Originally Posted by Rev Al:
EVEN DOWD BEGINS TO TURN ON OBAMA
Actually, Maureen Dowd tends to be far more of an independent thinker than most of the journalistic herd.
Former Member
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Originally Posted by yuji22:
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This will be a very tight race and may very well boil down to Florida again.
Yuji:
The American press and many so-called experts would have you believe the race will be tight. Presidential elections are rarely tight. And in 2012 Mitt Romney will win with around 52% of the votes.
READ THIS---posted in another thread:
In the last 3 presidential elections the winning candidate has won the same percentage of the vote, or within 1% of it, as his party won in the House of Representative popular vote two years before. For example, the democrats won the popular vote 53-45 in the 2006 mid term election; Obama won 52.85% of the votes in 2008.
Now, in the 2010 mid term election the Republicans won the popular vote for the house 52-45----you can bet the house, car, farm, and even the wife if you are tired of her on Mitt Romney winning between 51-52% of the votes in November 2012---that will win him the electoral college and the Presidency.
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American voters are disgusted with Obama---the man has been a disaster---the Rev is now 99.99% confident Obama will be a one term president.
Rev
Rev Bhai
Numbers don't lie and you are a man of numbers. Right now all of the numbers are not in favor of Obama. Voter turnout will also be an important factor in this election.
Bhai, Obama has charisma and can really work a crowd. Romney is a bit stiff. Will this also play a role with voters ?
I was in the US a couple of weeks ago in NY and most of my Guyanese relatives say that they will vote for Obama. I queried whether the state Of the economy and unemployment being a factor in their decision and they said that it was not a factor. They still feel comfortable with Obama.
Do you think that this is general sentiment across the US ? People still mention that they felt deceived by Bush. Will the Bush factor affect Romney ?
Former Member
Originally Posted by Henry:
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
EVEN DOWD BEGINS TO TURN ON OBAMA
Actually, Maureen Dowd tends to be far more of an independent thinker than most of the journalistic herd.
Henry:
You right about Ms. Dowd--she has that independent streak---she was quite blunt and straightforward in her comments:
quote:EVEN DOWD BEGINS TO TURN ON OBAMA
* The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading âI Meow for Michelleâ for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.
* Once glowing, his press is now burning. âTo a very real degree, 2008âs candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012âs candidate of fear,â John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he canât run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.
* In his new book, âA Nation of Wusses,â the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how âthe best communicator in campaign historyâ lost his touch.
I admire Maureen Dowd's style of writing. She has never been as enthusiastic for Obama as much as she decry the GOP. With Hillary she may be more enamored.
This election, like Bush's 2004 re-election is a "base" election. It's Obama's to lose but only if the base is unenthusiaRomney the election demographics favor Obama and Romney is yet to excite Republicans other than the anyone-but-Obama crowd and Independents. Put it this way, unless Romney can show something different than more of the same GOP prescription and being beholden to Paul Ryan he ain't going anywhere. And that with a slow-growth economy.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:
Romney is yet to excite Republicans...
kari:
The Rev is a Republican and I have some horrible news for you:
REPUBLICANS ARE SOLIDLY BEHIND MITT ROMNEY. AND THE BASE IS EXCITED!
As a matter of fact, right now there is panic in Obama's white house---they are starting to realize that the Romney will not be a wuss and a wimp like McCain---McCain was a punching bag for the OBama campaign---Romney's campaign will be firing bullets--the failure in the white house will be carpet bombed.
RIGHT NOW WHITE AMERICANS ARE SEEING OBAMA AS SMALL AND SCARED---THEY NOW PERCEIVE HIM AS A LOSER! IT'S LIGHTS OUT FOR THAT FRAUD.
Rev
I ask you RevKook, why is Romney behind the polling nationally,and moreimportantly the States that are in play? And especially unmarried white women. Do you know how this wooden, stiff, flakey, flip-flopping is faring with the Hispanic vote? Laughable!
