Sunday, May 31, 2015

68th Terrorist Plot Calls for Major Counterterrorism Reforms

On the evening of May 3, two men armed with rifles attacked the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Texas. While both shooters were killed before they could get inside the exhibit, this attack is the 68th Islamist terrorist plot or attack against the U.S. since 9/11. This incident has raised significant questions about the way terrorists are being recruited in the U.S. and what the U.S. can do to stop them. With Congress set to debate portions of the Patriot Act, it should consider how it can provide intelligence and law enforcement officials with the tools they need to find and stop terrorists, while respecting individual liberty and privacy.

Attack in Texas

While the FBI has not completed its investigation of the incident, FBI Director James Comey provided details to reporters last week and the Garland police have provided updated information as well. The first shooter, Elton Simpson, had been watched by the FBI since 2006 when it appeared that he was going to travel overseas to join al-Shabaab, a terrorist group that is based in Somalia and affiliated with al-Qaeda.[1]While his travel plans were thwarted, he was only convicted of lying to federal officials and received three years probation in 2011. The FBI stopped monitoring him in 2014 but reopened their investigation in March after he expressed interest in jihad and the self-styled Islamic State (ISIS) on social media.[2]
Hours before the attack, the FBI sent a bulletin to Garland Police to notify them of Simpson, but they had no definitive information that he was headed from Phoenix to the event much less that he was set to attack it. So far, little is officially known about the other shooter. According to the Garland Police, he was Nadir Soofi, Simpson’s roommate.[3]
Arriving at the art contest in Garland, Simpson and Soofi opened fire with rifles, wounding one unarmed security officer in the leg.[4] The first officer to confront the shooters wounded both before other members of the Garland police department returned fire, killing the shooters. ISIS reportedly claimed credit following the attack and also claimed that it has “71 trained soldiers in 15 different states ready at our word to attack.”[5]
While the investigation will uncover more specifics, there is sufficient detail available to declare this a terrorist plot: Simpson had expressed interest in jihad and proceeded to attack an event that he viewed as contrary to his faith. The investigation may provide us more insight into Simpsons’ connection and communication with ISIS, how this target was chosen, and how Soofi became radicalized, but for now many of these details are unknown or unconfirmed by law enforcement.

Mike Lee: Americans deserve better than Congress' 'governing from a cliff'

Photo - Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, addresses the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 26, 2015 in National Harbor, Md. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, addresses the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 26, 2015 in National Harbor, Md. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Sen. Mike Lee criticized his fellow lawmakers for waiting until the last moment to act on the expiring Patriot Act.
"I do believe we have the votes … the question is not whether we will get this passed, but when," the Utah Republican said Sunday on CNN.
"It'll happen tonight or on Wednesday," he said, before criticizing how Congress continues to "govern from a cliff."
Congress knew the Patriot Act was set to expire June 1 four years ago, but failed to act on it, Lee, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said.
"American people deserve better than this … governing from a cliff," Lee said, adding, "This sort of thing has become all too common."
It's a "bad habit" adopted by both parties, Lee said.
According to Lee, the USA Freedom Act — which has been passed by the House but remains stalled in the Senate — solves the underlying problem of bulk collection of Americans' phone records and keeping the American people safe.
Senators are to adjourn Sunday in Washington to decide what to with expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, which expire June 1.

The Obama Administration Was Handed a Huge Immigration Defeat. Here’s Why It Matters.

COMMENTARY BY

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Obama administration a huge defeat this week.
It denied the government’s request for an emergency stay of a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of President Obama’s immigration amnesty program. This is not a decision on the merits of the lawsuit filed against the administration by the 26 states. But it certainly does not bode well for the administration’s case since in today’s 2-1 decision, the 5th Circuit concluded that “the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction.”
The panel also denied the government’s request to narrow the nationwide scope of the injunction so that it only applied to Texas and the other states in the lawsuit.
The court concluded that “partial implementation of [the president’s program] would undermine the constitutional imperative of ‘a uniform Rule of Naturalization’” contained in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, as well as “Congress’s instruction that ‘the immigration laws of the United States should be enforced vigorously and uniformly’” that is outlined in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
The 68-page opinion was written by Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, who was joined by Jennifer Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee.
The dissenting judge, Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee, argued that the underlying immigration issue is one that can only be decided “by the federal political branches” and is not an appropriate issue for “intervention and judicial fiat” by the courts.
Next up in the 5th Circuit will be the main event: Oral arguments over the substantive issue at stake, which is the constitutional and statutory merit of the injunction issued against President Obama’s plan to, in essence, legalize up to 5 million illegal aliens.

