Sharpton threatens NYC store boycott over profiling claims

The Rev. Al Sharpton threatened to boycott high-end Barneys New York on Saturday amid racial profiling allegations brought forth by black shoppers in New York City.

"We've gone from stop and frisk to shop and frisk, and we are not going to take it," Sharpton said during a weekly rally at his National Action Network's headquarters in Harlem. "We are not going to live in a town where our money is considered suspect and everyone else's money is respected."

Joining Sharpton at the rally, Kirsten John Foy with National Action Network said the civil rights activist would be meeting with Barneys officials Tuesday to discuss the allegations. Sharpton called for a boycott of the store if the luxury retailer's response is inadequate.

Black shoppers in New York City appear to be coming out of the woodwork this week to say they were racially profiled at retail stores — two at Barneys New York — and the most recent allegation involves an actor for the popular HBO show Treme at Macy's flagship store.

Actor Robert Brown told the NY Daily News he was "paraded" through Macy's back in June in handcuffs and detained for an hour in a holding cell in the store while an employee called police because the store suspected the credit card he was using to purchase sunglasses was not legitimate.

Macy's issued a statement: "We are investigating the alleged claims, as we were just made aware of this lawsuit. We do not comment on matters in litigation." The retailer said it is investigating the charges.

Via: USA Today

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'Penalized': Shaheen’s Obamacare admission

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen actually led on a controversial issue this week. That event was more surprising than what she actually said: that the Obama administration should extend Obamacare’s open enrollment period because of the healthcare.gov signup disaster. And the reason for her position is more important than the position itself.

New Hampshire’s two members of the U.S. House, Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster, both quickly played “Me Too” and endorsed an extension. “If an individual is unable to purchase health insurance due to technical problems with enrollment, they should not be penalized because of lack of coverage,” Shaheen said. Kuster also used the word “penalized.” Perfect.

Obamacare does not allow Americans to buy any health insurance product they want. It compels us under penalty of law to buy very specific plans. They must include maternity, contraception and pediatric coverage, for instance. That makes no sense for young, single men, male retirees or couples who have surgically rendered themselves incapable of reproduction. But all must pay for that coverage or be, in the word of Shaheen and Kuster, penalized.

They believe that the federal government should tell people what kind of insurance to buy, for how much, and then punish people for not obeying the command. If they believe the federal government should have that kind of power over every American, what else are they willing to force us to do?

Via: NH Union Leader

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President embraces role as 'salesman' for Obamacare

President Obama in his weekly address Saturday said he was proud to be a “salesman” for Obamacare despite criticism over the glitch-filled rollout of the law’s insurance exchanges.

“Some people have poked fun at me this week for sounding like an insurance salesman. And that’s okay,” said Obama. “I’d still be out there championing this law even if the website were perfect.”

Obama’s comments came after another week of withering criticism over the administration’s rollout of a new website designed to enroll consumers in the health care law’s public insurance exchanges.

Obama said at an event Monday that he is frustrated with the website and vowed it would be fixed, but also defended the health care law as a “good deal” for the public.

Opponents of the health care law criticized Obama, saying he was forced to resell the public on supporting his signature legislative achievement.

Obama on Saturday said he welcomed the role as salesman-in-chief and touted the law’s benefits.

“I’ll never stop fighting to help more hardworking Americans know the economic security of health care,” he said.

The president also mocked Republicans’ criticisms of the website and concern for consumers, saying they had “spent the last few years so obsessed with denying those same people access to health insurance.”

Obama again argued, as he has all week, that the health care law is more than just a website.

“We did not fight so hard for this reform for so many years just to build a website. We did it to free millions of American families from the awful fear that one illness or injury — to yourself or your child — might cost you everything you’d worked so hard to build,” he said.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Senator Proposes Law: 'If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act'

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin will propose a new law next week called: "If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act."

“One of the most important promises made by President Obama and Democrat congressional leadership to promote the Affordable Care Act was that Americans who were satisfied with their health plans could keep them.  That promise has been broken.  More than a million Americans have been notified that the plans they like with the coverage they have chosen have been canceled.  Millions more Americans will have the plans of their choice canceled in months to come,” says Senator Johnson in a statement.

"Americans want the freedom to choose their own plans and want to be in control of their own health care.  They don’t want Obamacare destroying what they have and what they like.  They don’t want their personal choices regarding their health plans and their families’ health plans canceled by Obamacare.

