Imagine for a moment that you are a small-business owner looking to hire a new employee. As tough as the economy has been, you’ve managed to put your firm on track to expand.

Now imagine facing a lawsuit for requiring perhaps one of the most basic qualifications for job applicants – a high school diploma. You don’t have to imagine that last part. It’s now an unfortunate reality thanks to guidance recently issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The “informal discussion letter” states that requiring a high-school diploma as a qualification for employment may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, which the EEOC enforces. Therefore, an employer must prove a high school education is “job related and consistent with business necessity,” or face potential fines or lawsuits brought under ADA.

Employers should take note. Despite this being an “informal” letter, EEOC investigators and trial lawyers will undoubtedly use this to their advantage. It continues an unfortunate pattern of federal agencies quietly making policy and stepping up enforcement on small businesses for the slightest missteps.

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Did you know your recent appointee to the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Peter Bell of Autism Speaks, has a long history of supporting pseudo-science that can harm children? It’s true; Autism Speaks’ Executive Vice President of Programs and Services supports the widely debunked and incredibly harmful theory that vaccines cause autism.

Many people don’t know that one of the most important people in the Autism Speaks camp is an anti-vaxer. It would be an embarrassment to Autism Speaks if they had to admit that they still hold onto a bogus theory that could potentially kill children.  Thank goodness Left Brain/Right Brain’s Kevin Leitch is paying attention.

There is more. In January of 2009, Autism Speaks withdrew its support of the Inter-Agency Autism Coordinating Committee’s (IACC) Strategic Plan for Autism Research when IACC made a decision not to include research objectives connecting vaccines to autism. As a result, Alison Singer, a high-ranking official from Autism Speaks resigned. In an interview with Newsweek, Singer stated:

At some point, you have to say, “This question has been asked and answered and it’s time to move on.” We need to be able to say, “Yes, we are now satisfied that the earth is round.”

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Now we know why President Obama isn’t spending any time fighting a war on unemployment. He’s too busy fighting his war on coal.

Indeed, while the past few months have seen tiny signs our economy might be growing despite Obama’s anti-job policies, the White House is ramping up its effort to make sure our labor force is expunged of every last coal job it can find. It’d be humorous if it wasn’t so real.

If we start exposing this radical nonsense coming out of the Obama EPA, conservatives can push back on these bad policies. Environmentalists rarely get their way when people actually pay attention to what they want to do.

The latest battle will be coming any day now, as the EPA has said it will issue its Utility NSPS (New Source Performance Standards) sometime in January. Any new utility plants will have to meet a new set of environmental standards – standards that conveniently work out great for natural gas but are prohibitively expensive for coal plants, even new ones, to meet.

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Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the Obama Administration on the list, in alphabetical order, include:

• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

The Fast and Furious operation by itself should have resulted in Holder’s resignation, but it is the cover-up that has prompted serious calls for Holder’s ouster. (more…)

Against the expressed wishes of Obama White House lawyers, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to resolve the Obama Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the State of Arizona over its get-tough illegal immigration law (SB 1070). The decision comes just weeks after the High Court announced it would take on a lawsuit over the constitutionality of Obamacare, setting the stage for two extremely contentious legal battles in the middle of a heated presidential election year.

According to Bloomberg:

The U.S. Supreme Court said it will consider reviving the trailblazing Arizona law that would use local police and prosecutors to crack down on illegal immigration.

Already set to rule on President Barack Obama’s health-care law by the middle of next year, the justices today added another high-profile case that has implications for similar laws around the country and for the 2012 elections.

On April 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction against the enforcement of some of the law’s provisions, prompting the State of Arizona to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

Back in September, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of our client, the Arizona State Legislature, which is now a defendant in the lawsuit in support of the Supreme Court petition. And as I said in a press statement at the time, “We hope the Supreme Court accepts the State of Arizona’s petition, protects the rule of law and upholds the rights of the States to protect its citizens.”

