This past week New Orleans reclaimed the title of America’s deadliest city after seeing murders jump 141% over the last couple of years. In New Orleans, the murder rate is a staggering 52 per 100,000 people. That compares to the national average of 6.9, the highest it’s been in a quarter century, and the 50 per 100,000 in Venezuela, the most dangerous country in the world .
If New Orleans were an outlier, it would be a shame; the fact that it’s not is a tragedy. Instead, New York, Chicago, Portland, LA, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and other American cities are part of the club. Crime has been up across America over the last two years, in most cases dramatically.
We’ve always had crime in America—such is the price of freedom—but what we are experiencing today is something altogether different. It’s not just crime. America can sometimes be a dangerous place. Everyone knows working the midnight shift at a convenience store is riskier than working the day shift at your local library, just as common sense tells you the odds of getting into a fight in a bar on a Saturday night are far higher than at church on Sunday morning.
And to be clear, this is not Antifa thugs and BLM cultists burning down cities. Protest, even violent protest, has been part of American history since its founding and is mainly event-driven, like Shay’s Rebellion, the Vietnam War protests, the riots after MLK’s assassination, or the acquittal of the police in the Rodney King video.
Image: Criminal (edited) by h9images .
No, this is something different. It’s one thing to rage against the machine; it’s another to commit violence against citizens, particularly when they are unsuspecting innocents or compliant victims . This is today’s issue, which we see taking place across the county, from urban jungles like New York City to Midwestern communities like Salt Lake City .
What America’s experiencing today is exponentially worse than the typical crime that America is used to—and the truth is, young Black men and, increasingly, young Black women are perpetuating most, although far from all, of it.
Violence is not only going to a new level in terms of frequency but also its locales. It’s no longer limited to dark corners or deserted parking lots. It now occurs in the middle of the regular hustle and bustle of Americans’ daily lives. It’s taking place in broad daylight, in full view of video cameras—often with others videoing the carnage to share on social media. Violent crime occurs on Main Street USA, in schools, drugstores, fast food restaurants, subway platforms, high-end retail stores and, of course, homes.
We see large groups of young people blitzing stores, grabbing merchandise off shelves, and running out with smiles on their faces. We see “shoplifters” methodically clear store shelves of merchandise and simply stroll out the door, unconcerned about getting stopped or arrested and often assaulting employees along the way.
Moreover, an element of violence seems unprecedented in its scale. Almost daily, we see random innocent people on subways or stairs or in restaurants getting shoved, kicked, or punched. We see fast food workers attacked as customers come over or around counters and spark mayhem. We see bus drivers attacked, shop owners beaten, and cops spat upon. Indeed we see countless instances where robbers beat or shoot victims even after taking whatever they were after. We also read daily of innocents of all ages killed in the crossfire while sleeping in their beds, standing in a bar, or sitting in their cars.
There also seems to be a racial element to this new crime wave, with black perpetrators targeting a disproportionate number of White or Asian victims. Make no mistake, though. Now, as always, the single largest group of victims of this crime wave is black citizens.
The question is, why is this happening? What has caused an increasing number of black Americans to believe they can rob, beat, and even kill their fellow citizens with impunity?
No doubt, there are countless contributing factors, from missing fathers to failing schools to social media, but those problems (at least the first two) have existed for quite some time. No, the reason for the sharp jump in violent crime and unhinged behavior on the part of large numbers of primarily young Black Americans is the Democrat proposition that everything bad that happens to Blacks results from racism. As such, Blacks are not responsible for their choices. Therefore, they should not be held accountable for their actions.
Ronald Reagan once said, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” That is precisely what the Democrats have been doing with violent crime. While they are not yet directly paying criminals to attack their fellow citizens and rob local businesses, they are subsidizing crime nonetheless.
On the one hand, George Soros-backed Democrat prosecutors from coast to coast are demonstrating their pro-criminal empowerment bona fides by refusing to seek bail for most arrestees, refusing to prosecute countless misdemeanors, and simultaneously undercharging countless violent crimes as said misdemeanors. On the other hand, you have Democrats effectively decriminalizing an entire swath of crimes or eliminating bail for almost every offense .