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
REPUBLICANS ARE SOLIDLY BEHIND MITT ROMNEY. AND THE BASE IS EXCITED!
Which part and by what percentage of support?
Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:
I ask you RevKook, why is Romney behind the polling nationally,and moreimportantly the States that are in play? And especially unmarried white women. Do you know how this wooden, stiff, flakey, flip-flopping is faring with the Hispanic vote? Laughable!
Kari, I think Obama is in trouble. His VP pick could be a clincher. Obama will be thanked for ending the wars but get a no-thanks for the economy.
Biden remains Obama's 2012 running mate.
Americans will be reminded of the hole Obama started and what a sterling effort he's made in the face of a global recession and the Japanese Tsunami in the middle of his Presidency. He will also remind Americans of the Republican-controlled Congress (and filibuster-happy Senate) efforts to destroy the economy in order to make him a one-term President. He will also remind Americans of Romney's failure as a Massachusetts Governor (especially in job creation) and that Bain Capital is only good to make share holders happy and does not involve the skill set needed to run the US government.
Look at the debates in the Fall and see how Independents swing Obama's way. Iit is in Sep and Oct that Independents make up their minds. Obama clearly is winng the ground game so far - which is ongoing. Romney doesn't inspire the GOP bible belt the way Bush did and McCain failed.
Former Member
Drone wars and state secrecy â how Barack Obama became a hardliner
He was once a liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war. Now, according to revelations last week, the US president personally oversees a 'kill list' for drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. Then there's the CIA renditions, increased surveillance and a crackdown on whistleblowers. No wonder Washington insiders are likening him to 'George W Bush on steroid
- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 2 June 2012 15.56 EDT
The revelation that Barack Obama keeps a 'kill list' of people to be targeted by drones has led to criticism from former supporters. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP
Amos Guiora knows all about the pitfalls of targeted assassinations, both in terms of legal process and the risk of killing the wrong people or causing civilian casualties. The University of Utah law professor spent many years in the Israel Defence Forces, including time as a legal adviser in the Gaza Strip where such killing strikes are common. He knows what it feels like when people weigh life-and-death decisions.
Yet Guiora â no dove on such matters â confessed he was "deeply concerned" about President Barack Obama's own "kill list" of terrorists and the way they are eliminated by missiles fired from robot drones around the world. He believes US policy has not tightly defined how people get on the list, leaving it open to legal and moral problems when the order to kill leaves Obama's desk. "He is making a decision largely devoid of external review," Guiroa told the Observer, saying the US's apparent methodology for deciding who is a terrorist is "loosey goosey".
Indeed, newspaper revelations last week about the "kill list" showed theObama administration defines a militant as any military-age male in the strike zone when its drone attacks. That has raised the hackles of many who saw Obama as somehow more sophisticated on terrorism issues than his predecessor, George W Bush. But Guiora does not view it that way. He sees Obama as the same as Bush, just much more enthusiastic when it comes to waging drone war. "If Bush did what Obama has been doing, then journalists would have been all over it," he said.
But the "kill list" and rapidly expanded drone programme are just two of many aspects of Obama's national security policy that seem at odds with the expectations of many supporters in 2008. Having come to office on a powerful message of breaking with Bush, Obama has in fact built on his predecessor's national security tactics.
Obama has presided over a massive expansion of secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency. He has launched a ferocious and unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. He has made more government documents classified than any previous president. He has broken his promise to close down the controversialGuantÃĄnamo Bay prison and pressed on with prosecutions via secretive military tribunals, rather than civilian courts. He has preserved CIArenditions. He has tried to grab broad new powers on what defines a terrorist or a terrorist supporter and what can be done with them, often without recourse to legal process.
The sheer scope and breadth of Obama's national security policy has stunned even fervent Bush supporters and members of the Washington DC establishment. In last week's New York Times article that detailed the "kill list", Bush's last CIA director, Michael Hayden, said Obama should open the process to more public scrutiny. "Democracies do not make war on the basis of legal memos locked in a [Department of Justice] safe," he told the newspaper.