‘San Andreas’ Set to Rock Box Office with $47 Million Debut, ‘Aloha’ Left in the Dust

Warner Bros.’ “San Andreas” is no box office disaster, with the 3D action film drawing $18.2 million on Friday, setting it on track for a projected weekend haul of $47 million at 3,777 locations and smashing past early estimates that put it around the $40 million mark. Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha,” meanwhile, was left in the dust, eyeing a modest $10-11 million weekend after a slow Friday that drew approximately $3.6 million at 2,815 sites.
Critics may not be giving “San Andreas” points for its brains, but the Dwayne Johnson film is certainly demonstrating its brawn — its strong performance is the best of Johnson’s career outside the “Fast & Furious” franchise, handily beating the opening weekend haul for “Hercules” ($29.8 million), “Pain and Gain” ($20.2 million) and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” ($40.5 million).
There’s still a chasm between “San Andreas” and the opening weekend tallies for Roland Emmerich’s similarly cataclysmic movies, “The Day After Tomorrow” ($68.7 million) and “2012” ($65.2 million), but it’s a vast improvement over last year’s “Into the Storm” ($17.3 million) and “Pompeii” ($10.3 million), which barely measured on the Richter scale.
While the romantic “Aloha” offers counter-programming for viewers who may have grown tired of the endless CGI carnage that has become a staple of summer blockbusters, the Bradley Cooper film has received a critical mauling. A $10-11 million opening is in line with Crowe’s two most recent drama offerings — 2011’s “We Bought a Zoo” garnered $9.3 million and went on to make $75.6 million, buoyed by the star power of Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, while 2005’s “Elizabethtown” bowed to $10.6 million on its way to a $26.8 million total.
Elsewhere, Universal’s “Pitch Perfect 2″ is still humming along, eyeing a weekend total of around $14 million in week three, while Warner Bros.’ “Mad Max: Fury Road” clearly has plenty of gas in the tank, on track for a three-day total of around $13 million. Disney’s “Tomorrowland” is nipping at “Max’s” heels for a similar $13 million weekend.
Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is still showing its box office muscle in week five, with Joss Whedon’s superhero sequel expected to pass $425 million this weekend, which could relegate “Aloha” to sixth place on the chart. 20th Century Fox’s “Poltergeist” remake scared up $2.6 million on Friday, looking to chill audiences to the tune of just under $8 million in its second weekend.

Texas Now Produces More Natural Gas Than All Of OPEC

Everything is bigger in Texas, especially natural gas production. The Lone Star State alone produces more natural gas than every country in the world, except Russia, and that includes every member state of OPEC.
The American Petroleum Institute has released a graphic showing that Texas produces 18.81 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, well above any member of OPEC. The graphic is meant to show how hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling into shale formations has made the U.S. the world’s top oil and gas producer.
Source: The American Petroleum Institute
Source: The American Petroleum Institute
“This is what energy security looks like,” Tracee Bentley, head of the Colorado Petroleum Council, said of the graphic. “Thanks to innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, Colorado now outpaces seven of 12 OPEC nations in natural gas production.”
Individual U.S. states now produce so much natural gas, they outrank whole countries when it comes to daily production. Iran, the largest OPEC gas producer, only produces 15.43 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Qatar, OPEC’s number two gas producer, produces 15.09 billion barrels per day.

For 'the Working Guy' But Killing Good Middle Class Jobs

 A tugboat pushing nine loaded coal barges chugged up the Ohio River, toward the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.
It eventually passed the McConway & Torley steel foundry along the Allegheny, likely headed for one of the few coal-fired power plants left in America.
Hold on to that imagery: It is part of the left-behind community of Americans whose struggles with the we-know-what's-best-for-you elite will be central to the fight over our direction in the next presidential election.
Workers in the coal industry and at McConway & Torley are in the cross hairs of the progressive left. The left rails against McDonald's for not paying a salary that sustains a family of four, as it simultaneously tries to snuff out the manufacturing base that provides well-paid middle-class jobs.
McConway & Torley has been in Pittsburgh for nearly 150 years. It is one of the few places in the city where laborers can earn enough to stay out of poverty, own a home and provide security for their families' futures.
All of that is what both Democrats and Republicans are preaching in the run-up to the 2016 election; each candidate promises to rebuild the manufacturing base that evaporated from the industrial Northeast and Midwest and shifted overseas, where labor is cheaper.
Since the Civil War era, McConway & Torley has made couplers that link railroad cars, a once-deadly task performed manually by brakemen; what it produces here accounts for 60 percent of the North American market.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn: ‘I Will Take the Lead’ in Defunding Net Neutrality

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) says she will “take the lead" in congressional efforts to defund the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC)  net neutrality order using the appropriations process.

