Communications, and I asked him if I could have the letter.
For the purposes of auctioning it on eBay.
Because what that letter represented was the long arm of the federal government making a direct assault on the First Amendment rights of an average ordinary American citizen.
That would be me.
The First Amendment is clear.
The government shall not abridge the right to free speech, particularly free speech political speech.
Not to mention, folks, that everything Harry Reed asserted was a lie.
Remember, the phony soldier was a phony soldier.
He had never been in Iraq.
He was making up the details of the atrocities he had seen, and they were bad.
And they were typical.
American soldiers were raping Iraqi women, they were frightening and terrorizing Iraqi children.
They were behaving basically as brutes, and they were going from town to town, leaving a trail and a path of destruction.
And of course, this is what the left wanted to hear.
They ate it up, it became true in their minds.
And when it became obvious that this guy was phony, dingy Harry decided to try to expose me as a critic of the military.
And that was his big mistake, well, one of many big mistakes.
But no matter what people knew or thought of me, nobody was ever going to believe that I was anything other than one thousand percent behind the American military.
And Harry Reed, believing the propaganda he had found at media matters, decided to try to convey to the American people and anybody else who'd listen that I was the one attacking the valor and the dignity and the character of uniform military personnel.
Mark Mays gave me that letter after I requested it, sent it to me, and allowed me to use it however I wanted, which I thought was a profound act of courage and bravery.
Remember, his company has properties, radio stations, the TV stations that were regulated by the federal government.
Easily intimidated.
Some people in that position are.
He could have said, not Russ, let's leave this alone.
That's not that.
But he gave me the letter.
We put it up for auction on eBay as an example of the government trampling on the Constitution.
It's a great historical example, I said.
And I said, whoever buys this donates the most to buy it.
Charity I named, I will match it.
I am holding in my formerly nicotine stained fingers a copy of Harry Reed's letter to Mark Mays.
It was October the second of 2007.
Not only did Harry Reed send the letter, it was signed by, I think, every Democrat in the Senate, including Senator Kennedy, signed by Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Chuck Schumer, Tom Dung, Z. Parkin, Jack Reed, Frank Lautenberg, Hillary Rodham Clinton's signature is on the Harry Reed letter to Mark Mays.
Me read to you the last two paragraphs.
Active and retired members of our armed forces have a unique perspective on the wall and offer a valuable contribution to our national debate.
In August, seven soldiers wrote an op-ed expressing their concern with a current strategy in Iraq.
Tragically, since then, two of those seven soldiers have made the element sacrifice in the rock.
Thousands of active troops and veterans were subjected to Mr. Limbaugh's unpatriotic and indefensible comments on your broadcast, Mr. Mays.
We trust that you will agree that not a single one of our sons or daughters or neighbors and friends serving overseas is a phony soldier.
We call on you to publicly repudiate these comments.
Call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.
Never mind the fact it was the Democrats who were impugning uniform military people day in and day out.
Oh, yeah, you want me to recall a couple of how about the Marines in Haditha, accused of rape.
The accusation was made, and there was Jack, Jack, what's his name?
The Congressman from uh from Pennsylvania and John Kerry.
Jack Mertha, they've signed in right onto it, accepted it before there was even a trial, just the charges alone.
John Kerry went further and said American troops are terrorizing Iraqi women and children trampling into their homes late at night.
They knew that they were the ones that owned the image of anti-military, Harry Reid, the Democrats.
So they thought this was an opportunity, this phony soldier thing, to transfer supposed anti-militarism to me.
And that's what the purpose of the letter was.
When all of these Democrat signers on it, folks.
And so Mark Mays gave me the letter.
We put it up on eBay for auction as a glaring, glittering example of an attempt by a ranking member of the United States Senate to intimidate and silence an average ordinary American from the floor of the Senate via a letter to a business partner.
We put it up, and I said that whatever amount of money we get for this, I'm going to match it, and we're going to donate it to the Are You Waiting For It, Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which has been one of my top charities since it was formed in the mid-90s.
The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation provides College scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action.
And during massive events like 9-11, they extend the scholarship offerings to the children of men and women killed in action from other services, the Air Force, the Secret Service, the Navy, you name it.
Well, the bottom line is, ladies and gentlemen, that we ended up collecting a top donation of 2.1 million dollars.
And I had pledged to match it.
So that meant that 4.2 million dollars ended up being donated to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation because Dingy Harry went to the floor of the Senate and attempted to use me to impugn the United States military.
It was one of the greatest reactions to a public event by the people in this audience that I have ever seen.
