Secret Service Agent Had Warned Stoneman Douglas About Security Failures

Via Sun Sentinel:

Two months before the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School, a retired Secret Service agent warned administrators that the school could be vulnerable to a gunman.

Gates were unlocked. Students did not wear identification badges. A fire alarm could send students streaming into the halls. Active-shooter drills were inadequate, he said.

The retired agent, Steve Wexler, said he made his point by strolling through the school with Post-it notes, attaching them to places his bullets or knife would land if he were an intruder. No one stopped him, he said.

In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Wexler said he was invited to analyze the school’s security and presented his recommendations to four staff members.

“I said, ‘This stuff is blatantly obvious. You’ve got to fix this,’” Wexler said.

He never heard another word from the district, he said.

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via Weasel Zippers

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DILLON: Paul Nehlen: A Man Without Courage, A Heart, Or A Brain

On Thursday, Paul Nehlen, a candidate for Congress in Wisconsin, gave me a new nickname: “Ben’s philosemetic [sic] flying monkey.”

Nehlen gave me my new nickname in an email to his supporters. This comes after I published an article on Monday discussing Virginia Senate candidate Corey Stewart and his ties to Nehlen.

“In an article written for Ben’s publication, Kassy Dillon further ingratiates herself as Ben’s philosemetic flying monkey,” he writes. “[A]ttacking none other than the GOP frontrunner in Virginia, Corey Stewart, for supporting my run against globalist NeverTrumper Paul Ryan.”

Nehlen is known for his toxic, anti-Semitic views and brutal attacks on his political opponents. Nehlen’s campaign collapsed in January after his overtly racist and anti-Semitic social media posts surfaced, but the candidate didn’t admit any wrongdoing — he blamed Jews. Nehlen compiled a list of 81 verified, predominantly Jewish, Twitter users who have “attacked” him for his “#AmericaFirst positions.”

Despite the fact that I am not Jewish, I was included on this list, along with a few other non-Jews.

Apparently, anyone who disagrees with Nehlen is either a flying monkey or a Jew.

While I am devastated that my original label of a Jew was lowered to “Ben’s philosemetic [sic] flying monkey,” I am excited to try out my newfound flying superpower.

It also appears that Shapiro, the wicked witch of the Western Wall, enjoys his new role as the Wicked Witch of the West:

Nehlen’s statement goes on to describe himself and Stewart as “fervent Trump supporters,” despite Trump backing Paul Ryan over him in their race against each other, and Stewart’s firing from the Trump campaign.

Stewart distanced himself from Nehlen earlier this week, saying, “That was before he went nuts and started spewing a bunch of stupid stuff. When he started saying all that crazy stuff, I wanted nothing to do with him after that.”

Sorry Nehlen, three clicks of your ruby red slippers won’t make you relevant again. Twitter user Jerry Dunleavy, who Nehlen has targeted in the past, got it right:

P.S. This flying monkey disobeyed her handler’s request to not use sarcasm in this article.

via Daily Wire

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Robert De Niro Starts Raging ‘Bulls**t’ In Front Of High Schoolers

Actor Robert De Niro does not discriminate as to where, and in front of whom, he chooses to rage his “bulls**t” — so that sometimes includes high school students.

According to Page Six, the former “Taxi Driver” star said in front of a crowd of high school students that President Trump is spreading “bulls**t.” The actor delivered his comments during an awards ceremony for student recipients of the Rosemary Breslin American Writer Award in New York.

“The one characteristic that comes through all of your work that I read, and that is the same quality of everything that Jimmy Breslin wrote, is the truth,” De Niro said. “Our country is led by a president who believes he can make up his own truth. And we have a word for that — bulls**t.”

“So what about the truth? What does the truth even mean today? I mean, if you’re Donald Trump it doesn’t mean anything,” he continued.

De Niro’s candid speech was received with rounds of applause. This marks the second time the actor used a gala to spew his political screed. Speaking at a charity fundraising dinner for the Fulfillment Fund in March, an organization helping underprivileged children receive a higher education, De Niro seized the moment to brandish his woke cred.

“A college education is important, but education without humanity is ignorance,” began De Niro. “Look at our president. He made it through the University of Pennsylvania, so he was exposed to a quality education, but he’s still an idiot. And he lacks any sense of humanity or compassion.”

De Niro also described the president as a “lowlife” in a speech at the Annual Hudson River Park Gala last year. The actor appears to ponder on President Trump both day and night.

“F**k you, Donald Trump. It’s a horror with this motherf**ker,” he said.

The actor has also stated he has no interest in seeing the point-of-view of Trump supporters, saying the conversation has moved “beyond that.”

via Daily Wire

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14-Year-Old German Girl Found Murdered, Asylum Seeker Suspect Flees to Iraq

The Iraqi migrant suspected of having killed a 14-year-old girl is understood to have been able to flee to his own nation despite having previously been claiming asylum from persecution in his homeland.