Indeed, the lunatics running Illinois have just passed a law that eliminates bail for virtually every offense below 1st-degree murder and prohibits police from arresting or removing trespassers caught in the act while burglarizing a home or business. That means that, if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night and you call the police, first, you’ll be lucky, given the Democrat “Defund the police movement” if police respond while the trespasser is still there and, second, police are literally no longer allowed to remove them from your home .
All of this is happening exactly when America’s cultural and political elites are telling young Black Americans that the system is rigged against them; that they’re incapable of succeeding when playing by the rules; that most white people hate them; and that, if they break the law, there are no consequences to be had. That is literally a recipe for societal collapse.
Today in Democrat-run America, only the criminals’ rights matter, never the victims…and the fact is that most of the victims of this American renaissance of violence are, in fact, Black Americans. That is, the new rules victimize the very people about whom Democrats pretend to care.
To accumulate power, Democrats have leveraged the fictions of “systemic racism” and millions of “White supremacists” running wild, and Americans of all races are paying the price. But this is exactly what happens when politicians pursue policies of balkanization and victimization, setting groups of Americans against one another to achieve power. The Democrats and their grifter partners thrive, while all of America’s citizens suffer.
America was founded on the principle that all men were created equal in the eyes of God and in the laws of man. While the execution of those truths has been imperfect from the beginning, it has consistently improved for over 200 years, bringing Americans freedom and prosperity unmatched in human history. Those benefits include black Americans, who make up fully 8% of American millionaires .
In just half a generation, Democrats have undone 200 years of progress and created a violent cage match between demographics in the public square. The result has been a body blow to civil society, mayhem in cities, and blood on the streets (most of it Black). Yet somehow, Black America continues to vote Democrat in Stalin-like numbers . Perhaps they should reconsider..
George Soros, the Obamas, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, and many other wealthy, elite, no-borders, one-world Marxist climate zealots have an iron grip on the Democrat Party from bottom to top. Are the elites deliberately choosing weak people so as to control them from behind the curtain? We know they have done that with Biden, Kamala, and Fetterman. Is this their new modus operandi; choose the weak who will bow to the strong because the weak are more palatable to voters than the strong? M.B. MATHEWS
Texas Judge Lowers Capital Murder Bond to $9K — Suspect Released for $900 Photos via Fox 26 Houston Video Screenshots 3:08
HOUSTON, Texas — A Texas district court judge reduced the bond for a man charged with Capital Murder to $9,000. The suspect is out of jail after paying a $900 fee to the bondsman, according to Houston Crime Stoppers.
180th Criminal District Court Judge DaSean Jones lowered the bond for accused murderer Eric Todd Semien from $50,000 to $9,000, Fox 26 Houston’s Randy Wallace reported . Seiman’s bond had been reduced two other times and in both cases, the bonds were revoked for breaking bond conditions.
Semien is accused of murdering Javier Moreno and Rober Pantoja in May 2016. Three others are charged in connection with the murders.
“They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well,” Houston Crime Stoppers Andy Kahn told Fox 26.
In 2017, Semien walked out of jail after posting a $150,000 bond but ended up back in jail four months later after violating the conditions of his bond, Wallace reported.
“They (the court) reinstate the bond, but they lower the bond to $50,000,” Kahan explained. “Normally when you get your bond revoked, they raise the amount. But this one went dramatically down.”
Semien ended back up in jail again after being convicted for evading arrest. That court sentenced him to 60 days in county jail.
Judge Jones then lowered his bond yet again. This time to $9,000.
“I have never in my life seen a bond that low for capital murder,” Kahn stated. “I’ve never seen a bond that low for murder.”
Houston businessman, attorney, and columnist Bill King said he has never seen anything like this.
“Capital murder is one of the clear exceptions in Texas law that you can completely deny bond,” King stated. “A $9,000 bond, you pay the bondsman $900. So for $900 he was able to get out and is roaming around the city of Houston right now.”