Well, we’re one step closer. (more…)

The White House continues to tip its hand on Obama’s reelection strategy even before 2012 rolls around. High on the priority list for next year: make the Tea Party a toxic brand. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer singles out conservative Congressmen Allen West and Joe Walsh as the reason Obama’s payroll tax holiday may not be extended, failing to address concerns over the Senate’s version of the legislation which only extends the holiday for two months.

From MSNBC:

Speaker Boehner’s position on Sunday was not the position that he had on Saturday when the 89 Senators came together to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. Let’s think on that. 89 Senators, the Republican leadership. You can’t get 89 votes in this day and age for apple pie, yet they all supported this. The did it with the understanding that the House would approve this two-month extension and Speaker Boehner got on the phone with his caucus, tried to sell it. He had a Tea Party revolt. He reversed his position and he’s now putting danger, a tax increase of a $1000 on 160 million Americans in like 12 days now.

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The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental communication accounts, which a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA requests. This “cloud” serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Although this is seedy and unlawful at any time, it also goes in the “bad timing” file, especially for the Obama Administration and the UN.

Just as a brand new book further exposes the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (whose scams I dissected here, and in more disturbing detail here), and on the heels of the weekend surprise of a 2005 memo showing President Obama’s cooling/warming/population zealot of a “science czar” John Holdren is the kind of guy Mitt Romney turns to for developing his “environmental”’ policies, we’ve exposed the Obama administration and IPCC have cooperated to subvert U.S. transparency laws, operating domestically out of Holdren’s White House office.

With this morning’s Freedom of Information Act request, the explaining they have to do must begin by providing the taxpayer certain records regarding — including but not limited to — user names and passwords for a backchannel ‘cloud’ established to hide IPCC deliberations from FOIA, thereby also seeking to undermine the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978. (more…)

If you were to pile Hollywood’s most talented black actors, actresses, and singers into a room, many of them would echo the same sentiment towards the Tea Party movement — that they are, in effect, little more than a fringe racist organization.

It was Samuel L. Jackson most recently who, while entertaining children at a “Reach Out and Read” benefit that featured other well-known thespians such as Julianne Moore and John C. Reilly, decided to follow in the footsteps of the Congressional Black Caucus, all while chatting up a reporter for the New Yorker:

While we were on the subject, we asked Jackson if he agreed with fellow thespian Morgan Freeman, who caused something of a ruckus recently after he claimed that the tea party is racist. “It’s pretty obvious what they are,” Jackson told us. “The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means,” he said, echoing Freeman. “It’s not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame.”

Of course, Jackson did not simply come out and say what he believes. Apparently, he was one of only two beings (the other his shadow) that hadn’t been informed of the “N-head” controversy (if it can even be viewed as such) of Republican hopeful Rick Perry. Jackson made it abundantly clear that he was convinced the “shock rock” (as a close associate referred to it) wouldn’t affect Perry negatively. After all, “He’s a Republican and this is America”. You see, Mr. Jackson not only believes that Republicans are inherently racist, but that the same holds true for the entirety of the United States. That is what the real shame is. (more…)

This is all that remains of the very popular Ford commercial that went viral on the internet and was featured on cable news channels over the past three weeks:

According to the Detroit News, Ford has pulled the ad due to pressure from the Obama White House:

Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ‘09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart.com, the “star” of the popular ad, Chris McDaniel told me he was “a little bit flustered’ by Ford’s decision. He found out about it during a live radio interview this morning.  “I had no idea.  As soon as I got off the interview, I sent an e-mail to Ford’s VP of Marketing.”  He told me,  “I put myself out there on the line.  You either stand behind it or you don’t.”

Ford has not yet returned Mr. McDaniel’s e-mail.

A note posted by Ford Motor Co. on Facebook responding to the controversy says:

“(W)e were not coerced into pulling the ad down. The campaign continues to run. We took the ad out of rotation after 4 weeks which is consistent with the typical lifecycle for the campaign.”

But this explanation is inconsistent with the past practice of Ford and their handling of these commercials.  Other “press conference” style ads that they have produced are still available on YouTube, but the one featuring Chris McDaniel has been removed.

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During Thursday’s House Education & Workforce hearing, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) described the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) actions as creating a hostile environment for business. Wilson claimed that the pro-Big Labor Obama NLRB created an unintended consequence for Big Labor.

