Johannes Vermeer The lacemaker 1669-71
https://twitter.com/i/status/1864425663626629209
The New York Times leaked a private email that Pete Hegseth's mom sent to him in the middle of a tough divorce years ago. She then apologized two hours later.
They don’t want you to see this video of her defending him. That’s not how a coordinated character assassination works. pic.twitter.com/tyZq6GUAf8
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 4, 2024
Musk
ELON MUSK: “What we need is the restoration of common sense. We want safe cities, we want secure borders, sensible spending, freedom of speech, respect for the Constitution. If that's George Soros of the right, thats me.”
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) December 4, 2024
Patel
BREAKING: CNN acknowledges that Kash Patel’s chances of becoming FBI Director are “climbing ever higher.”
“The key number here is zero. That’s how many GOP senators have come out against him. Kash Patel’s odds to lead the FBI seem to be climbing ever higher.” pic.twitter.com/740W41HYPs
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 4, 2024
https://twitter.com/i/status/1864377804730647019
Benz
BREAKING: Mike Benz describes the pushback Trump is going to face in fighting censorship@MikeBenzCyber "Trump is going to run into every single regional desk at the State Department, every single equity at the Pentagon, arguing that, if you don't, do not allow us to continue… pic.twitter.com/1jJ25ThwLe
— jay plemons (@jayplemons) December 3, 2024
30
"The election all zeroes down to one piece of data […] for the first time in our nation's history […] a man or woman at the age of 30 isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30."pic.twitter.com/C2cUwy9i44
— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) December 4, 2024
Seal
I'll just leave this here… pic.twitter.com/jhxl2xJTue
— A Man Of Memes (@RickyDoggin) December 4, 2024
Szijjártó
Hungary's Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, warns that the next two months will be extremely dangerous as the Biden administration and the EU are worried that peace will break out, and aim to sabotage Trump's efforts to negotiate an end to the war pic.twitter.com/wQqDm8Wkr7
— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) December 4, 2024
“If [..] Ursula von der Leyen appointed her pony as the European Union’s Foreign Minister, do you think anyone would object?
• The Incitatus Precedent and The Caligula Cure (Helmer)
There has never been a transition between US presidential administrations which has been so replete with new Washington-directed violence across the world. That’s to say, the escalation of wars already under way and the instigation of new ones to the furthest limits of the US empire’s reach. As the Pentagon war-gaming of the Reagan Administration proved in secret, neither escalation of conventional war nor escalation to nuclear war can be controlled when Americans are running the game. That’s because Americans always think they have firepower superiority (aka shock and awe). That this superiority has been defeated since 2022 with the destruction of every US weapon and operation plan on the Ukrainian battlefield has spurred the projection of Washington’s denial – that’s Freudian denial — to every other untested battlefield.
Across the Pacific this US escalation now extends from the martial law attempt in South Korea to coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, the threat of trade war against Mexico, and forcing Canada to submit, as Donald Trump has just told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to “becom[ing] the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.” Australia, the rich rear base of the US, is under orders to spend more on US arms and bases for US and Japanese forces to fight land, sea, air, and space war against China; for less low-cost raw materials to China, for more tributary payment to the US. In the Caucasus the US is aiming at escalation to war with Russia in Armenia and Georgia; in the Balkans against Serbia; on the Black Sea and Danube region, Moldova and Romania. Nuclear war stocking has begun in Greece, Germany, Spain, and Poland. In the Middle East, the escalation has already reached genocide for the Palestinians and the demolition of Lebanon.
The partition of Syria has resumed. Escalation against Iran is now closer to nuclear exchange than ever before. This campaign of politics by means of war and war by political means is now existential for both the outgoing and incoming US presidents, and for each of the countries which are their targets. Submission, and the readiness to pay the US demand for billions of dollars in economic and military costs, have become a display of ambition and fear on Roman imperial scale – of the example of the Roman senators ready to kowtow to Incitatus (“Full Speed”), Caligula’s race horse. The Swiss-Serbian geopolitician Slobodan Despot has recently explained this: “If [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen appointed her pony as the European Union’s Foreign Minister, do you think anyone would object? And that the brave animal would be less competent in this position than Mr. Borrell [EU Foreign Minister] or Ms. Kallas [EU Vice President]?…
What if by chance Caligula had really appointed his equine senator? Without blinking, the senators would have treated him with all the respect due to his rank. These people were probably no dumber than the satraps of today, but they were not driven by their own reason, or even by their well-understood interests. They were spurred on by fear and by its proactive counterpart, sickly ambition.” Like the Roman senators and the legion commanders of Caligula’s time (37-41 AD), the fear today is of US-directed political, economic, and physical elimination, as has been tested in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Teheran, and in Slovakia on Prime Minister Robert Fico. For resistance to Caligula’s horse in Washington, President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated signal success. He has also introduced several innovations in counterforce weaponry against the US and its allies from which they have no effective protection.
With Kinzhal, Oreshnik and other weapons named but not yet launched by the Russian side, US escalation without counterforce protection or defence of city grids and civilian populations is irrational. The Incitatus Precedent can work only when the emperor is mad and his subjects are in abject fear or mad ambition or both at once. The outcome of that in first-century Rome was the Caligula Cure – elimination by force. In the Third Rome these days, there remains a group of high, very high officials who have reason to be afraid of the Incitatus Precedent and the Caligula Cure. They and their oligarch allies have also believed, and for more than twenty years invested in their safe-haven stable beyond the emperor’s reach. Their names aren’t important to identify; they are well-known.