The woman that came the top bit, and by the way, there was a contest.
There were two people bidding back and forth in the final days.
And we finally got to 2.1 million.
And I'd promised to match it.
Had no idea was going to get that kind of money, but it did, and I matched it.
Outside the beltway.com have a story, Rush Limbaugh nets 2.1 million dollars for phony soldiers letter.
Limbaugh auctioned off a letter signed by Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, 39 other Senate Democrats condemning his phony soldiers' comments for 2.1 million dollars on eBay.
He is matching the total, donates 4.2 million dollars to a charity benefiting the families of Marines and police officers wounded and killed in the line of duty.
What did Harry Reid do?
After all of this, Harry Reid went back to the Senate floor and attempted to take credit for all of this.
Have you forgotten that?
He went back to the Senate floor and said, This is the kind of great thing that can happen when people work together for a common good.
His original attempt was to essentially silence me.
He ended up being publicly humiliated, and then his last act was to try to glom onto it, take credit for it, and act like he was the one ultimately responsible for it all happening because this is what he wanted.
And here's what Harry Reid said, trying to take credit.
This all over this went from October 2nd, when it's the date of his letter, all the way to October the 19th.
So basically two and a half weeks, every day.
Phony soldier, eBay, letter up for auction.
The price kept going up.
It was exciting.
Harry Reid was being humiliated each and every day.
So on the 19th of October, Harry Reed goes back to the Florida Senate.
He says, Now everyone knows that Rush Limbaugh and I don't agree on everything in life, and maybe that is kind of an understatement.
But without qualification, Mark May, the owner of the network that has Rush Limbaugh and Rush Limbaugh should know that this letter, that they're auctioning is going to be something that raises money for a worthwhile cause.
I don't know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children are fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty, have the opportunity for their children to have a good education.
I don't know what we could do more important than help.
What do you mean we?
Senator Reed.
The phony soldier I was talking about, Jesse McBeth was his name, and he had falsely claimed he was a decorated Army Ranger war hero who took the stage at numerous anti-war demonstrations.
He claimed that he was an Army Ranger, killed more than 200 people, many at close range, including some as they prayed in a mosque.
In reality, Macbeth didn't even make it through six weeks of Army basic training.
He never set foot in Iraq.
He was a phony soldier, and he was being promoted by the Democrats as an anti-military spokesman, attempting to discredit the military in George W. Bush.
On June 7th of 2007, Macbeth pleaded guilty to one point of making uh one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
He admitted he filed a bogus claim for VA benefits 2005, which included a fraudulent military discharge form.
He said on the forums he had been in the Army for more than three years.
He had achieved the rank of corporal.
He claimed he had been awarded a purple heart that he was discharged because he suffered from PTSD.
It was all lies.
Every bit of it made up, and the Democrats probably knew it.
And yet they used him.
Rally after rally after rally.
And when I pointed this out, that's what got this whole ball rolling that I was accusing a great hero of being a phony soldier.
And they tried to turn this all around into me being the anti-military guy.
End result, Harry Reed humiliated Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation with 4.2 million dollars.
And we got a great parody tune out of the whole deal to boot.
It's Open Line Friday.
Always try to get started on the phones in the first hour on Open Line Friday.
Harry Reed retiring is a story, but doesn't mean that we're not going to get to all the other stuff.
The Iranian Nuke Deal, we're going to get to it, the sick pilot, German wings, uh lots of stuff to get to today.
Just hang in there be tough.
If you hang in for the rest of the program, you'll hear everything you need to hear.
And as a bonus, you'll hear what to think about it.
But we start in Manhattan with Melanie, and it said Melanie, you were at Avery Fisher Hall last night, it says, is that right?
Yes, hi, Rush.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you very much.
Yes, I was, and I was in about the third to last row in the back, and I was so happy to read uh Jay's blog on National Review.
Um but I did boo John Adams, and I gave you a shout out, and I was told basically to shut up by the people that were sitting around me.
What was the crowd, though?
Is it two thousand people?
What's what's Avery Fisher Hall holder?
What was the capacity last night?
Any idea?
Um I would say about a thousand people.
And it was packed.
Packed, yeah.
It was packed, and the majority of people clapping were in the front and whooping it up.
I don't believe that Jay heard me, but I was outraged.
It ruined my entire evening.
I think you and Jay was stunned.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I was just so stunned, and I'm still very upset about it.
It was completely inappropriate and completely out of context.
Well, I appreciate your sentiments.
Um I I really do.
You and Jay must have been the only two people in there.