"The ‘If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act’ will amend the law to make Obamacare live up to the promises of the politicians who sold the plan to the American public.  I will file the bill in the coming week and hope to garner support from fellow Senators of both parties who truly want to make sure President Obama honors his promise that every American has the freedom to keep his or her own health care plan."

For more on the need for a bill like this one, read James C. Capretta's piece in the most recent issue of the magazine.

Via: The Weekly Standard

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When the Have Nots Become the Haves

All these transfer payments impoverish the working middle class who pay the biggest share of their income in taxes and empower those who receive the benefits

Saul Alinsky the political thinker who seems to have had more impact on President Obama than any other was very clear in his most important book about what his motives were and what he was aiming at, “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

With the November Revolution of 2008, which gave us one party rule for two years, the Progressive Democrat party saw their chance and they took it. Within the two years it took for the people to realize they needed some balance the Progressives passed ObamaCare which effectively gives government control of 1/6 of the economy. They passed Dodd-Frank which gives them extensive control over the financialsector. When they couldn’t push Cap-N-Trade even through a rubber-stamp Congress the President imposed it by executive order. When they likewise failed to muster enough of their own hacks to pass the Dream Act once again it was imposed by fiat.

The anti-capitalist programs of the Progressive Bush Administration’s final days were continued and amplified by the Obama Administration. TARP was followed by the Stimulus. The takeover of AIG was joined by the take-over of the auto industry and by force feeding money into the economy for years of quantitative easing as the casino we call the stock market soars.

Unemployment reporting has become totally unhinged from reality as the real rate stays at levels which would easily shine the light of truth on the fiction of a recovery.

According to the government’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics the real unemployment rate (U-6) has been continuously above 13% for the last year. This information is readily available (one click of the mouse) and yet the media (including Fox) have told us day-by-day that it is falling and is now down to 7.2. This typifies the manufactured reality the federal government and the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media shovel into the public trough. If the plagiarized opinions I hear my fellow citizens share everyday are any indication the average person accepts the fiction as reality.

Via: Canada Free Press

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[VIDEO] Many More Americans Enrolling In Medicaid Than Private Plans

When ObamaCare was being sold to the American people, one of the claims was that it would get uninsured Americans private insurance. Instead, it seems to be going in the opposite direction.

This week, The Post’s S.A. Miller and Carl Campanile reported that only a third of the 37,000 New Yorkers who enrolled in health care through the state’s new exchange signed up for private insurance. Nearly two-thirds opted for Medicaid, a state program partly funded by the federal government.

That’s just what’s got many insurers worried. Because to pay for ObamaCare’s benefits, they need a great many more healthy people to sign up.

Read the full Story At nypost.com

Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs discuss Obamacare and the surge in enrollment in Medicaid over private insurance.

(Transcript)

O'REILLY: "Lou's the Boss" segment tonight, CBS News has been aggressive in investigating Obamacare. Here is what was said this morning.

Via: Fox News

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Time Got It Wrong: Women Aren't the Only 'Adults' of the Shutdown

At Yahoo News, former ABC and CBS political producer Marc Ambinder picked apart a Time magazine article by Jay Newton-Small triumphantly headlined “In Shutdown, Women are the Only Adults Left.” It was so pro-“chick” that “Several women rights' groups, like EMILY's List, picked up the story for use in fundraising.” (Newton-Small reported only two of the 20 female senators – Kelly Ayotte and Debbie Fischer -- are pro-life. All 16 Democrats favor abortion.)

Ambinder rejected this article primarily because the Democrats weren’t “equally childish” to the conservative Republicans, and because the “childlike qualities” of the hardest-headed Democrats were “absolutely essential” to winning:

The idea that women were the only adults in the shut-down is attractive. But it ain't so. One, Republicans and Democrats were not equally childish in this debacle, something that Republicans themselves recognize. Two, Democratic leaders and the White House had to be hard-headed and obstinate in order to force the House Republicans to give up and to re-open the government. Those childlike qualities were absolutely essential.

Sadly, women did not play a significant role in the government shutdown. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's role will be very important going forward, but that's because she's proven herself indispensable on budget matters and not because she is a woman. In the House, Rep. Michelle Bachmann had perhaps the biggest megaphone of any woman in Washington during the shut-down, and she wasn't on the side of the angels here.

The "angel" side is the Obamacare side, in the media minds. Ambinder suggests his female colleague Newton-Small is patronizing to women:

The women in the U.S. Senate are incredible people, but it's patronizing to say that they are even more special than their male counterparts because they are women...Until women become power-brokers in Congress, and I really do want them to become power-brokers in Congress, there is no way to assess whether simply being a woman makes one a better, more effective legislator for our times without resorting to barely-post-Victorian era notions of what women have than men lack.