What is important to know for now is what they believe, and especially what they hope the incoming Trump Administration can be persuaded and bribed to do, at least toward themselves. Vzglyad, the government-financed internet publication in Moscow, is their mouth organ. Yesterday, there appeared in Vzglyad an essay explaining what they are thinking. Their idea, according to the publication, is composed of three options for Russian strategy. In translating this verbatim into English, illustrations, map inserts, captions, and URL references have been added to assist the reader. As translator I express no opinion, neither strategic, military, Freudian, nor veterinary.
“This time, we do it right.”
• Trump’s Wild Bunch Is Ready for Action (Miele)
If for no other reason than that it will elicit fear in the hearts of autocracy-phobics, I propose that Donald Trump’s second-term Cabinet be known as “The Wild Bunch.” The name is best known as the title of Sam Peckinpah’s classic 1969 western featuring a colorful cast of aging outlaws – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, and Ben Johnson – who give it their all as they battle bounty hunters, the Mexican Federal Army, and the passage of time in order to make their mark while they still have a chance. Substitute the legacy media and special interests for the bounty hunters and Mexican army, and that about sums up the desperate last-chance mission of the ragtag band Trump has put together to carry out his mandate of meaningful change in a government grown fat and corrupt for the past half-century.
We don’t need to belabor the point. Trump’s appointees aren’t outlaws, but they certainly have the federales worried – the so-called administrative state, the people who have been wearing badges and making the rules. Because this Wild Bunch looks like they mean business. If they get approved, they will be kicking ass and taking names. It’s a far cry from Trump’s first Cabinet, which he appointed with the permission of the administrative state. The outsider president didn’t know enough yet – or have enough power – to buck the system. He went with consensus choices who, at best, might talk about change but would be hesitant to effect it. Half of them shot Trump in the back; most of the rest were disloyal to his face, along with the congressional power brokers who put up roadblocks to every meaningful reform.
It’s not hard to think of Trump as Pike Bishop, the William Holden character in “The Wild Bunch” who leads what’s left of his gang out of a disastrous gunfight at the beginning of the movie and then plans his next move. At one point, Pike tells his trusted lieutenant, “This is our last go-around, Dutch. This time, we do it right.” That’s where Trump is now, at age 78, sensing the insufficiency of his first term and wanting to make a real difference the second time around. This time, we do it right. The president-elect has wasted no time in assembling his team of rabble-rousers. You can break the mayhem down into four discrete buckets – justice, health, national security, and economic overhaul – and it looks like, if he gets his way, Trump’s second term could be historic. Throw in the government reinvention project spearheaded by rogue entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and you are well on your way to the second American revolution.
No wonder the political establishment will stop at nothing to crush Trump and his appointees before they can begin the reforms they promised. The old guard may have celebrated when they took down the proposed appointment of Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, but they won nothing. Trump’s replacement nominee, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, will work just as hard as Gaetz to shake up the Department of Justice. As one of Trump’s attorneys in his first impeachment trial, she has intimate knowledge of how the Deep State can aim the full force of the federal bureaucracy on an individual to destroy him or her. It’s no accident that the Trump transition team has declined FBI background checks on his nominees and appointees.
Remember, this is the same FBI that entrapped Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn in the early days of his first administration. Not to mention the FBI that let President Trump be impeached for questioning Joe Biden’s role in Ukrainian corruption, even though the agency was in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop that would have vindicated Trump if it had been released. You can bet that Bondi, assisted by Trump’s criminal lawyer Todd Blanche in the role of deputy attorney general, will remove any Justice Department employees who pursue charges against anyone for political purposes. Those days are over. But that’s just the beginning, and although the Justice Department overhaul may bring the most significant changes immediately, the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services could result in long-term changes of even greater impact.
Anyone who has noticed the prevalence of advertising for wonder drugs on cable news probably can understand the concern that Big Pharma has an outsized impact on the health narrative being told in mainstream media. Multiply that concern by a dozen when you measure the influence that drug companies have not just on Congress and health regulatory agencies but on the medical industry itself. Bobby Kennedy has no fear of Big Pharma or the scientific establishment and he is willing to demand accountability for the kinds of policy decisions that led to our disastrous COVID policies four years ago. Is he right about everything? No, but he asks the right questions – questions that until now no one in power has dared to raise.
“Everyone in Washington would win — except, of course, the public..”
• The Pocket Pardon and the Final Corruption of the Biden Administration (Turley)
The most shocking aspect of President Biden pardoning his own son, Hunter, may be that it was not in the least shocking, given the history of the Biden family. This abuse of the pardon power was widely anticipated even by his allies as the president repeatedly denied that he would ever do such a thing as he ran for reelection. Indeed, it may be the single most premeditated unethical act in political history. However, it may not achieve what President Biden most hopes for: a clean slate for his son and himself in this massive corruption scandal. Roughly two years ago, I wrote about how Biden might suddenly withdraw from the presidential race in 2024 and pardon his son as a lame-duck president. “The pardon-and-apology approach might appeal to Biden not only as an effort to convert vice into virtue but to justify his withdrawal from the election as a selfless act,” I wrote.
I further noted: “Everyone in Washington would win — except, of course, the public: The Bidens would keep alleged millions in influence-peddling profits; Hunter would not even have to pay his full taxes; members of Congress and the media could avoid taking responsibility for burying the reports of corruption.” I wrote about the pardon option repeatedly because none of Hunter’s bizarre (and ultimately unsuccessful) criminal defenses made sense unless he felt confident that his father would pardon him in the end. Hunter’s taunting Congress with open contempt of a subpoena and his ridiculous defenses in court were not the actions of someone who feared consequences from these investigations. They were the actions of someone with a pocket pardon.