Blackburn is the first member of Congress to publicly express her willingness to block implementation of the new FCC rule that reclassifies the Internet as a public utility.

“We know that President Obama’s plan to take over the Internet was written by liberal activists behind closed doors at the White House and will result in up to $11 billion in new fees and taxes for hard working Americans,” Blackburn said in a statement to CNSNews.com. “It will lead to regulatory uncertainty and be tied up in the court system for years, where the Administration is already 0-2 on this issue.

“The Internet has thrived with a light regulatory touch. Title II reclassification of the Internet is the regulatory nuclear option and will have disastrous consequences,” Blackburn concluded.

Blackburn, the vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been a vocal opponent of the Open Internet Order passed by the FCC in February that is set to go into effect June 12.  She also sits on the Energy and Commerce subcommittee tasked with devising an appropriations bill to fund the FCC.

This would not be the first time that the House has voted to defund net neutrality rules. The chamber voted to defund a previous incarnation of the rules in 2011, but ultimately had its efforts thwarted by Senate Democrats. However, that earlier version was later struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC (2014).

The new version of the rules reclassify Internet providers as Title II utilities along the lines of telephone service providers and open Internet service up to new fees. Advocates say the rules will prevent Internet providers from blocking or throttling online traffic.

But FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who dissented from the agency’s 3-2 net neutrality decision, has repeatedly called on Congress to strip the FCC of funding for enforcement.

Pai said the rules could cause the FCC to become the “Department of the Internet,” giving it the power not only to impose new fees on Internet service but ultimately to regulate what consumers are allowed to view online.


Education System now Graduating Al Gores from public schools

Meanwhile, that little Noah and Amanda you sent off to school will be coming back home as another Al Gore

The next generation of global warming-spouting Al Gore type activists are already in training in America’s classrooms.

The big lie called man-made global warming, birthed by the United Nations and lib-left world leaders out to make a fast buck in the impossible-to-fail money maker advanced on society by global warming/climate change, is here to stay.

As permanent a fixture in modern society as career politicians and rising taxes, the future of global warming will be played forward by school children, who although they can’t read or write, will fill the ranks of the environmental protest movement calling attention to the supposed inherent dangers of man-made global warming.

Teaching school age children how to be politically correct far exceeds educating them. In education, indoctrination has become a lucrative cottage industry, because it can count of the support of generous government grants. 

Rather than school kids wanting to talk about the family’s next planned trip to Disneyland, they will be probing the size of their parents’ carbon footprint, per the instructions of their classroom teacher—and coming up with creative ways to shrink it.

With a colossal number of parental eyes fixed on Common Core, added to the never-ending worry of why so many school children still struggle with reading and writing, this is what the Department of Education slipped in:

“Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years. (Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015).


Fiorina: US In ‘Grave Danger’ Thanks To Hillary’s State Dept Tenure

Carly Fiorina panned Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, saying on “Fox News Sunday” the U.S. is in “grave danger” thanks to Clinton.
Fiorina argued to host Chris Wallace that many questions need to be asked of Clinton, especially about her “leadership” at the State Department.
“I come from a world where titles are just titles and talk is just talk. The questions I’m raising about Hillary Clinton, I take no delight in them,” Fiorina told Wallace. “I‘m concerned.”
“It is entirely legitimate when someone is running for the presidency of the United States to ask whether they are being transparent, whether they are trustworthy, whether they have a track record of leadership,” the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said. “Hillary Clinton has demonstrated over and over again that she is not transparent.”
“Her leadership as secretary of state has placed us in grave danger around the world,” Fiorina said. “These are entirely legitimate questions and questions I would ask of her on the general debate stage. Questions that must be asked of her because the American people need to hear her answers.”