Even more pertinently, Aaron David Miller, a long-term Middle East policy adviser to both Republican and Democratic administrations, delivered a damning verdict in a recent issue of Foreign Policymagazine. He wrote bluntly: "Barack Obama has become George W Bush on steroids."
Many disillusioned supporters would agree. Jesselyn Radack was a justice department ethics adviser under Bush who became a whistleblower over violations of the legal rights of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh. Now Radack works for the Government Accountability Project, defending fellow whistleblowers. She campaigned for Obama, donated money and voted for him. Now she has watched his administration â which promised transparency and whistleblower protection â crack down on national security whistleblowers.
It has used the Espionage Act â an obscure first world war anti-spy law â six times. That is more such uses in three years than all previous presidents combined. Cases include John Kiriakou, a CIA agent who leaked details of waterboarding, and Thomas Drake, who revealed the inflated costs of an NSA data collection project that had been contracted out. "We did not see this coming. Obama has led the most brutal crackdown on whistleblowers ever," Radack said.
Yet the development fits in with a growing level of secrecy in government under Obama. Last week a report by the Information Security Oversight Office revealed 2011 had seen US officials create more than 92m classified documents: the most ever and 16m more than the year before. Officials insist much of the growth is due to simple administrative procedure, but anti-secrecy activists are not convinced. Some estimates put the number of documents wrongly classified as secret at 90%.
"We are seeing the reversal of the proper flow of information between the government and the governed. It is probably the fundamental civil liberties issue of our time," said Elizabeth Goitein, a national security expert at the Brennan Centre for Justice. "The national security establishment is getting bigger and bigger."
One astonishing example of this lies high in the mountain deserts of Utah. This is the innocuously named Utah Data Centre being built for the NSA near a tiny town called Bluffdale. When completed next year, the heavily fortified $2bn building, which is self-sufficient with its own power plant, will be five times the size of the US Capitol in Washington DC. It will house gigantic servers that will store vast amounts of data from ordinary Americans that will be sifted and mined for intelligence clues. It will cover everything from phone calls to emails to credit card receipts.
Yet the UDC is just the most obvious sign of how the operations and scope of the NSA has grown since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under Bush, a key part was a secret "warrantless wiretapping" programme that was scrapped when it was exposed. However, in 2008 Congress passed a bill that effectively allowed the programme to continue by simply legalising key components. Under Obama, that work has intensified and earlier this year a Senate intelligence committee extended the law until 2017, which would make it last until the end of any Obama second term.
"Obama did not reverse what Bush did, he went beyond it. Obama is just able to wrap it up in a better looking package. He is more liberal, more eloquent. He does not look like a cowboy," said James Bamford, journalist and author of numerous books about the NSA including 2008'sThe Shadow Factory.
That might explain the lack of media coverage of Obama's planned changes to a military funding law called the National Defence Authorisation Act. A clause was added to the NDAA that had such a vague definition of support of terrorism that journalists and political activists went to court claiming it threatened them with indefinite detention for things like interviewing members of Hamas or WikiLeaks. Few expected the group to win, but when lawyers for Obama refused to definitively rebut their claims, a New York judge ruled in their favour. Yet, far from seeking to adjust the NDAA's wording, the White House is now appealing against the decision.
That hard line should perhaps surprise only the naive. "He's expanded the secrecy regime in general," said Radack. Yet it is the drone programme and "kill list" that have emerged as most central to Obama's hardline national security policy. In January 2009, when Obama came to power, the drone programme existed only for Pakistan and had seen 44 strikes in five years. With Obama in office it expanded to Afghanistan,Yemen and Somalia with more than 250 strikes. Since April there have been 14 strikes in Yemen alone.
Civilian casualties are common. Obama's first strike in Yemen killed two families who were neighbours of the target. One in Pakistan missed and blew up a respected tribal leader and a peace delegation. He has deliberately killed American citizens, including the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September last year, and accidentally killed others, such as Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdul-Rahman.