NBC is reporting that Hunter’s pardon was being discussed in the White House for a long time, even as Biden and his staff were steadfastly denying that he would issue a pardon. As with his years of denying knowledge of Hunter’s business dealings and meeting his clients, Biden simply lied over and over again to the public. The eventual pardon restored what was a sweetheart deal reached with Special Counsel David Weiss that would have given Hunter immunity to the immediate charges and any unnamed criminal charges. It collapsed in court when Judge Maryellen Noreika expressed shock at such a deal and asked the prosecutor if he had ever seen such a deal offered to any other defendant. He admitted that he had not.
Now, President Biden has recreated an even more sweeping immunity grant through his own powers by pardoning his son not only for the crimes of which he was convicted, but of any crimes committed between Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024. Think on that. It would cover anything from perjury to murder. Now it makes sense why Hunter seemed to be engaged in what I described as a “game of chicken with himself.” As a criminal defense attorney, I noted that wild moves in and outside of the courts would make sense only if he knew that his dad would cover him in the end if everything went poorly — even as the president was assuring the public that he would never do such a thing. In a final show of contempt for the American people, President Biden waited until a Sunday before an international trip to commit this unethical act. He brushed over his past lies by saying that “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word.”
What he actually said, over and over again, was that he would never pardon his son. For many in the media who helped bury this scandal and showed no interest in pursuing the influence-peddling operation of the Biden family, the pardon was met with uncomfortable shrugs. It is a measure of what you can call “Biden ethics.” In the curious world of Joe Biden, a lie that no one believes is treated the same as the truth. It is likely to work. There may be little interest in pursuing this corruption scandal with so much to get done in the new administration. However, it is not the absolute “get-out-of-jail-free” card that President Biden would like. Hunter could still be called to testify before Congress or with investigators on the influence-peddling efforts. If he lies, it will be a new crime for which this pardon would not bar prosecution. He would no longer be able to count on a pocket pardon as an insurance policy.
Short of such continued investigation, the Bidens will have achieved something that would have made John Gotti blush. They were able to pull in millions of alleged influence-peddling proceeds. Hunter was showered with gifts and benefits, from a diamond to a luxury sports car. Various Biden family members reportedly received money from the operation. President Biden was himself accused of knowledge and possible benefits from the influence peddling. He will also be protected by this official act. This is why I once wrote that the Bidens are the GOATs of influence peddling. While influence peddling is the most common form of corruption in Washington, this city has never seen the likes of the Bidens. The only thing greater than their appetite was their sheer audacity.
In this statement on the pardon before fleeing the jurisdiction for a foreign trip, President Biden notably stated that “in trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me.” Indeed, this corruption scandal is as much about the president as it is about his son. And, as the president previously declared, “No one f—- with a Biden.”
“With this pardon, Joe Biden is undeniably providing cover to the crooked Biden family crime syndicate that has been selling influence to foreigners for years..”
• Rep. Gosar: Joe’s Pardon of Hunter Unmasks ‘Biden Family Crime Syndicate’ (Sp.)
President Biden pardoned his convicted felon son Hunter on Sunday before jetting off on a trip to Africa. Sputnik asked a leading MAGA Republican lawmaker for his thoughts on the sordid affair. “Throughout his term, Joe ‘the Big Guy’ Biden has repeatedly lied to the American people. It should come as no surprise that he now pardons his corrupt son after continuous claims he would not,” Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik, commenting on the presidential pardon granted to Hunter Biden by his father on Sunday. “With this pardon, Joe Biden is undeniably providing cover to the crooked Biden family crime syndicate that has been selling influence to foreigners for years,” Gosar said, referring to the infamous pay-to-play scheme operated by Hunter involving the sale of access to his powerful vice president vice president father during the Obama years, for which the family allegedly received over $20 million.
Hunter Biden, 54, was set to be sentenced in two separate felony cases in mid-December, including criminal tax charges which could have landed him up to 17 years in prison, and a conviction related to lies about his illegal drug use to purchase a handgun, which carried a maximum penalty of up to 25 years behind bars. Republicans led by House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer launched an investigation into the Biden family in January 2023, probing allegations of pay-to-play corruption and other potential criminal activity by Hunter Biden and his father. In August 2024, investigators released a 300-page report highlighting suspected payoffs by businessmen and companies from across Eastern Europe and Asia.
Representative Gosar has been calling on Congress and the Justice Department to investigate alleged Biden family corruption since 2019, before the 2020 publication of reports on the damning “laptop from hell” left behind by Hunter in a Delaware computer repair shop which confirmed investigators’ suspicions of corrupt and illegal activities. Gosar voted in favor of a formal impeachment investigation against President Biden in 2023, and voted to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress in early 2024 for ignoring a subpoena to appear for testimony, getting into a fierce exchange with Democrats looking to shield the president’s son.
“Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that Biden’s move served as an “extraordinary condemnation” of his own Department of Justice (DoJ)”
• Trump Lawyers Citing Hunter Biden Pardon As New Precedent (RT)
Lawyers representing US President-elect Donald Trump have included excerpts from Joe Biden’s statement on why he gave a ten-year sweeping pardon to his son Hunter in a motion to dismiss a case against their client in New York. Last week, the outgoing president protected his son Hunter from federal prosecution for any crimes committed over a decade up to 2024. Biden claimed the prosecution of his son was unfair and instigated by his political opponents “to attack me and oppose my election.” Hunter had not been allowed a plea deal from the DoJ, and alleged that “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.” In a legal document filed on Monday, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that Biden’s move served as an “extraordinary condemnation” of his own Department of Justice (DoJ). The federal government had a direct impact on his prosecution in the state of New York, they claimed.
The lawyers are asking Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan to toss a case involving hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. New York District Attorney Alvin Brag secured a conviction in the case last May, which made Trump the first-ever former US president to be found guilty on felony charges. After Trump’s re-election last month, Merchan postponed the sentencing process indefinitely and allowed a new motion to dismiss to be filed. Blanche and Bove have accused Brag of targeting Trump for political reasons, saying he ran for elected office on a promise to keep going after the politician. “Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts and his preparations to wield the full Article II executive power authorized by the Constitution pursuant to the overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024,” they wrote.