Via: Newsbusters

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Obamacare’s Website Debacles Migrate To Paper, Phone Applications

The rollout of Obamacare to date has been, as many predicted, the case study of everything that is wrong with a mandatory government-conceived, supervised and enforced program. Ignoring for a minute the daily embarrassment the Obama administration has to face with the well-documented failings of the HealthCare.gov website which on second glance should win Obama the Nobel Price for coding in Fortran (or  Cobol), and which seems set for a full-blown overhaul that would force a delay of the mandate whether Obama wants it or not, the several million “glitchy” lines of code have become the greatest gift the GOP could have asked for. A gift, which as the saying goes, keeps on giving. Because one of Obama’s suggested loopholes has been to advise people who can’t or won’t sign up online, to do so using old-fashioned means: by paper, pen or phone. Unfortunately, that’s where the rabbit hole just goes deeper, because as Politico reports, the glitches that started on line have rapidly shifted to the world of phone and mail, as virtually every pathway of enrolling into the enforced healthcare program is now hopelessly bottlenecked, if not entirely shut.

From Politico:

With the supposedly state-of-the-art $600 million HealthCare.gov portal malfunctioning, President Barack Obama is urging Americans to go ahead and try to get health coverage by mailing in a paper application, calling the helpline or seeking help from one of the trained “assisters.”

But the truth is those applications — on paper or by phone — have to get entered into the same lousy website that is causing the problems in the first place. And the people processing the paper and calls don’t have any cyber secret passage to duck around that. They too have to deal with all the frustrations of HealthCare.gov — full-time.

Via: Phil's Stock World
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Maher Tears Into GOP on Minimum Wage: Paying People ‘Unfortunate Expense of Running a Business’

Bill Maher ended his show Friday night going after Republican opposition to the minimum wage, calling them out for opposing something that would make people less dependent on government handouts. He targeted McDonalds in particular, saying “until Ronald McDonald starts paying his employees a living wage, he has to wipe that fucking smile off his face.”

On the charge minimum wages cut into profits, Maher mockingly explained, “Paying workers is one of those unfortunate expenses of running a business, like taxes or making a product.”

He asked, “When did the American dream become a pathway to indentured servitude?” and made the argument that the GOP can have a “smaller government with less handouts” or a low minimum wage, but they can’t have both.

And Maher doesn’t even eat fast food anyway. He said, “If I want to talk into the face of some red-nosed clown, I’ll debate John Bohener.”

Watch the video below, via HBO:

Via: Mediaite.com

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[VIDEO] Pavlich Addresses Increasing Cost of HealthCare.gov

The failing Obamcare website cost $500 million in taxpayer dollars. A 'tech-surge' is now needed to address the overwhelming amount of glitches and bugs. "You have the administration now saying that they are going to bring in a surge of tech analysts and tech specialists but they are not willing to tell us exactly who those people are, how much we're paying them and when this will be done," Katie Pavlich said on Fox News Friday.

Via: Townhall

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TOM PAUKEN: NO MORE COMMON CORE

Republican advocates for the Common Core State Standards have been surprised to discover deep and persistent opposition to a top down, educational system driven by a “testing to the test” mindset which seeks to push all students towards a four year university degree. You might say that, by failing to anticipate objections from grassroots conservatives, Common Core advocates are guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations. But, the trajectory of the debate and the passion it engenders from many parents, educators, grassroot conservatives and employers dissatisfied with the increasing state and national control over local public education, is not at all surprising to those of us in Texas who have watched and participated in the battle over our state’s education policy in recent years. As Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, I was heavily involved in that battle.

Over the past two decades, intellectual elites took control of Texas public schools and implemented a philosophy that shares with the Common Core the same defining characteristics:

- a top-down, centralized approach

- an obsession with testing

- one-size-fits-all standards and curriculum

- the use of buzzwords like “rigor” so as to imply that opponents favor low quality education

- giving lots lip service to principles like local control while essentially threatening those (schools, districts, states) who don’t choose to comply to do so under state mandates.

In Texas, this approach to education goes back to initiatives begun by Ross Perot in 1984 which gained steam under Democratic Governor Ann Richards in the early 1990s. But, when George W. Bush was Governor, this top-down, centralized educational philosophy came to dominance.