The drone operation now operates out of two main bases in the US, dozens of smaller installations and at least six foreign countries. There are "terror Tuesday" meetings to discuss targets which Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod, sometimes attends, lending credence to those who see naked political calculation involved.
Yet for some, politics seems moot. Obama has shown himself to be a ruthless projector of national security powers at home and abroad, but the alternative in the coming election is Republican Mitt Romney.
"Whoever gets elected, whether it's Obama or Romney, they are going to continue this very dangerous path," said Radack. "It creates a constitutional crisis for our country. A crisis of who we are as Americans. You can't be a free society when all this happens in secret."
Death from the sky
âĒ Popularly called drones, the flying robots used by Obama are referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles by the defence industry that makes them. The air force, however, calls them RPAs, or remotely piloted aircraft, as they are flown by human pilots, just at a great distance from where they are operating.
âĒ The US air force alone has up to 70,000 people processing the surveillance information collected from drones. This includes examining footage of people and vehicles on the ground in target countries and trying to observe patterns in their movements.
âĒ Drones are not just used by the military and intelligence community. US Customs and Border Protection has drones patrolling land and sea borders. They are used in drug busts and to prevent illegal cross-border traffic.
âĒ It is assumed the Pentagon alone has 7,000 or so drones at work. Ten years ago there were fewer than 50. Their origins go back to the Vietnam war and beyond that to the use of reconnaissance balloons on the battlefield.
âĒ Last year a diplomatic crisis with Iran broke out after a sophisticated US drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, crash-landed on Iranian soil. Iranian forces claimed it had been downed by sophisticated jamming technology.
Former Member
RUSH LIMBAUGH: OBAMA HAS BECOME BARACK HUSSEIN KARDASHIAN, CELEBRITY OF THE UNITED STATES---HE IS NO LONGER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES--HE IS CELEBRITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Kim Kardashian is the female celebrity of the United States; Barack Hussein is the male celebrity of the United States.
Excellent point by El Rushbo.
Come November, America will again have a real President--MITT ROMNEY---A leader not a celebrity like Barack Hussein Kardashian.
Rev
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
What America desperately need as president is a genuine leader--a problem solver--a man with the foresight to get this country back on track. What we have had the past 3 1/2 years is lil Sambo, a worthless piece of crap. Thank God Americans have awakened and will kick that quack out of the white house in November. Mitt Romney will be America's next President!
Rev
Rev you dress up there man. Like you wear your Sunday best.
Former Member
Panic in the white house. Republican Gov Scott Walker wins by a blowout in Wisconsin. The experts were predicting a close race. Walker wins the recall election by over 15 points. We shall all witness another blowout on November 6th---that's when America will fire Barack Hussein Kardashian, celebrity of the United States and replace him with a real President of the United States--MITT ROMNEY.
Rev
Former Member
Obama needs to "up" the wiping out of Al Qaeda, it seems the only thing he has going right now. Wipe them out so Romney could focus on the economy.
What is interesting and perverse, Obama came in as a people's president, bent on an inward focus and reducing the tensions overseas. Today, he is left to tout the killing of OBL, accelerated Drone strikes against Al Qaeda, cyber attacks against Iran, overseeing Arab revolutions, the killing of Gadhafi, etc. All this amid a failing US economy.
What a drift from the ideals of Nov 2008. Looks like Obama will be one-term.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Panic in the white house. Republican Gov Scott Walker wins by a blowout in Wisconsin. The experts were predicting a close race. Walker wins the recall election by over 15 points. We shall all witness another blowout on November 6th---that's when America will fire Barack Hussein Kardashian, celebrity of the United States and replace him with a real President of the United States--MITT ROMNEY.
Rev
Shows the US has that silent majority.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Panic in the white house. Republican Gov Scott Walker wins by a blowout in Wisconsin. The experts were predicting a close race. Walker wins the recall election by over 15 points. We shall all witness another blowout on November 6th---that's when America will fire Barack Hussein Kardashian, celebrity of the United States and replace him with a real President of the United States--MITT ROMNEY.