Critics of Trump have used his status as a convicted felon, as well as multiple other charges filed against him, to argue that he is unfit for office. The Republican politician has claimed to be a victim of a ‘witch hunt’ orchestrated by Biden’s administration and the Democratic Party leadership. The decade of immunity given to Hunter covers the time he spent working for the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma and had other business dealings, which may have amounted to influence peddling, according to Biden critics.
They should be handing pardons out at birth. Now they have to put them above the law.
• Fauci, Schiff, Liz Cheney May Receive ‘Preemptive Pardons’ (ZH)
Days after President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter for a 10-year period dating back to his involvement with Burisma, senior White House aides are reportedly locked in a contentious debate over a potential unprecedented move: issuing preemptive pardons to a wide range of current and former public officials who could find themselves under intense scrutiny, and prosecution, after Donald Trump takes office, Politico reports. Among those discussed for potential pardons are high-profile figures like Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA), former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Their justification is that Trump will seek retribution, with their concerns growing more urgent following Trump’s announcement last weekend appointing Kash Patel as FBI director.
Patel, a staunch ally of Trump, has vowed to pursue the former president’s critics, heightening concerns among Biden aides about possible investigations or indictments against officials who have opposed Trump in the past. Biden aides are deeply divided, according to the report. On one hand, granting preemptive pardons could provide a shield against Trump’s promised “revenge tour” but might also create the appearance of impropriety, effectively validating Trump’s accusations of corruption. Additionally, those offered pardons might refuse them, citing innocence or the perception of guilt that could accompany a pardon. [..] End-of-administration pardons are always politically fraught, but the stakes in this case are uniquely high. Biden’s aides have privately discussed the precedent set by President Gerald Ford’s 1974 preemptive pardon of Richard Nixon, which spared the nation further division after Watergate.
Democrats like Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) have invoked that example, suggesting that pardons might be necessary to heal a polarized nation and protect officials from undue political persecution. “If it’s clear by January 19 that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year,” Markey said in a recent interview. Others are far less supportive. Schiff, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, has been outspoken in his opposition. “I would urge the president not to do that,” he said, adding “I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary.”
As X user Derek Wang notes: “Preemptive pardon has never been used in history and I think will likely be challenged and to be decided by SC. Section. 2 of US Constitution: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. “Offenses” are not “potential offenses”, the word clearly indicates the offenses that are already determined by court legally, not any potential offenses to be determined in future.
Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, has further complicated the White House’s deliberations. Hunter’s sweeping 11-year pardon drew criticism from many within the Democratic Party and intensified pressure on Biden to extend clemency to others. “House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) invoked Hunter Biden’s pardon this week in calling on the president to, on a case-by-case basis, spare “the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses.” -Politico
Trump has repeatedly vowed to go after those he views as part of the Deep State. His disdain for figures like Cheney and Fauci is well-documented, with Trump even calling for members of the Jan. 6 committee to face jail time. The decision to issue preemptive pardons would undoubtedly solidify Biden’s status as one of the worst presidents in US history. On one side lies the risk of fueling Trump’s narrative of impropriety; on the other, the prospect of leaving key public servants exposed to investigations that are completely warranted.
“Well, cancel me, because I’m going to protect the people of this city..”
• NYC Mayor Vows To Work With Trump On Mass Deportations (MN)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams no longer cares what leftists think about him opposing mass illegal immigration into the city, saying he will work with the incoming Trump administration on mass deportations, and urging that he doesn’t care if he’s ‘cancelled’ for it. “I reached out to [Trump] and I shared that I would like to sit down and speak with him to hear what are his ideas, because I don’t want people talking at each other, I want people to talk to each other. And I made it clear that I’m not going to be warring with this administration, I’m going to be working with this administration,” Adams declared. “President Trump is the president-elect, and whomever he chooses to run his agencies, I’m looking forward to sitting down and seeing how do we better New York,” Adams continued, adding “The voters communicated loudly and clearly. We have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.”
BREAKING: NYC Mayor Eric Adams says he will work with Trump and Border Czar Tom Homan regarding deportations
"Cancel me, I don't care" pic.twitter.com/8nXolPEhgi
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 3, 2024
Adams also asserted that “Those who are here, committing crimes, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people, have been a harm to our country,” adding “I want to sit down and hear their plan on how to address them,” referring to Trump’s incoming Border czar Tom Homan. The Mayor continued, “Those are the people I’m talking about and I would love to sit down with the Border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens.” He also pointed out that if you “go back and google Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Google what they said about those who commit crime in our city and what they said in our country. They said ‘those who commit crimes need to get out right away.’ That was their position, so this is not a new position.”
City Hall NYC
The @NYCMayor is asked if he would work with @elonmusk.
The mayor stated he’s looking forward to working with Musk to make major changes in a broken system.
The mayor stated:
"I look forward to @elonmusk taking us to Mars, where we can finally have an education… pic.twitter.com/aonBpBdMzb— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) December 3, 2024
Adams urged that ‘cancel culture’ is making people too afraid to tell the truth, proclaiming “Well, cancel me, because I’m going to protect the people of this city. And if you come into this country and this city and think you’re going to harm innocent New Yorkers and innocent migrants and asylum seekers, this is not the mayor you want to be in the city under.” Adams seems to have become much more willing to act outside of Democratic Party lines since they came after him with federal charges when he dared to express ‘wrongthink’ by criticising the Biden Administration for embracing mass illegal immigration. “We ALL should be angry at what happened to our city under this administration!” Adams exclaimed. He also praised the new Department of Government Efficiency and said he looked forward to working with Elon Musk: Adams referred to his own criminal case when he was asked about the pardon for Hunter Biden, noting there was “almost a level of irony,” and saying Biden and Trump “now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized.” “Does that sound familiar?” he quipped, adding “I rest my case.”