Via: Human Events

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Public Pensions and the Death of American Cities

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss American cities going broke, why public union pensions play a significant role and if Washington may eventually bail out bankrupt cities and states.

We’re brought to you by Stephen Clouse and Associates and The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at bjackson[at]coffeeandmarkets.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Via: Red State

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500,000 Californians Lose Health Policies

My wife, the syndicated San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, has learned that at least 500,000 Californians may lose their health insurance next year — and that’s a conservative estimate. From her Token Conservativeblog:

According to this link as of December 2012, there were 491,977 covered lives in individual health care plans regulated by the state Department Insurance that are not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act. (If they bought a plan after March 2010, their coverage is not grandfathered.) This is a 2012 number, but if the number of people with private coverage hasn’t changed much in the last ten months, that’s half a million Californians who will lose their coverage.

Those canceled policies will have to be replaced with Obamacare-approved insurance:

California Association of Health Plans president Pat Johnston told me that by law providers must cancel non-grandfathered individual policies. (It is my understanding some folks will lose their coverage at year’s end, others might be able to extend into 2014 through the end of a covered year.) This probably means premiums hikes for people who “not only were they healthy, they also probably were very savvy shoppers.” This is a small corner of the insurance market; others may well save money under the Affordable Care Act. But for the people kicked off their individual California plans, Johnston said, it may well be that ”if you’re outside that subsidy range, you’re on your own.”

So much for, “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.” The train wreck continues.

Via: NRO

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Obamacare’s Virtual Fantasy Couldn’t Handle Messy Reality

The HealthCare.gov website is a disaster -- symbolic to Obamacare opponents, disheartening to supporters, and incredibly frustrating to people who just need to buy insurance. Somecomputer experts are saying the only way to save the system is to scrap the current bloated code and start over.

Looking back, it seems crazy that neither the Barack Obama administration nor the public was prepared for the startup difficulties. There’s no shortage of database experts willing to opine on the complexities of the problem. Plenty of companies have nightmarish stories to tell about much simpler software projects. And reporting by the New York Times finds that the people involved with the system knew months ago that it was in serious trouble. “We foresee a train wreck,” one said back in February.

The HealthCare.gov website is a disaster -- symbolic to Obamacare opponents, disheartening to supporters, and incredibly frustrating to people who just need to buy insurance. Somecomputer experts are saying the only way to save the system is to scrap the current bloated code and start over.

Looking back, it seems crazy that neither the Barack Obama administration nor the public was prepared for the startup difficulties. There’s no shortage of database experts willing to opine on the complexities of the problem. Plenty of companies have nightmarish stories to tell about much simpler software projects. And reporting by the New York Times finds that the people involved with the system knew months ago that it was in serious trouble. “We foresee a train wreck,” one said back in February.

Via: Bloomberg

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Unabashed Cruz in Iowa defends self on ObamaCare fight, against GOP establishment

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is charging ahead with his argument that attempts to dismantle ObamaCare needed to be part of the recent Washington budget negotiations and is firing back at the GOP establishment and others who say his tactics led to an unnecessary, partial government shutdown.

Cruz, who appears poised for a president bid, told hundreds at a GOP fundraiser in Iowa on Friday that efforts he led to “defund” ObamaCare will carry the fight through the 2014 congressional and 2016 White House races.

"One of the things we accomplished in the fight over ObamaCare is we elevated the national debate over what a disaster, what a train wreck, how much ObamaCare is hurting millions of Americans across this country," Cruz said at the Iowa GOP's annual fundraising dinner in Des Moines. “Senate Republicans didn't stand together. Had we stuck together, the outcome might be very different. The House does now, but I'm confident that the U.S. senate will in time listen to the American people.”

The Tea Party-backed, first-term senator appeared to further define his political future, saying he will continue to focus on grassroots efforts, like the town hall-style meetings he helped lead this summer to garner support to defund ObamaCare.

“For everyone who says we need to think about winning elections in 2014, nothing energizes [voters] more than a grassroots election,” he said. “We got our clock cleaned in ’06, ’08 and ’12. But we had grassroots in [2010.] Republican strategist say let's go back to ’06, ’08 and ’12. They say keep your head down. That's how you win -- what complete poppycock.

Via: Fox News

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HILLARY CLINTON TO RECEIVE AMERICAN PATRIOT AWARD

FROM WHO?? THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF STUPIDITY??  YOU HAVE TO BE FREAKIN KIDDING ME!!!!!!

Hillary Clinton is set receive the National Defense University Foundation' American Patriot Award.