Detroit is starting to shut off people’s water again




The City of Detroit began shutting off water access to residents behind on payments Tuesday, with thousands at risk of losing access.
According to the Detroit Free Press, 64,769 delinquent residential customers owe the city’s water department a combined $48.9 million.
That figure tops the estimated 41,000 individuals who Food and Water Watch (FWW), an advocacy group, says lacked any water as of January (there is likely overlap between the groups).
The city started sending out shut-off warnings May 11. According to theFree Press, Mayor Mike Duggan is proceeding with the shutoff orders over the wishes of city council members, who voted on May 12 to freeze the shutoff until an assistance plan to help affected residents was enacted.
FWW’s Lynna Kaucheck says Duggan tried implementing one last year that gave discounts to qualified residents, but that program proved too expensive for most residents.
Just when you thought Family Clinton, consisting of ex president Bill Clinton, first woman president wannabe Hillary Rodham Clinton and maybe future president wannabe Chelsea Clinton, couldn't sink any lower, lie any more, be more morally deviant along comes a blockbuster report in the New York Times proving the Clintons will do anything, and we mean anything, for money including ripping off children's education.  And more. 

The NYTimes' report is long, detailed and well worthwhile reading in its entirety but in essence Clinton took his large standard speaking fee from a charity dedicated to building schools in tsunami ripped Thailand and earthquake wracked Haiti to prevent them from never being "dead broke" again.  And more. 

A high fashion model who was vacationing in Thailand when the tsunami struck and survived after a harrowing ordeal  started the Happy Hearts Fund to build schools in the country.  Every year she organizes a fancy gala to raise money for her Fund.  To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the disaster she wanted an extra fancy affair reasoning she could to pull in even more money from her wealthy donors by bringing in the biggest attraction as a speaker.  

And so she did what many charities do soliciting sports figures, entertainers, politicians and other Big Names as headliners for publicity for the charity and the event.  The Big Names who accept usually agree to a modest honorarium if they are appearing for a charity. 

Via: American Thinker


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Todd Starnes: Feds Want You to Eat Healthier S’Mores

By Todd Starnes, Fox Nation
I have disturbing news to share with you from your federal government. The USDA wants Americans to remove chocolate and marshmallows and fire from our summertime s’mores. Instead, the USDA is suggesting we load up the graham crackers with strawberries and low-fat yogurt.
That's not a s'more. That's a fruit salad with an oversized graham cracker crouton.
Over the past six years the Obama administration has waged a War of Culinary Aggression against lard-loving Americans, banning cupcakes and Ho-Hos, cheeseburgers and Cheetos. Remember back in 2012 when Mrs. Obama served cabbage sloppy?
Last year, the US Forest Service tried to convince us that S'mores would taste better if we replaced the chocolate with banana chunks and the graham crackers with angel food cake. It's culinary heresy!
And yet, according to Gallup, Americans are fatter than ever before -27 percent of the population. An all-time high.
When President Obama said he wanted to fundamentally transform the nation, is this what he had in mind? What kind of dystopian society have we become where a red-blooded American cannot enjoy a graham cracker smothered in milk chocolate and topped with a slightly charred marshmallow?
Friends, the federal government is breaking a cardinal rule. You don’t tinker with the Big Mac’s special sauce. You don't add a twelfth herb to the Colonel's secret recipe. And you certainly do not take the chocolate or the marshmallow out of a s’more.

The Left Goes Insane

It was Albert Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” On some levels, he was correct, but insanity is actually the substitution of fantasy for reality.  The guy who believes he’s Napoleon Bonaparte reincarnated and who is obsessively planning to re-conquer Europe is certifiably insane.  The woman who believes she is Gaia and therefore divinized as a goddess is a nut case. Both are completely out of touch with reality and everyone surrounding them knows it.
But wholesale denial of reality is not limited to just the occasional individual.  Insanity can and does afflict whole groups of people.  As Charles Mackay stated in his work Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841),
“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
How true.

Here in America, the madness of crowds is upon us.  The Left has so suppressed the knowledge of reality and has so affixed itself to delusion that the crowds who comprise it and who follow it would have been straitjacketed a decade or two ago.
What are a few of the insane ideas being promulgated as truth by progressives?
 One current insanity on the home front is the concept of “gender fluidity.”  Translated from newspeak into everyday language, “gender fluidity” means that any man can declare himself by fiat to be a woman -- or vice versa. 

Via: American Thinker


LAPD Anti-Terror Cops Arrest Suspect Dawud Abdulwali In Massive Downtown Fire

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has arrested a suspect, Dawud Abdulwali, 56, on arson charges connected with the massive downtown fire last December that consumed the Da Vinci apartment complex. The Los Angeles Times reports that Abdulwali was arrested Tuesday morning during a traffic stop, and after a lengthy investigation.

Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the arrest Wednesday, saying: “This arrest illustrates that crime will not be tolerated in Los Angeles.”