He’s getting support from many sides.
• Hegseth Hit Piece Debunked By Over A Dozen Current, Former Fox Employees (ZH)
An anonymously sourced NBC News hit piece accusing Trump DoD pick Pete Hegseth of being frequently inebriated at Fox News has been refuted by over a dozen current and former Fox News personalities and guests, including his two cohosts. According to NBC, two of their anonymous sources said that “on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend,’ which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air,” adding ““Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set.” In response to the hit piece, Hegseth’s co-host Will Cain – who NBC never reached out to – posted to X: “Bullshit. 100 percent bullshit. Actually…horseshit,” adding in a subsequent post, “Your story is horseshit @NBCNews. Put my name on it. On the record. It’ll be your only on the record source.
“Signed, The guy who sat next to him for 8 hours every week for five years starting at 6am.” Rachel Campos Duffy, Hegseth’s other cohost, also chimed in – posting on X: “The losers at @NBCNews never reached out to me either,” adding “Will Cain is right – your story IS horseshit. You now have 2 people who sat next to him 8+ hours a week on the record. Will you retract or correct your story?” Hegseth’s mother appeared on Fox & Friends, saying that her son is “the most faithful patriot of this country … he has fought and almost died for his country. He’s a good dad, he’s an amazing son and father — and that’s the Pete I want people to know.” And he says Trump told him this morning to “Keep going, keep fighting.”
As American Greatness notes further, Duffy’s husband, former congressman Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), is Trump’s pick for Transportation Secretary. Their daughter, Evita Duffy-Alfonzo, posted her heartfelt defense of Hegseth, along with a photo of his family on X: “I stand with Pete and his beautiful family in the face of these smears,” Alfonzo wrote. “@NBCNews did not contact my mom @RCamposDuffy or @willcain for their latest anonymously sourced hit piece because it is total bs. The state and their mouthpieces in the propaganda press hate Pete because they FEAR Pete—and that’s exactly what America needs.” Numerous Fox News employees defended the Army veteran throughout the afternoon and evening Tuesday. Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney and Fox News contributor, described Hegseth as a “great American” on X. “No one ask me my opinion about the great @PeteHegseth aka my friend!” Terrell wrote.
Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren also weighed in on X. “Add me also. Pete has always been the epitome of a class act and a great guy,” Lahren posted. “These attacks are shameful BS.” Mollie Hemingway, Federalist Editor-in-Chief and Fox News contributor, wrote on X: “I can’t stand the propaganda practice of using anonymous sources to smear political opponents, as NBC does here. FWIW, I have nothing but good things to say about Pete and the anonymously sourced stories don’t match my personal experience in any way. Quite the contrary, in fact.” Dr. Nicole Saphier, Fox’s medical news contributor, said she has regularly interacted with Hegseth on Fox and Friends and has never observed the behaviors reported by NBC. “I have routinely sat on the couch with Pete Hegseth for 8 years,” Saphier posted on X. “Not once did I suspect he had consumed anything other than an egg sandwich and coffee before going on air.”
Fox News contributor Joey Jones called the allegations “Laughable.” “I don’t drink. I’m disgusted by the smell of alcohol on someone’s breath,” Jones wrote on X. “I’ve never EVER seen Pete drink like that, and have never smelled alcohol on his breath at work. These hit pieces are getting laughable.” Town Hall columnist and Fox News contributor Guy Benson also expressed his doubts about the story: “I’ve co-hosted with Pete and have never experienced anything like what was claimed in this anonymously-sourced report,” Benson wrote on X. Lisa Boothe, another Fox News contributor who has worked closely with Hegseth, flatly stated that NBC’s allegation’s “did not happen.” “I’ve guest co-hosted with him numerous times before,” Booth wrote. “Not once did this happen. Not once have I heard this from others. This is such a disgusting and false smear. It is wrong and malicious.”
“..its annual list of “outrageous predictions..”
• Trump Could Blow Up Dollar – Saxo Bank (RT)
Denmark’s Saxo Bank has released its annual list of “outrageous predictions,” considering some possible but unlikely events that could shake up global financial markets in 2025. According to the investment bank’s outlook, next year the world will strive to find alternatives to the US dollar after the incoming Donald Trump administration slaps massive tariffs on imports, while cutting government spending with the help of an Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency. “The implications for the US dollar are dire for trade around the world, as it cuts off the needed supply of dollars to keep the wheels of the global USD system turning, ironically risking a powerful spike higher in the US dollar,” said Saxo’s chief macro strategist, John Hardy. As a result the crypto market would quadruple to more than $10 trillion, while the dollar would tumble 20% against major currencies and 30% versus gold.
Analysts at the Copenhagen-based bank also predict that chip-maker Nvidia’s market value could balloon to double that of Apple, ‘supercharged’ with greater availability of its revolutionary 208-billion transistor Blackwell chip. “With the intensifying AI arms race as no giant or even government wants to be left behind, and as AI data centre electricity costs have soared, the insatiable demand for the more powerful and yet less power-hungry Blackwell chips sees Nvidia taking the crown as the most profitable company of all time,” the bank said. This could send Nvidia’s share price soaring from its already high level of nearly $139 to “well north” of $250, leading the market to question how high it can go. Another event that could send shockwaves across global markets would be China unleashing a fiscal stimulus of 50 trillion yuan ($7 trillion) in 2025 and in the following years, to “reflate” its economy.