Rev
Rev Bhai
You are a man of numbers and numbers do not lie. It looks like Obama will become a one term president. This is very bad news for him.
Former Member
Originally Posted by baseman:
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Panic in the white house. Republican Gov Scott Walker wins by a blowout in Wisconsin. The experts were predicting a close race.
Maybe, maybe not. There has been a lot of talk about Obama's refusal to come to Wisconsin to support the anti-Walker forces. Which is consistent with Obama's general orientation toward the 1%.
Originally Posted by baseman:
Obama needs to "up" the wiping out of Al Qaeda, it seems the only thing he has going right now.
He's really not in a position to do that, after supporting them in Libya and Syria.
Obama need to wipe out unemployment.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Prashad:
Obama need to wipe out unemployment.
He cannot. What he (Administration) needed to do "was" bring clarity as to taxes and other issues. I think it's too late for him to engineer a turn around. The Reps are now in a position to drag it out and not look too bad.
Rev Al, don't forget you are in North America. You are on my territory.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Come November, America will again have a real President--
With Barack Obama elected again as President.
Former Member
Former Member
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
Come November, America will again have a real President--
With Barack Obama elected again as President.
maybe, maybe not!
Predictable Rev reaching for some glimmer of hope in Gov Scott's 15-point victory.
Rev-Kooks, understand that this recall was driven by Unions. Notice the conspicuous absence of Obama and his top advisers in Wisconsin. The 50% voter turnout is still short of a Presidential turnout of 70% - something to bear in mind. The $25 million to $5 million spending that Gov Walker enjoyed over his Democratic challenger also has something to do with this.
Presidential dynamics get going after the summer conventions and heat up during the Fall debate and then comes the October surprise. So Rev-a-Loo-Loo I would hold on to my chair a little bit and not think that God has shone his light on Romney. It ain't gonna happen.
Hear is a number for you Mr. Numbers-man Rev-Cuckoo - the exit polling of voters in Wisconsin's recall elections yesterday shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney 53 to 42 percentâwith more voters saying Obama would do a better job of handling the economy.
Reports on job creation and unemployment do not help the Democrats. It can get progressively worse over the next few months if we continue to get bad news on the economy.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:
Hear is a number for you Mr. Numbers-man Rev-Cuckoo - the exit polling of voters in Wisconsin's recall elections yesterday shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney 53 to 42 percentâwith more voters saying Obama would do a better job of handling the economy.
Well kari, as an Obama kool aid drinker you need to hang on for dear life to those exits polls. By the way, those very exit polls indicated that the race was extremely close---they were dead wrong.
What Obama and his supporters need to be very worried about is THE BRADLEY EFFECT!
Back in 1982 most polls including exit polls had former black LA mayor Tom Bradley with a significant lead in the race for govenor---he lost the CA governship to Deukmejian.
BOTTOM LINE:
HUSSEIN IS IN DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE--HE WILL BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE IN NOVEMBER BY A LANDSLIDE!
Rev
The Rev is also in trouble. His days are numbered and depends on a minority government holding on to power. You will face the wrath of justice Rev.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:
Predictable Rev reaching for some glimmer of hope in Gov Scott's 15-point victory.
Rev-Kooks, understand that this recall was driven by Unions. Notice the conspicuous absence of Obama and his top advisers in Wisconsin.
The unions and many Democrats do notice this, and they feel betrayed. They won't be voting for Obama as a result.
Originally Posted by Billy Ram Balgobin:
Reports on job creation and unemployment do not help the Democrats. It can get progressively worse over the next few months if we continue to get bad news on the economy.
Look at the Spring report on jobs created and unemployment in 2010 and 2011- always bad. Look at the Summer numbers for those same two years - always good. Spring 2012 followed this trend. Will the Summer of 2012 do likewise?