Rep. Wilson said that the NLRB’s actions have turned the 28 force-unionism states into “Roach Motels” that will trap employers with the help of the NLRB, and prevent them from ever leaving or expanding outside these states’ borders.

Wilson said that the NLRB actions translate into only one option for employers if they are going to locate in the United States, and that is to build and locate in at least one of the 22 Right To Work states.

Wilson emphatically said, “In fact, you must locate in a Right to Work state.”

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Oh the scandalizing books ahead of election time. I remember them well and how work-place liberals loved to quote from their pages when it was the Bush team in the White House. Between them and the liberal press, one would think everyone was apart of the Bush administration besides you. Karl Rove was the devil incarnate, Bush was a pea-brained, and Cheney called the shots from inside his lair. Together they were all in a State of Denial but hell bent on empire and other neo-conservative designs.

Those were the good ol’days for liberals. But Obama was going to be different — just you wait! Obama’s supposed genius, moderation, and infinite wisdom enabled him to put together a team of the nation’s brightest. His team of rivals was second to none in the history of the world. A trusted team comprised of men, women, gays, Hispanics, blacks, and whites. Truly it was an inclusive team that bared the soul of a decent, humble, and empathetic man. Ivy League types, of course, but you get the picture.

Obama has said he admires Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wonderful Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals. “He talks about it all the time,” says a top aide. He is particularly intrigued by the notion that Lincoln assembled all the Republicans who had run against him for President in his war Cabinet, some of whom disagreed with him vehemently and persistently. “The lesson is to not let your ego or grudges get in the way of hiring absolutely the best people,” Obama told me. “I don’t think the American people are fundamentally ideological. They’re pragmatic … and so I have an interest in casting a wide net, seeking out people with a wide range of expertise, including Republicans,” for the highest positions in his government (Joe Klein).

That was the story anyway. The real one is much more believable.

The book, by Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, quotes White House documents that say Mr. Obama’s decisions were routinely “re-litigated” by the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers. Some decisions, including one to overhaul the debt-ridden Citibank, were carried out sluggishly or not at all by a resistant Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, according to the book.

Mr. Suskind quotes from two memos for the president in which Pete Rouse, a senior White House aide, wrote, “There is deep dissatisfaction within the economic team with what is perceived as Larry’s imperious and heavy-handed direction of the economic policy process.”

A copy of the book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,” published by HarperCollins, was obtained by The New York Times before it officially goes on sale on Tuesday. The White House declined to comment on Mr. Suskind’s account, which he said was based on interviews with more than 200 people, including the president.

The book offers a portrait of a White House operating under intense pressure as it dealt with a cascade of crises, from insolvent banks to collapsing carmakers. And it details the rivalries among figures around the president, including Mr. Summers; Mr. Geithner; the former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel; and the budget director, Peter R. Orszag.

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OBAMA REGIME TAKES BILLIONS FROM TAXPAYERS – BLOWS IT ON FAILED GREEN PROJECTS–

The Obama Administration spent nearly half of the $38.6 billion ($17.2 billion) set aside for his green energy programs and was only able to create 3,545 permanent green jobs.
This comes out to a staggering $4,853,000 per job.

Obama continued to push green energy initiatives in his 2011 State of the Union Address.

The Obama Administration has blown billions of taxpayer dollars on green energy and has only succeeded in producing a few thousand jobs.

The Washington Post reported:

A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show.

The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies.

President Obama has made “green jobs” a showcase of his recovery plan, vowing to foster new jobs, new technologies and more competitive American industries. But the loan guarantee program came under scrutiny Wednesday from Republicans and Democrats at a House oversight committee hearing about the collapse of Solyndra, a solar-panel maker whose closure could leave taxpayers on the hook for as much as $527 million.

The GOP lawmakers accused the administration of rushing approval of a guarantee of the firm’s project and failing to adequately vet it. “My goodness. We should be reviewing every one of these loan guarantee” projects, said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

Obama’s efforts to create green jobs are lagging behind expectations at a time of persistently high unemployment. Many economists say that because alternative- energy projects are so expensive and slow to ramp up, they are not the most efficient way to stimulate the economy.