“Much of the spending goes directly into consumers’ pockets via e-CNY digital currency, so that it will be injected straight into the economy rather than to pay off debt,” the bank’s Chief Investment Strategist Charu Chanana wrote. The measures could lead to a “strong reflationary impact” in China and the world, as well as higher commodity prices, according to the strategist. In another unlikely prediction by the bank, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could become “irrelevant” next year amid soaring popularity and affordability of electric vehicles.
“With some members already cheating production quotas to grab what income they can and export demand falling, a majority of members quickly realise the jig is up. Amidst the bickering and in-fighting, key members leave. This consigns OPEC to the ash heap of history. Former members max out production to ensure market share, driving a large drop in oil prices,” Saxo wrote. Other predictions for 2025 included the UK pound sterling erasing the post-Brexit discount against the euro, the US imposing a “huge” AI data center tax amid a power price surge, and the first fully functional human heart being bio-printed using 3D bioprinting technology.
“..what is special about BRICS is not what it has been trying to do but how successful it is..”
• Trump’s Dollar Threat Against BRICS Shows The US Hasn’t Learned Anything (Amar)
Donald Trump still has it, that old magic: Long known for using social media to great – or devastating – effect, the former and incoming US president has mightily stirred the bubble again. This time the target of his ire was BRICS+ (at this point an informal but commonly used label), an association of, in essence, non-Western states that dare organize and cooperate without Washington’s permission and outside its control. In particular, Trump has threatened that any attempt to “move away from the Dollar” will lead to massive US punishment, specifically, “100% tariffs.” “There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade,” the president-elect thinks he knows, and any country daring to challenge “the mighty US Dollar” – in the original over-capitalized, thundering Trumpese – “should wave goodbye to America.”
Those who don’t want to fall from the good graces of the US, Trump demands, must not only abstain from abandoning the dollar but make a special commitment to not even try. Let’s not dwell on the obvious: To be honest, who would not want to wave the US goodbye, if only we could? And for something that has “no chance” of happening, the idea of replacing or abandoning the dollar is getting Trump pretty worked up. Why so prickly about what he says is a non-starter anyhow? Part of the answer – but only part – is psychological. Especially during America’s ongoing decline, its late-imperial elites, whether Democratic or Republican, are bound to be hyper-sensitive about anything that looks like defiance. Because they are still cultivating a delusion that they are “indispensable” and that we, the other almost 8 billion people on this planet outside the US, must accept their “leadership.”
But that complex explains only so much. Because what is special about BRICS is not what it has been trying to do but how successful it is, posing a challenge in the real world of power and geopolitics. Emerging barely two decades ago, just this year BRICS has doubled in size, and further expansion is certain. While it is a complex and evolving organization, one of its prominent concerns has been the escalating American abuse of the dollar as a geopolitical weapon. Hence, BRICS has been a platform for initiatives and discussions under the catch-all label “de-dollarization.” Indeed, according to Bloomberg, members of BRICS have been “leading the global debate over dollar exposure.” That is what has triggered Trump, and not for the first time. Months before he won his comeback election, Bloomberg reported that he and his advisers were thinking about and issuing threats against de-dollarization.
In principle, it is not surprising that they are concerned. What a French finance minister once called “the exorbitant privilege” of the global dollar domination that emerged out of World War II has allowed the US to be profligate with debt. The basis of this anomaly is that, currently, almost 60% of all central bank reserves in the world are held in dollars, and nearly 90% of all foreign-exchange transactions are conducted in the US currency. As a result, Washington has also been able to avail itself of what The Economist recently labelled “an enormous lever of power” by surveilling and obstructing global financial flows as well as imposing outright almost-confiscation (euphemized as “freezing”), as has happened to almost 300 billion dollars of Russia’s national reserves. In short, the dollar-as-it-still-is allows the US to live beyond its means at the cost of other nations and to make their lives miserable by the financial equivalent of blackmail, strangulation and, quite simply, robbery.
What is special this time is Trump’s hyperbolic tone and his explicit and public singling out of BRICS. He has leveled his threat at an association that brings together two global powers, Russia and China, as well as several regional heavyweights, such as Iran and Brazil. It already represents at least 45% of the world’s population, and, in terms of the global economy, BRICS is a rising force that has already overtaken the G7, the declining club of Western/Global North rich countries. According to geopolitical analyst Kishore Mahbubani, at the end of the Cold War, more than a third of a century ago, the combined GDP of the G7 was the equivalent of 66% of global GDP. While BRICS did not exist yet, its future members were far from even getting close to matching the G7. By now, however, the G7 share stands at 45% and that of BRICS+ at 24%. That is, as long as you stick to the crude metric of nominal GDP. Once you adjust, more realistically, for purchasing power, the BRICS+ economies – with 34% of global GDP – have already beaten the G7’s 29%.
Trump’s tweet, in other words, looks as if he were spoiling for an economic fight against two great powers – one of which is in the process of defeating the West in Ukraine – and a grouping of states that represents almost half of humanity and is powerful already while growing dynamically. What does Trump’s threat actually mean in that context? To state the obvious, the president-elect’s sally squarely stands in the bipartisan US tradition of breathtakingly arrogant over-reach. Between sovereign states, to threaten other countries for potentially not using your currency, including in trades amongst themselves, is absurd. To demand that they promise not to even try makes you look like Tony Soprano on ecstasy, a weird mix between a bully and a crank.
“The deal between Moscow and Kiev will likely depend on direct personal engagement between Trump, Putin, and Zelensky..”
• Trump’s Advisers Provide Him With Three Plans For Settling Ukraine Conflict (RT)
Donald Trump’s advisers have presented him with three plans for resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Reuters has reported, citing several sources close to the US president-elect. Despite certain differences, all of the proposals include Kiev ceding territory to Moscow and giving up on its aspiration to join NATO, the agency said in an article on Wednesday. Trump’s former national security official, who was involved in the ongoing government transition in the US, told Reuters that one of the plans came from the President-elect’s incoming Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Army Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg. The other two were authored by Vice President-elect JD Vance and Trump’s former acting intelligence chief, Richard Grenell, respectively, according to the official.