Here are the possible negatives to the US economy - a European full-bolt Recession that depresses demand for US exports; an oil crisis due to actions over Iran; Continued Republican intransigence in an effort to have Obama be a one-term President; and anything unknown. There are positives as in housing starts, job increases (albeit numbers that slowed the last three months), auto sales; consumer confidence, and still that $3 trillion corporations are holding.
Here is an election metric that looms large - Can Romney get the economy to grow, create jobs and reduce long-term deficits? Lower taxes, reduction in Federal spending, and de-regulation, while good in normal years, have been shown in Europe to be austerity measures that pushed them into another recession. Ryan's budget that Romney holds up as good enough for him is fraught with political turmoil as it seeks to undermine the social safety net of Medicare and Medicaid and balloon the deficits to trillions more.
What Obama wants? Pass the Bill in the House for constructions jobs in infrastructure works NOW! Get the high income earners to pay a fairer share of tax revenue. Invest in clean energy and education. Protect the economy from the raiders who gave us the 2008 financial disaster. Then get government out of the way and let the capitalist system grow the economy. Tres bien!
Originally Posted by Henry:
The unions and many Democrats do notice this, and they feel betrayed. They won't be voting for Obama as a result.
Just like Rev's Bradley effect (debunked in 2008 in Obama's case) this one will not have that effect. You bet when it comes to the austerity proposed by Romney and the social issues that take us back to ancient times, those same Democrats and Union people will not sit idly by.
What you have to understand is that States that are Democratic and Republican will vote the same way as always. This gives Obama 2446 Electoral College votes to Romney's 172. It is the swing States that will determine the elections. Florida alone will give Obama the Presidency. But let's give that to Romney and look at the Hispanic South-West. Their 4 States put Obama over the top. So even if Romney wind Florida, the mid-Atlantic rust belt States of Virginia, No Carolina and Pennsylvania, and the Mid-west Ohio and Indiana - a tall order for Romney (especially in the States that benefited from the auto bailout with auto parts jobs) - Obama wins if the Hispanic States go his way. Like I said before it will take a monumental swing in the 12 or so battle ground States for Romney to win. And you haven't even see how he will be destroyed with ads after the conventions and obliterated by Obama in the debates. The country is watching not only the job numbers but the trend and and the choice.
Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:
==============================
Can Romney get the economy to grow, create jobs and reduce long-term deficits?
That's right! Perception is reality---and right now karimullah--your brother Hussein is perceived as being perpetually weak and indecisive---Hussein is in deep, deep trouble---stick a fork in him---he'll join Ford, Carter, and Bush!---one term president.
RE: MITT ROMNEY--America's next President
We will see President Romney do for America what Gov Scott Walker is doing for Wisconsin--Gov Walker's reforms in Wisconsin have produced tangible results--he turned a 3.4 billion dollar deficit into a 156 million surplus. After 3 1/2 years mook-shine Obama is still blibble-blabbling about needing more time.
Rev
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
That's right!
--America's next President
President Barack Obama
Former Member
Originally Posted by Rev Al:
BOTTOM LINE:
HUSSEIN -- WILL BE VOTED -- IN NOVEMBER BY A LANDSLIDE!
Former Member
Head on the right...ass on the left.
Former Member
Actually politicians don't give a **** about constituents. This voting thing is crap anyway. I think politicians should fight to the death like gladiators. The winner takes the crown.
Former Member
Well, that is the way things used to work before the American Revolution, and it was not a big success. In many respects, society seems to be reverting to pre-American Revolution habits, due to the collapse of the cultural standards in the past 50 years.
Former Member
READ THIS:
HALPERIN: DEMOCRATS NOW BELIEVE OBAMA COULD LOSE
With five months until election day, Barack Obama faces a grim new reality: Republicans now believe Romney could win , and Democrats believe Obama could lose...
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/magaz...71,2116715-1,00.html
REV'S COMMENTS:
It's over folks!
THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE!
American voters will toss the angry, bitter, failed black man and replace him with a qualified white man--MITT ROMNEY WILL BE AMERICA'S 45th PRESIDENT.
Rev
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