According to the Washington Examiner, the award ceremony features five co-chairs: "Madeleine Albright, who served as Secretary of State under Bill Clinton; former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who spent two years as Clinton's White House chief of staff; ...Vernon Jordan, who became a household name when he attempted to cover up the Monica Lewinsky scandal by getting the then-White House intern a job; [and] former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and George W. Bush's former Secretary of State Colin Powell."

Previous award recipients include "three failed presidential candidates"--Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), John McCain (R-AZ), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). 

Ironically, Clinton receives the award on November 14, which is around the time 60 Minutes is running a special detailing its attempts to "get to the truth about what happened in Benghazi."

Via: Breitbart

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Weekly Republican Address: Chairman Fred Upton on ObamaCare Oversight & Fairness For All - Saturday October 26, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC – Delivering the Weekly Republican Address, House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) highlights efforts to provide fairness for all Americans under the president’s health care law, and get to the bottom of what went wrong with its rollout.  With his committee set to hear from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday, Upton notes that "the bipartisan chorus has been growing ... to delay the penalty that Americans would face for being unable to purchase insurance through this broken system.”

At the end of the address – recorded in the committee’s hearing room – Upton asks Americans facing hardships from the president’s health care law to visit gop.gov/YourStory to share their experiences.

Via: Speaker.gov

Obama Weekly Address: Enrolling in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace Saturday October 26, 213

President Barack Obama intends to publish a weekly video address every Saturday morning of his presidency.

• In this week’s address, President Obama discusses the launch of the Health Insurance Marketplace for the Affordable Care Act, which gives millions of Americans the opportunity to have access to affordable and reliable healthcare—many for the first time. 

  Via: White House
  
  

WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS OBAMACARE GIRL FEATURED ON THE WEBSITE’S HOME PAGE?

You have probably seen her face before, but do you know who that brunette girl is smiling back at you when you log onto healthcare.gov?

Odds are you don’t, but you aren’t alone.

Multiple media outlets, including USA Today and Fox News, have scoured the Internet and looked through stock photo agencies’ catalogs, social media and even through photographs of Democratic operatives — but the mysterious girl has yet to be found.

–Have a tip? Scroll to the bottom of this page and leave it in our tip box–

(Image Source: Healthcare.gov)

The woman, who media outlets are desperately trying to identify, has become the face of the glitch-ridden healthcare.gov website.

CNN even devoted an entire segment to her, asking for information about who she may be.

Via: The Blaze

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Seattle seizes elderly woman's parking lot to turn it into -- a parking lot

The city of Seattle is forcing a 103-year-old woman to give up her private waterfront parking lot to make way for a city-owned parking lot.

The City Council voted Monday to use its power of eminent domain to acquire the lot owned by Spokane resident Myrtle Woldson, who has repeatedly turned down offers to purchase the property, Q13FOX.com reported.

According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the city wants to acquire Woldson's property to mitigate the loss of other parking lots during the construction of a $2.1 billion tunnel that will replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

City officials have said that they plan to keep the lot for surface parking, even though city and state transportation documents call for structured parking along Seattle's central waterfront area, including Woldson's lot, the newspaper reported.

Gary Beck, president of Republic Parking Northwest, which operates the lot, told the Puget Sound Business Journal that Woldson once turned down a $20 million-dollar offer for the property.

“It makes no fiscal sense to me to have the city condemn a parking lot to make more parking,” Beck said.

Via: Fox News

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Matthews: ‘If We Get a Fact Wrong [on Hardball], We Are Being Dishonest and Incompetent’ (WHICH IS ALL THE TIME)

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
October 25, 2013 11:15 pm

MSNBC host Chris Matthews said Hardball producers go for the stories that are “heat seeking” and “driven by facts” Friday on Up Late.

Matthews noted Hardball does not “have a correction page,” and thus “if we get a fact wrong, we are being dishonest and incompetent”:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Every show is different. All our producers know our job is — is — heat seeking. I admit it. Go for the heat. Fact driven. Do both. Go for the heat. You can’t make it boring. It’s got to be driven by facts. We don’t have a correction page like the New York Times. If we get a fact wrong, we are being dishonest and incompetent.

Currently, Chris Matthews’ Politifact file has three statements evaluated, only one of which is rated “true.”

CBS 10 Tampa ran this piece last year on one of Matthews’ more egregious errors when he factually butchered the details of Florida’s 48 hour voter registration rule:

It does not appear Matthews apologized for being “dishonest and incompetent” in this instance.

VIA: WFB

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