Trump’s advisers would try to pressure the two countries to sit at the negotiating table by using a “carrots and sticks” strategy, Reuters said. It would see Washington halting military aid to Kiev if Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky refuses to negotiate, and more arms deliveries if Russian President Vladimir Putin expresses an unwillingness to engage in diplomacy, the outlet explained. As of last week, Trump had yet to convene a central working group to flesh out a unified peace plan, four advisers told the agency on condition of anonymity. The deal between Moscow and Kiev will likely depend on direct personal engagement between Trump, Putin, and Zelensky, the advisers stressed. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that he would end the fighting between Moscow and Kiev within 24 hours if he is reelected, but never explained how exactly he was going to achieve this.
“..he had predicted Donald Trump’s election would change the dynamics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and make further US funding unnecessary..”
• US House Speaker Rules Out More Ukraine Aid (RT)
The US House of Representatives will not consider President Joe Biden’s request to include $24 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in a government funding bill, Speaker Mike Johnson has said. In the absence of a formal budget, the US government has been funded through “continuing resolutions” periodically approved by Congress. The White House has requested the $24 billion as part of its latest proposed legislation, which the House would need to adopt before adjourning for Christmas holidays. “I’m not planning to do that,” Johnson said on Wednesday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now.” The Louisiana Republican reminded reporters that he had predicted Donald Trump’s election would change the dynamics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and make further US funding unnecessary, adding that this is precisely what’s been happening in recent weeks.
“We have a newly-elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that,” Johnson said. “So I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.” Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. The latest batch of funding, amounting to $61 billion, was held up for several months amid a battle between Johnson and the White House. The previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last October because a group of Republicans was outraged he had secretly negotiated with Democrats to get the Ukraine funding approved. The funding ended up stuck in Congress for almost six months, before it was approved in both the Senate and the House in April, with no concessions to the GOP.
They’re trying to kill all of them.
• Ukraine Negotiating Plans to Draft 18-Year-Olds With US (Sp.)
Ukraine has been negotiating plans with the United States to lower the mobilization age from 25 to 18, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tyhy said on Thursday. Media reported on Wednesday, citing a senior White House official, that the US was urging Ukraine to start drafting men as young as 18 to address the gaping shortage of manpower. “I can confirm that this topic is being discussed at the negotiations. I can refute that it is becoming a source of tension … Yes, we are discussing this. And I would say that Ukraine usually initiates these discussions,” Tyhy told a news briefing.
Ukraine has been updating its partners on the levels of mobilization, the provision of weapons, strategies, defense and sanctions, he added. Tykhyi argued that Kiev did not see the scale of mobilization as the main problem. He insisted that Ukrainian armed forces lacked weapons to arm those already drafted. Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law in April to lower the conscription age from 27 to 25, prompting a public outcry. The government said in August that it had no plans to drop the draft age lower. A Ukrainian lawmaker said in September that the army had banned recruiting citizens under 25, who previously had the “fit for limited military service” status.
Baerbock is next in line with Ursula and Kallas. Girls trying to act like men. The video shows how China dealt with her when, as their guest, she started lecturing them.
• German FM Hints At Troop Deployment To Ukraine (RT)
Berlin will not rule out sending its troops to Ukraine to secure a ceasefire if a deal is reached between Moscow and Kiev, German media reported on Tuesday, citing Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. According to Die Welt, during a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, Baerbock declared that Germany is willing to back any initiative promoting lasting peace in Ukraine “with all its strength.” She suggested that a potential peace deal could include security guarantees for Kiev, such as the prospect of NATO membership and continued military support from the West, as well as an international peacekeeping mission. Asked about what military role Germany could play in such a deal, Baerbock was quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as saying that “only we as Europeans can protect peace together,” suggesting that EU countries, including Germany, could send their soldiers to Ukraine.
Recent media reports have suggested that France and the UK are also considering deploying their troops to the front line in Ukraine to ensure a ceasefire in the event that Moscow and Kiev engage in peace talks. According to a high-ranking NATO official who spoke with the Ukrainian branch of the CIA-founded news outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, putting Western boots on the ground in Ukraine is seen as a way of ensuring that European NATO members have a say in the outcome of the conflict after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in in January. Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has reported that Western nations are planning to deploy as many as 100,000 “so-called peacekeepers” to Ukraine. The agency has warned that such a large force would amount to an occupation and effectively give Kiev time to rebuild its army before renewing hostilities with Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also noted that Moscow has already repeatedly outlined “clear parameters” for a resolution of the Ukraine crisis. He said the core causes of the conflict, such as the continued expansion of NATO in Europe and Kiev’s systematic violation of the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, need to be addressed in order to move towards a resolution. “It’s deeper than sending in some peacekeepers,” Peskov said.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1864063270006448623
Just train them to fly drones.
• Netherlands Could Reintroduce Military Conscription (RT)
The Dutch Defense Ministry is considering the possibility of reintroducing compulsory military service, 27 years after the practice was dropped in the country, RTL has reported. The media network said on Tuesday that it had obtained a document from the ministry, detailing an action plan to reinstate conscription, on the grounds that the Netherlands could find itself in a major conflict in the next five to ten years, due to deteriorating global security. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East and various other flash points have shown once again that security cannot be taken for granted,” the document stressed, as cited by RTL. According to the article, the reintroduction of compulsory military service would be a lengthy and complicated process.