Judge DaSean Jones, a Democrat, took the bench of the 180th Criminal District Court in January 2019. He is currently on the November general election ballot in Harris County. Jones faces Republican challenger Tami Pierce. Jones was not opposed in the 2022 Democrat Primary election in March.
Fox 26 sent a news crew to Semien’s apartment in northwest Harris County to try and get a comment.
“Judging by the eviction notice on the door and all the stuff outside, Eric Semien is long gone,” Wallace reported.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team . He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face .
Are Democrats Deliberately Choosing Impaired Candidates?
Once could be excused. Twice is suspicious. Three times seems like a strategy. Are Democrats choosing infirm, intellectually challenged, feeble people to run for office so that they can be easily manipulated?
Joe Biden was and is clearly infirm, physically, psychologically, and cognitively.
John Fetterman is also clearly infirm due to two things: He has had a recent stroke which seems to have left him cognitively impaired, and he also has a rather prominent swelling on the back of his neck, which could be the sign of several very serious conditions.
Kamala Harris is intellectually suspect, linguistically incontinent, and verbally incoherent. Why are these people being chosen by the Democrat Party for the highest offices?
My observation leads me places I would rather not go. With Joe Biden in the White House, he is clearly doing what he is told by others. This much is clear; he simply does not have the stamina, the wisdom, or the political acumen necessary to be an effective President of the United States. His gaffes, his verbal dyslexia, his delusional prevarications, his garbled verbiage, and his ability to reliably make statements his handlers have to mop up afterward, are all deeply troubling. No political party would run such a candidate unless two things were happening: One, the election would be guaranteed to affect a win for the candidate, and two, the candidate would simply be a figurehead for the real powers behind the throne. Biden would have to know that others would be running his presidency. Were he and Jill that easy to roll?
If someone offered a Democrat the most powerful position on the planet and told him, “Don’t worry, we will do all the hard work, you just relax and sign the papers,” wouldn’t most Democrats close the space between them and a pen at the speed of light? Biden would have to have assumed that his old buddy, Barack Obama (and his underlings) would be doing the heavy lifting, allowing Lunchbucket Joe to cruise, basking in the reflected glory without lifting a finger.
The bulb in Kamala Harris' attic is also known to be a little dim. She is supremely arrogant, lacking in leadership and a decent work ethic. She is lazy, entitled, and is unable to keep staff due to her abrasive and very ambitious personality. She was not even able to get enough votes from her own party in 2020 to get on the ticket for POTUS and is so impaired on so many levels that no one wants much to do with her. So imagine our surprise when she was chosen by the Democrat Party as Biden’s running mate. The most unpopular Democrat candidate gets to be vice-president without having a single thing to offer except her well-documented pliability. Kamala’s myriad word salads and bizarre rants about “working together” and the “passage of time,” to name just two, reveal a vapidity that is hard to explain unless her intellectual betters viewed her as malleable in return for the perks of being Veep. She is a mental cipher now a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
John Fetterman’s candidacy seems to be another cruelty perpetrated on the American public in the name of winning at all costs. The candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania has physical and mental problems that preclude coherent statements and reactions to the pressures of running for office. He has already revealed he is not up to the job .
Yet Fetterman is another case where the Democrat Party has chosen the weakest, not the strongest, candidates. It is almost as though the party has made a decision to deliberately choose impaired, malleable, but ambitious people who have failed in their past attempts at wielding power or who are recognized as those who might sell their souls for some power. Were the candidates told, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this"? Were they told, "We’ll handle the voting aspect of this, you just do what you’re told and you’ll cruise your way to power”?
It would make sense if this were indeed the case, because we already know that the Democrats’ insatiable lust for power creates new cynical methodologies: Choose the weak to represent the stronger powers behind the thrones. A malleable winner is preferable to a strong, self-sufficient winner who may not take orders from the real powers behind the thrones. That the Left has an agenda is clear; it involves weakening the populace through policies such as a national gun registry . But they cannot put those policies in place unless the selected leaders promote those radical agenda items which further the leftist cause.