Well, my friend Trish was with me, and she absolutely was outraged as well.
And the reason that I called you is I just wanted to let you know that someone in addition to Jay and my friend Trish in Manhattan, um, in the land of leftist loons has your back.
Well, I appreciate more than you know.
I really I I don't know how to thank you for that, because it there's no way I can tell people how much that means.
There's just no way I can convey that to people.
It's right.
I've heard you come and speak in New York City.
I'm a huge fan and a huge listener, and you are right on everything you say and everything that you do for us conservatives.
You can be anything in New York City.
You can be a murderer, a thief, a liar, but don't you dare be a conservative.
No, that's right.
That that that's exactly that's exactly right.
I'm on my I'm on my pulpit.
Well, good.
Don't leave it.
Stay there.
Stay there.
Don't be a f you obviously are not afraid to speak up.
So don't don't lose that.
Keep keeping courage.
No, I was almost ready to walk out, but I thought I would be being rude to my friend who paid for the tickets.
How much were the good violinists how much did it cost to attend the uh the performance here orchestrated by John Adams?
About a hundred and twenty-five dollars a pop.
Is that all?
You know, rush to exclusive show.
Well, I was in the back row.
Get scalped for more than that.
And if a rush to excellent show ever drew a thousand people, they would cancel them.
Well, I will I hope they give me my money back.
Well, I doubt that.
But I think it's a great thing for you to ask.
I can imagine you're sitting there, you're you're did did you go because you were interested in his music?
Well, I I love the film harmonic and I love the violin.
And there was a woman who was going to do a solo performance at that show.
So I was very interested in hearing that.
And I'm so this guy stands up and starts explaining the source.
The inspiration for his classical piece was how appalled he was to learn how mistreated women are in the militant uh Muslim Arab Islamist whatever world.
And then he says, but by the way, you know, it's typical of liberals.
They just it's not and he goes after you.
Well of all people, I've been listening to you for 20 years, and I'm a woman.
He doesn't scare he.
He doesn't listen.
He's just, he's just I'm the bogeyman.
I I'm just I I my name epitomizes and encapsulates all of their hatred for conservatism.
So this but see the point is this guy's standing up there, and he he realizes what he's doing.
He's telling people that his inspiration, he has been inspired to write this piece on the basis he was so appalled at the way women are treated in various parts of the world.
But then as a good liberal, he had to say something to let everybody know that America's no better.
So he says, and by the way, you can find it here on Rush Limbaugh.
And that's when the audience started their nearly two-minute applause.
None of them listen to the program like you, Melanie.
None of them have the slightest idea what happens here.
It doesn't matter.
They know what happens here because they watch the Daily Show or because they read Media Matters, or basically whatever sewer on Twitter they happen to uh to visit.
That's how they know what happens in this program.
They wouldn't dare tune in here like you do.
Anyway, I'm kind of shocked that we had uh somebody in the audience, this audience at Avery Fisher last night.
Thousand people.
Uh Melanie, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
Here's uh here's Josh in Salem, Oregon.
You're next.
Great to have you.
Hi.
Rush, it's been twenty-two years since I've been trying to get a hold of you, talk to you to break through the through the snarly barrier, and I finally did it today.
The snerdly barrier of the power tie.
Um, I want to r uh you probably remember this.
You can play back the tape, but I remember you were talking with a caller, and he was the one who had he as I believe if I remember right, he was a soldier, and he was talking about that uh the the phony soldier comment, and you either you had trouble hearing him, but you repeated it, and then you go, yes, yes.
And that's when Harry Reid and Media Matters jumped on you, and that started the whole thing.
No, that's right.
That's a great memory.
It was a caller talking about Jesse McBeth.
And that and the caller did refer to him as a as a phony soldier, and I agreed, uh, and we began talking about it.
Look at Harry Reid is like anybody in the audience at Avery Fisher Hall last night.
He had no idea what he was doing.
He had not heard it.
He was totally trusting whatever he had read or been told about it by the schlubs at Media Matters or the people on his staff, and they thought see, they're so obsessed, folks, with taking me out.
They thought they had it then.
This this is what was so delicious about this.
They really thought that that was gonna be the one that was gonna take me out of uh service forever because it was gonna destroy my credibility and expose me as a fraud.
And instead the exact opposite happened.
4.2 million dollars to a military charity because of Harry Reed's idiocy.
It was a great thing.
By the way, there's another scandal involving Mrs. Clinton that is said to delay further her presidential announcement.
And right in the middle of it, ladies and gentlemen, is none other than Harry Reed.
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