However, if neigboring EU and NATO member states decide to reinstate the draft, the Netherlands will immediately follow suit, it said. The outlet noted that Germany, France and Poland are currently considering bringing back conscription, at least partially. When asked for comment by RTL, the Netherlands Chief of Defense, General Onno Eichelsheim, said compulsory military service “right now… is not on the agenda and is not necessary.” Eichelsheim described the document as “a theoretical exercise.” He pointed out that it would take years for the Dutch military to acquire the necessary equipment, build barracks and increase training capacity to accept such a large number of recruits. RTL estimated that if the recruitment of 17-year-olds were to begin, the armed forces would have to accommodate and train up to 200,000 soldiers annually.
However, according to the broadcaster, the military is currently capable of training up 1,000 draftees per year, with plans to increase the number to 9,000 by 2029. The Netherlands currently has a professional army of just over 42,000 service personnel. Technically, the draft still exists in the country for men aged from 17 to 45 and women from 17 to 23. Thousands of people receive conscription letters every year, but the requirement for them to actually report for military service has been suspended since 1997. The Netherlands has been among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia, supplying hardware including Leopard 2 tanks and F-16 fighter jets. According to the Dutch government, military aid to Kiev will reach €3 billion ($3.15 billion) this year, with the same sum earmarked for 2025. Last month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Netherlands “has taken a rather uncompromising position” towards Russia, dashing all hopes of building “pragmatic” bilateral relations.
Repeat from yesterday: “The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas took the side of the 34%, whom she declared to be the “Georgian people,” not the 54% who won the election.”
• Many Georgia Protesters Are Foreigners – MP (RT)
Up to a third of those identified at recent protests in Tbilisi have turned out to be foreign nationals, according to the executive secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Mamuka Mdinaradze. The anti-government protests broke out in the Georgian capital last week after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that he would be freezing accession talks with the EU due to Brussels’ “constant blackmail and manipulation” of the former Soviet republic’s domestic politics. Pro-EU protesters have since taken to the streets and repeatedly clashed with law enforcement, setting off fireworks and throwing Molotov cocktails at riot police, as well as setting fire to the parliament building. Law enforcement officials have in turn deployed tear gas and water cannons in an attempt to disperse the protesters, over 200 of whom have reportedly been arrested.
More than 110 police officers have also been injured during the protests. Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, Mdinaradze claimed that “30% of the people who were identified at the protests in Tbilisi are citizens of other countries.” “What’s going on? Someone has to explain this strangeness. Why are these foreign citizens so upset after our decision?” the politician asked, noting that there were many Russian citizens among the detained protesters, as well as people from the US, the UK and the Netherlands. Following the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev in 2022, Georgia became one of the primary destinations for Russian citizens who disagreed with Russia’s policies. Meanwhile, Kobakhidze slammed the protests as an “attack on the constitutional order” in Georgia, and blamed the civil unrest on “EU politicians and their agents.”
He also claimed that the West was trying to orchestrate a Maidan-style revolution in Georgia, referring to the US-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which ousted the country’s democratically elected president and precipitated the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The Georgian leader has said that those behind the protests will not be able to realize the Maidan scenario in his country because, “unlike Ukraine in 2013, Georgia is an independent state with strong institutions and, most importantly, experienced and wise people.” Moscow has also compared the anti-government protests in Georgia to the Maidan coup, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that the unrest exhibits “all the signs of an attempt to carry out an ‘orange revolution’.”
It’s not Malta: “..due to circumstances beyond their control..”
• Visa Already Issued by Malta For Zakharova Canceled on Eve of OSCE Meeting (Sp.)
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had her visa already issued by Malta canceled on the eve of the meeting of OSCE foreign ministers, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. “An unprecedented case [of non-issuance of visas to members of the Russian delegation] was the cancellation on the eve of the event of the visa already issued by the Maltese Presidency to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, with the wording ‘due to circumstances beyond their control,” the statement read. The current OSCE crisis was the result of the destructive actions of a number of Western countries using this platform in their own interests, the statement read.
“Let me remind you that this a ministerial event of the very same OSCE that claims to advocate for freedom of movement. Previously, they talked about the ‘three baskets’ of the OSCE that defined the basic principles of cooperation and interaction within the organization. Now, there is neither cooperation nor interaction, and instead of principles, there is a lack of principles. The OSCE has thrown its own decisions into these so-called ‘baskets,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. Zakharova recalled that Bulgaria had prohibited a Russian plane carrying a delegation from flying over its territory for the OSCE Ministerial Council in 2023 due to her possible presence on board.
Tumor
"When Kevin McKernan gene sequenced [a] tumor, [a] colon tumor, a few weeks ago and matched the genetic sequence to the Pfizer vaccine, it's freaking over …
He got them …
There's no question [the COVID mRNA injections are causing cancer]. Kevin proved it."More info within… pic.twitter.com/AuD7kTijGM
— “Sudden And Unexpected” (@toobaffled) December 4, 2024
Latypova
https://twitter.com/i/status/1864055566651527530
Yawn
"Animals yawning are sooo cute"
Emerald Tree Boas: pic.twitter.com/5mGzmVmUIM
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 3, 2024
Chimp
A Chimp was born a couple days ago at the Sedgwick County Zoo. He had trouble getting oxygen so had to be kept at the vet. This video shows mom reuniting with him after almost 2 days apart. pic.twitter.com/oE59xfP6Ga
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 3, 2024
Climbing
Climbing man spinning artwork by Yohei Kisanuki pic.twitter.com/MjjmjUr63K
— Interesting As Fuck (@interesting_aIl) December 3, 2024
Sold out
https://twitter.com/i/status/1864440343136981241
Squirrel
Mum was fed up of the squirrels stealing all the bird food so she greased the feeder! pic.twitter.com/7llxooOIIA
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 4, 2024
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