George Soros, the Obamas, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, and many other wealthy, elite, no-borders, one-world Marxist climate zealots have an iron grip on the Democrat Party from bottom to top. Are the elites deliberately choosing weak people so as to control them from behind the curtain? We know they have done that with Biden, Kamala, and Fetterman. Is this their new modus operandi; choose the weak who will bow to the strong because the weak are more palatable to voters than the strong?
After all, why run candidates with minds of their own when you can run a candidate who has a mind that can easily be hijacked for radical leftist causes?
Image: Governor Tom Wolf
The DOJ and FBI are beyond fixing
Republicans and conservatives like to say that we must reform the Justice Department and FBI. I disagree. If we win the majority in Congress, they both need to be gone. That means completely gone, with no attempt to reform or rebuild them. That may sound like an overreach but the time to restore our constitutional republic is upon us.
Do any of us really believe that we are somehow safer or more secure with an intact DOJ and FBI? They are irredeemably corrupt. Weeding out some of the more sinister miscreants within those organizations will not change the culture that has evolved over the past few decades. We have already tried that, and it made matters worse.
We should thank Barack Obama and Joe Biden for clearly illustrating to the American people the dangers inherent in an enforcement arm of the federal government. We are now living in a police state that will, through intimidation and force, move the country toward one-party rule and totalitarianism.
How many more lives must be destroyed before we all understand that we are under attack for what we believe including (indeed, especially) exercising our First Amendment rights? It has moved far beyond just Donald Trump and virtually anyone associated with him. Now, if you sell pillows for a living and in any way suggest that you believe the 2020 election was a fraud, then you’re on the list for FBI harassment and possible arrest. Never mind all that “free country” and “Bill of Rights” stuff.
Image by Andrea Widburg.
This is obviously not the American way. It is, however, the type of behavior that was instrumental in stirring up the American Revolution. We are witnessing a “long train of abuses and usurpations.” President Trump recently said that, if he were to serve a second term, he would fire 50,000 swamp creatures across several government agencies. God bless him, but that number is woefully inadequate. It literally needs to be upwards of a million pink slips if we are ever to restore our constitutional government.
I understand that people have become accustomed to the nanny state and that we need to move forward slowly, with respect for both the constitution and the rule of law, but we’ve been going in reverse for more than a century. There are now well over 400 federal government agencies, and almost all of them are unconstitutional. People are beginning to understand that the “nanny” can morph into an unholy witch at a moment’s notice. Our representatives need to start making big changes to try and unravel this mess before it consumes us. Defunding it is a good place to start.
The Constitution clearly spells out the government’s role. Nowhere does it call for a government police force. There is also little doubt that, as matters now stand, removing the DOJ and FBI would enhance domestic tranquility. These rogue agencies consider half the American population their enemies. That’s hardly a recipe for domestic tranquility. We did just fine without them for nearly a century, and we would be better off if they were gone tomorrow.
After all, the Constitution intended for the states to absorb the policing duties that are now assigned to the federal government. If a state “department of justice” and its police force become corrupt, that does not affect the lives and rights of American citizens in the same way that it does at the national level.
It’s also easier to fix corrupt agencies belonging to the individual states. Those institutions are closer to the people and can more readily be protested or elected away. If a state government becomes in any way oppressive, people have the option of leaving. Most would not but, depending on the level of oppression, many would.
You need look no further than what is happening in California today. A torrent of people is leaving the state. This solution is not available at the federal level. Most people do not have the means to leave the country and would not want to leave if they did. They are Americans.
If the government needs lawyers to defend itself or to prosecute individuals within the government, they can be hired out of the private sector as they were before the DOJ’s creation. Think of how much money would be saved yearly—somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a trillion dollars.
What manner of ominous changes might we face without ten thousand government lawyers and their police force? Perhaps, securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? Maybe an American renaissance? The pre-COVID booming Trump economy was largely the result of his efforts at deregulation. Downsizing the government is the ultimate form of deregulation and what better place to begin than with the corrupt police state.