Abdulwadi’s alleged motive has not been revealed. He was arrested by the LAPD’s anti-terrorism unit, though officials say that there is no reason to suspect terrorism, according to KTLA local news. Police have not clarified whether Abdulwadi was filmed on surveillance video, though two other people were seen on video and are considered witnesses, the Times reports.

Via: Breitbart

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Shooting victim’s family begs de Blasio: ‘We need stop-and-frisk’

Screen Shot 2015-05-31 at 8.56.30 AM
A surge in New York City murders — including four people slain in just five bloody hours as the weekend began — has grieving family members begging Mayor de Blasio to bring back the NYPD’s right to search for guns.
“We need stop-and-frisk,” Stacey Calhoun, the devastated uncle of one of the four fatalities, said Saturday afternoon, tears filling his eyes over the nephew he had just lost.
Jahhad Marshall — a charismatic 23-year-old with a promising future as a chef — had died of a stray bullet to his back early that morning outside the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, police said.
“Somebody has to put their foot down,” the anguished uncle said.
“A lot of people would agree with stop-and-frisk if it’s for the safety among us,” he said.
“They used to fight with their hands, he said. “It seems like all these kids have guns these days.”
Marshall — apparently an innocent bystander to a pre-dawn playground shootout — was one of four fatalities in The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn from Friday night into Saturday, bloodshed that began in The Bronx at 11:20 p.m. when a gunman fatally blasted Joel Rivera, 23, multiple times in the neck outside his home on Andrews Avenue.

Days After Obama Admin Asked Networks to Not Show ‘Inaccurate’ B-Roll of its Advances, Islamic State Seized Two Cities

Merely days after reports of the Obama administration asking networks to stop airing “inaccurate” B-roll of the Islamic State because it portrayed them advancing in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group took down the cities of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria.
Islamic State took the occasion to film more propaganda footage of itself marching through the empty cities, with horrific images of its enemies’ corpses and destroyed buildings in its wake.
The Fox News talk show OutNumbered discussed Politico‘s report on the U.S. government’s efforts to quash what it deemed misleading footage May 15, and three days later, the fall of Ramadi, capital of the Anbar Province, was one of the lead stories on every network broadcast.
Senior State Department and Pentagon officials have begun contacting television network reporters to ask them to stop using “B-roll” — stock footage that appears on screen while reporters and commentators talk — showing ISIL at the peak of its strength last summer.
“We are urging broadcasters to avoid using the familiar B-roll that we’ve all seen before, file footage of ISIL convoys operating in broad daylight, moving in large formations with guns out, looking to wreak havoc,” said Emily Horne, spokeswoman for retired Gen. John Allen, the State Department’s special envoy leading the international coalition against ISIL.
“It’s inaccurate — that’s no longer how ISIL moves,” Horne said. “A lot of that footage is from last summer before we began tactical strikes.”
Via: WFB

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Rand Paul Will ‘Force The Expiration’ of the PATRIOT Act

rand-paulDespite his not being included in a recent 2016 candidates poll on Fox & FriendsRand Paul (R-KY) still has a strong following among Tea Party and Libertarian-leaning conservative voters. He’s even got a Super PAC pulling for him.
A lot of this has to do with Paul’s stance against the renewal of the PATRIOT Act and the approval of the USA Freedom Act, and he recently performed an unofficial filibuster against NSA surveillance.
In a statement to POLITICO, Paul lays out a simple plan for Sunday’s special session:
So tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program.
What special session, you ask? As POLITICO points out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to facilitate a rather quick debate on the surveillance bill that’s got Paul and others so worked up.
Paul explains his stance further, saying:
I am ready and willing to start the debate on how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.
Sometimes when the problem is big enough, you just have to start over. The tax code and our regulatory burdens are two good examples.
Fighting against unconditional, illegal powers that take away our rights, taken by previous Congresses and administrations is just as important.
I do not do this to obstruct. I do it to build something better, more effective, more lasting, and more cognizant of who we are as Americans.
Via: Mediaite

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Vice President Biden’s family announces death of his son Beau Biden

 
Vice President Biden late Saturday announced the death of his son Beau Biden. Here is his statement:
It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life.
The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us—especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter.
Beau's life was defined by service to others. As a young lawyer, he worked to establish the rule of law in war-torn Kosovo. A major in the Delaware National Guard, he was an Iraq War veteran and was awarded the Bronze Star. As Delaware’s Attorney General, he fought for the powerless and made it his mission to protect children from abuse.
More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother. His absolute honor made him a role model for our family. Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did.

Via: Washington Post

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