“There are good reasons to create green jobs, but they have more to do with green than with jobs,” Princeton University economics professor and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder has said.

And you really wonder why the US economy was downgraded? With leadership like this?

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There are some very interesting numbers coming out of Alabama since their passing landmark immigration reform in June. How about decreasing unemployment and increasing passport applications?  Yes, Mexican nationals are overwhelming passport offices to secure passage for themselves and their “anchor” children BACK to Mexico.

While radical leftist groups have joined with the Obama Administration Justice Department to assail Alabama for doing locally the job the Feds refuse to do, common sense law and order types now have numbers to show who is right.

Teresa Ferguson is a Mama Grizzly who had never been involved in politics until she singularly took on the challenge of ending the devastating effects of illegal immigration in her community.  After getting hit and run by an illegal in a town in which the majority of kindergarteners are children of illegals and brothels and methamphetamine are rampant, she decided to take action.  She began by reaching out to candidates for statewide office, insisting they visit her county to see the damage first hand.

One candidate for governor actually took an entire day out of his schedule to visit Marshall County.  Alabamians now call the responsive candidate Governor Bentley.  He signed the legislation in June.  Another lawmaker who visited with Mrs. Ferguson, State Senator Scott Beason called on Alabamians to get serious and “empty the clip” on the issue.  He joined State Representative Micky Hammon in passing HB56, the most comprehensive, common sense illegal immigration law in the country.  The law, despite being enjoined by the courts, has nevertheless produced amazing results yet to be reported anywhere.

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For a man who once said “typical white person” during a radio interview to describe his grandmother’s actions toward a black man who kept bugging her at a bus stop, his words of advice to Perry seem comical. Or his overt disdain for middle-America and their archaic tendencies to “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

“I certainly think threatening the Fed chairman is not a good idea,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

“When you are president or running for president, you have to think about your words,” Carney said in Iowa, where Obama was on a campaign-style bus tour.

I also distinctly remember President Obama telling his buddies to bring a gun if they (the opposition) bring a knife to the fight, and to go out and “get in people’s faces.” What about when he told a crowd of Mexican and Latino voters that they should work with him so that they both could “punish their enemies” (again the opposition).

However one views Perry’s comments toward the Fed Chairman is their concern. In fact, a fellow Texan, and GOP colleague, disagreed with his “treasonous” comment. Karl Rove said Perry made a mistake and his remark was not presidential. I’m sure you will hear many more comments like that. I suspect he has already received several phone calls from concerned supporters telling him to be more selective with his language.

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Following the fire storm over our call in Big Government last week-end for an investigation of potential Presidential and Administration leaking of the Standard & Poors downgrade of the AAA credit rating of the United States; the Securities & Exchange Commission has formally requested S&P disclose who at the company knew about the downgrade, “as part of a preliminary look into potential insider trading.”

According to the Financial Times:

“The inquiry was made by the SEC’s examination staff, which has oversight of credit rating firms, one person familiar with the matter said. The SEC examination staff has the power to make referrals to the SEC’s enforcement division if it believes any laws have been, but the inquiry might not result in a referral….

Proving someone leaked information about the downgrade, or traded ahead of it, could be challenging. Many traders anticipated the downgrade and bets could occur across numerous securities or currencies without inside information. In a traditional insider trading case, there is often a more predictable correlation between a company’s stock price and a particular development.”

An investigation coming so soon after a trading event, usually means that the SEC “Stock Watch” computerized surveillance system has discovered large concentrations of profitable trading activity involving “material non-public” information prior to an event.

By Tuesday the Daily Mail British newspaper published a story attributed to stock brokers in London’s financial district; that a secretive hedge fund turned an $85 million highly leveraged futures speculation placed a few days before the downgrade, into an $850 million profit. Rumors are now swirling that the name of that “lucky” investor was Obama Administration super-supporter, George Soros.

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President Obama says he doesn’t like bullies. The White House has even launched a website to help kids and parents recognize the signs of bullying and advise them on how to get help.