Frank Liberato is a pseudonym. ..
Running the World into the Ground
The actions of the people who are in charge of governments are supposed to benefit the countries they serve -- in theory, at least. In practice, the opposite is true. In the West, our leaders are destroying everything they can get their hands on.
This is certainly an apt description of the Biden/Harris administration. They inherited a healthy country from President Trump. The economy was taking off, inflation was practically nonexistent, the U.S. was energy independent for the first time in decades, and the border was closed. So what did Biden do? He immediately set out to reverse everything Trump achieved.
Who can claim to be better off under Biden? The economy has tanked, inflation is at a 40-year high, people can’t afford to heat their homes or fill up their cars with gas, crime statistics are off the charts, and confidence in America is at an all-time low. Biden’s open-border policy, which is opposed by a majority of American citizens, is leading to social unrest and economic chaos. A country without a functioning border is not a country, yet that is where Biden has taken us.
America is marching toward totalitarianism as Biden empowers the DoJ and FBI to go after his political opponents, i.e., at least half of the population. His worst offense, however, is following the climate dictates of the World Economic Forum. Biden is torpedoing the robust U.S. economy in service of a totally false assumption -- that human beings are able to change the planet’s climate. He is raising taxes so that billions of your dollars can be wasted on ridiculous anti-fossil fuel projects.
Biden has declared war on the energy industry in the name of global warming. He wants us to believe that oil, gas, and coal are killing the planet. What is the result of his climate policy so far? “Harvesting of fuel was cut back drastically,” explained Bill O’Reilly, “and that caused the price of oil worldwide to rise, and that caused the price of gas at the pump to rise, and that lit inflation, as all other goods went up in price as well because they are trucked in to the stores and businesses. That is all on President Biden.”
First, human beings are incapable of controlling the climate, which operates in cycles and always has since the planet was created. Second, our economy is dependent on fossil fuels, and -- contrary to the lies fed by the administration -- fossil fuel alternatives do not exist, and will not exist in the foreseeable future.
quantified the cost to the U.S. of the green agenda at a whopping $1.5 trillion per year. That is the equivalent of economic suicide. And what do we get for this waste of time, money, and effort? Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg calculates that even if every nation in the world adheres to its climate change commitments -- which they won’t, by the end of the century it will reduce the world’s temperatures by a mere 1/20th of a degree. In other words, the quality of our lives is going to plummet based on a monumental hoax.
If Biden gets away with his green policy, it will play right into Obama’s socialist dream of fundamentally transforming America. Rampant crime, insane immigration policy, assault on individual rights, suicidal climate dictates -- Americans are being sold out by the politicians in charge, who happen to be members of the Democratic Party.
Now let’s talk about our friends in Europe. The criminal politicians who are in charge on the other side of the Atlantic are no better than their American counterparts. Europe’s social fabric was destroyed when Angela Merkel decided to open Germany’s borders to an onslaught of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, most of whom are either unwilling or unable to assimilate into European culture. Other countries followed Merkel’s deranged example. The appalling result is that France, the U.K., Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden are on the verge of civil war as they struggle to deal with hostile Muslim newcomers.
The takeover of Europe by Islam was predicted by Mark Steyn in his 2008 book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It . “What happens,” Steyn asked, “when a Western world so in thrall to platitudes about boundless ‘tolerance’ allows the forces of intolerance to carve it out from the inside? Much of the Western world is engaged in an act of auto-genocide, and Islam will be the immediate beneficiary.” European politicians have opened the doors to people who are opposed to the Western way of life and whose mission is to stamp it out.
On the economic front, European leaders have, like Biden in the U.S., succumbed to the delusional World Economic Forum. In a mad rush to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels, European economies are going into the winter without adequate energy supplies. The poor citizens of the continent are being told to anticipate blackouts and food shortages. They are about to discover that without fossil fuels, their way of life is going to hell.
What recourse do we voters have against the irresponsibility of political leaders who are obsessed with the lure of power? Is it too late to stop them? In the U.S., we have the possibility of Republican resurgence in the 2022 and 2024 elections. We need Donald Trump or someone like him to execute a return to sane policymaking. I’m counting on it. The alternative is just too bloody awful.
Ed Brodow is a conservative political commentator and author of nine books including his new #1 Amazon besttseller, America on its Knees : The Cost of Replacing Trump with Biden . His website is www.edbrodowpolitics.com.
Texas Governor Orders ‘Dismantling’ of Mexican Cartel ‘Terrorist’ Organizations Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles 5:19
Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated specific Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations and ordered the Department of Public Safety to begin dismantling their infrastructure. The move comes as record levels of the deadly drug fentanyl are being pushed across the border.
“Fentanyl is a clandestine killer, and Texans are falling victim to the Mexican cartels that are producing it,” Governor Abbott said during a border security round table in Midland, Texas, on Wednesday. “Cartels are terrorists, and it’s time we treated them that way. In fact, more Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in the past year than all terrorist attacks across the globe in the past 100 years. In order to save our country, particularly our next generation, we must do more to get fentanyl off our streets.”
Specifically, the governor identified the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG) as terrorist organizations. He requested President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris create federal terrorist designations for these cartels and others producing and distributing fentanyl.
Abbott also directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement agencies to identify Texas gangs that support Mexican drug cartels. He directed that the funds of these gangs and other criminal enterprises that are supporting the cartels.
In the letter to Washington, D.C., Abbott wrote:
Mexican drug cartels terrorize the United States and its citizens every day, leaving thousands of dead bodies in their wake. Their latest weapons of choice are the millions of tiny pills laced with fentanyl that they pour across our southern border. As a result, it is necessary, now more than ever, for you to designate the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and any similarly situated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This move would help us fight back against these terrorists and disrupt their deadly attacks on America.
…
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 75,000 Americans died from drug overdoses that involved fentanyl between February 2021 and February 2022. To put that in context, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism reports there were 3,905 deaths of Americans in terrorist attacks worldwide between 1995 and 2019, most of them occurring on September 11, 2001. In this light, the magnitude of the terrorism related to the introduction of fentanyl by Mexican drug cartels is astonishing.
…
The reason for the explosion of fentanyl deaths in America is that the Mexican drug cartels are trafficking fentanyl across our southern border at a greater rate than ever, thanks to your openborder policies.
“In an April 2021 letter to you both, I made this request for designation. There was no action, no response,” Abbott concluded. “But if you are ready to make Americans safer, it will be better late than never. As the number of American deaths continues to rise due to the cartels’ terrorist behavior, now is the time to act. We do not have more time to waste.”
Officials in the governor’s office added, “With Mexican drug cartels disguising fentanyl as counterfeit pills and targeting children with ‘rainbow fentanyl’ pills, the Governor emphasizes in his letter that immediate decisive action is needed from the Biden Administration to combat this deadly crisis impacting the nation.”
The governor met in Midland for a border security round table attended by DPS Director Steve McCraw, DPS Regional Director West Texas Region Jose Sanchez, Midland County Judge Terry Johnson, Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis, Midland County Sheriff Chief Deputy Benny Matlock, Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke, Midland Police Chief Seth Herman, and Midland Memorial Hospital District Police Chief Steve McNeill.
The governor also directed state agencies on Tuesday to begin preparations for the next session of the Texas Legislature. The governor ordered the agencies to “outline statutory changes, budget priorities, and other initiatives that will enhance the state’s ability to interdict the synthetic opioid, provide emergency overdose treatment, and expand substance abuse treatment programs.”
“We must take all appropriate actions to inform Texans of this danger and prevent additional deaths,” Abbott said to the agency leaders. “Together we can help bring awareness to the threat posed by fentanyl and do our part to address this crisis.”
Under Operation Lone Star, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard seized more than 335 million lethal doses of fentanyl, the governor’s office reported .
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team . He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face .
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