Maybe the White House should take its own advice, as the individual mandate portion of Obamacare is nothing short of bullying American citizens into purchasing something they may or may not want or need.

Take a look at this short video from Momthink.org:

The video depicts a group of kids playing on a playground, and a big, mean bully coming in and forcing them all to buy lemonade – whether they want it or not. The idea is that the kids playing are Americans, and the lemonade stand bully is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The bully demands that the children purchase his lemonade, and when they can’t afford it, he takes their toys as payment.

The White House articulates three points that bullying involves: 1) An imbalance of power, 2) Intent to cause harm, and 3) Repetition. Let’s take a look at how these concepts apply to the individual mandate laid out in section 1501 of the health care law.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Chuck DeVore to talk about the uprisings in the Middle East and how it could lead to a war against Israel.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Chuck DeVore: The Next Middle East War
Egyptian generals speak about revolution, elections
Egypt’s liberals worry about loss of clout as Muslim Brotherhood rises

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Has President Barack Obama been deceiving America, with his Ethics Executive Order 13490?  It certainly appears that the actions of the Obama Administration are far from his recent statement that he has “put into place the toughest ethics laws of any Administration in history [pause] in history.” A host of Obama’s appointments call into question the President’s commitment to his own Ethics Order.  Appointments such as U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Sec. Hilda Solis, DOL Deputy Solicitor Deborah Greenfield, and NLRB Board member Craig Becker undermine Obama’s claim of “toughest ethics.”

Now, the National Right To Work Committee introduces John Lund,  Obama’s “overseer” of union financial reporting and disclosure at DOL’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).  This Obama appointee is a former director of the now-defunct Pacific Northwest Labor College,  a former SEIU union employee , a fomer IUOE union employee, and former director of the University of Wisconsin School for Workers.   Lund’s appointment means that he is now in charge of investigating financial mismanagement and irregularities by the very labor union officials he has trained for decades. (click to view the NRTW shocking handout on Lund)

Big Labor Payback Job One for Obama

Even though Obama campaigned on transparency and a focus on ethics, cronies at DOL focused on eliminating basic financial union disclosure and union officials’ conflict-of-interest disclosures requirements.

At DOL, John Lund cut the number of labor union investigators, rescinded disclosure of union officer benefits, eliminated financial reporting for unions like the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and eliminated conflict-of-interest reporting for thousands of union officials.  Each of these actions benefits Big Labor Bosses, but undercuts those forced to pay union dues and fees as a condition of employment.

John Lund Conflicts-of-Interest

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As readers of Big Government know, an impasse over a few billion dollars in proposed spending cuts threatens to shutdown the federal government. (And, by a few billion dollars I mean, rounding error.) As regular readers should also know, I’ve come to embrace a shutdown, rather than fear it.

As this recent Congressional Research Service report explains, if the government were to shutdown, an OMB Directive issued in the 1980s (along with a handful of legal opinions) guide what parts of government continue to function and what parts must close down.  Short story, all of the important functions of government, i.e national security, the military, air traffic control, border security, Social Security payments, etc., will continue to function. The parts that have to shut down…well, lets just say they are candidates for permanent cuts. I mean, if the country functions for several weeks without a few hundred thousand ‘non-essential’ employees, couldn’t we probably function without them forever? I’m not saying every one of these jobs should necessarily be eliminated…but it isn’t a good place to start?

Sensing the potential PR nightmare from this, it seems the Obama Administration may have decided to raise the stakes on a shutdown. According to draft guidance from the Pentagon, the Obama Administration will require military personnel to report to work…but, will hold their paychecks until the impasse is resolved. As Government Executive explained in a March 15th article:

Military personnel and exempt Defense Department civilian employees are required to continue working without pay during a government shutdown, according to guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In a memo prepared earlier this month, Defense officials noted that service members and some civilian workers, including those involved in national security and the protection of life and property, still must report for duty but will not be paid until Congress appropriates funds to reimburse them for that period of service. All other employees will be furloughed, the memo stated.

Military personnel are not subject to furlough.

This is new.

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