Police found 14-year-old Susanna F. from Mainz on Wednesday near a railway line after she had been missing since May 22nd and announced that they believed the girl was killed as a result of violence. They have not ruled out possible sexual abuse, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.

Investigators noted that the prime suspect in the disappearance and suspected murder of the 14-year-old is 20-year-old Iraqi failed asylum seeker Ali Bashar. The young migrant had been living in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim and was in the process of appealing his negative asylum decision, and has recently disappeared according to people familiar with him.

The man is said to have flown back to Iraq several days prior to the discovery of the body to be with his family; however, officials believe he may have purposely fled the country to avoid arrest.

According to the Times of Israel, who report the victim in the case was of the Jewish faith, a 35-year-old Turkish citizen has already been arrested in connection with the case.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany released a statement on the suspected murder saying: “A young life was ended in a gruesome fashion. Our deepest sympathies are with family and friends. Susanna was a member of the Jewish Community Mainz.”

20-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker Ali Bashar. (Photo: Polizei Wiesbaden)

Police identified Bashar, who had come to Germany in 2015, as a suspect in a number of other prior crimes including robbery with a knife. Police said they believe he fled to the city of Erbil.

The murder comes after several other high-profile murders of young women and girls in Germany like 15-year-old Mia in Kandel and 19-year-old Maria Ladenburger in Freiburg who were both murdered by “underage” asylum seekers who turned out to be adults.

The phenomenon has not been limited to Germany, either, as 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro in Italy was also suspected of being murdered by migrants from Nigeria earlier this year. Mastropietro was brutally murdered and then her body was dismembered and stuffed into suitcases that were left by the side of the road in the Italian commune of Pollenza.

The murders, along with the many migrant rape attacks and terror attacks across the continent following the migrant crisis, sparked the 120 decibels (#120db) movement, an activist group which protests the mass migration policies they say led to the murders and rapes of young women. The group is named after the sound intensity of rape alarms that can be bought in German stores.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com 

via Breitbart News

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Europe Under Siege: Hundreds of African Migrants Storm Border Fence

Hundreds of African migrants have attempted to storm border fences separating European Union territory from Africa in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, resulting in several injuries.

The perimeter of the small city on the coast of North Africa, along with its nearby sister city of Melilla, shares the only land border of a European Union member-state with an African nation — namely Morocco — and illegal migrants have long seen it as a shortcut into the wider EU which bypasses the Mediterranean, or more circuitous routes via the Black Sea and Russia.

The Europa Press reports that some 400 migrants charged the city in the early hours of May 6th, with 150 making it past Moroccan security forces to attack its outer fences.

The Spanish authorities told the news outlet that mobile units of the Civil Guard were deployed and a majority of the would-be intruders “repelled”, with just six managing to make it onto EU soil, three of whom were immediately transferred to the local University Hospital to be treated for injuries sustained on the fences.

EU law does not allow member-states to simply detain such migrants and deposit them back on the other side of the border; they must be allowed to lodge an asylum claim, and are typically allowed to roam freely while these are processed.

Previous attempts to repel mass assaults on Ceuta’s fences have been less successful, with attempts on the border rising by 71 per cent in 2017 and José Luis Gómez Salinero, Colonel of the city’s Civil Guard Command, warning that his guards were having to contend with “very young and very physically fit” migrants using “hand-made knives” and willing to deploy “unusual violence” to achieve their aim.

Nearby Melilla, too, has been under sustained pressure, with around a hundred managing to break through the perimeter in May 2017 — hospitalising three guards in the process — and rampaging through the city’s streets in celebration on the other side.

The largest assault of recent times was launched against in Ceuta in January 2017, and saw over a thousand migrants execute an “extremely violent and organised” assault on the border fences in which some fifty-five border guards were injured, with one of them reportedly losing an eye.

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via Breitbart News

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Google’s AI Policy: We’re Ditching Project Maven, But Not the Feds

After abandoning its involvement in a Pentagon project, Google has vowed to never develop AI technologies that can be used for war or surveillance.

Google’s new policy around AI development is focused on building the technologies responsibly and limiting any potential misuse, the company said in a blog post.

No Google AI technology will ever be used as a weapon or for surveillance, the policy states. In addition, the company will refuse to develop any AI projects that will “cause or are likely to cause overall harm.” Only when the benefits “substantially outweigh the risks” will the company proceed, but with safeguards in place.

The policy comes as Google employees reportedly pressured the tech giant to cancel its ongoing participation in Project Maven, a Pentagon effort to use AI to analyze footage from aerial drones. The company claimed that the research was for “non-offensive purposes,” but some employees were afraid it could one day be used in actual warfare. In response, they circulated an internal letter, arguing that “Google should not be in the business of war.”

Resistance to Project Maven was serious enough that at least a dozen staffers reportedly resigned in protest. To placate employees, Google promised a new ethics policy around AI development, which the company made public on Thursday.

Google Cloud CEO Diane Green confirmed that the company will not seek to renew its government contract for Project Maven. However, the new AI ethics policy doesn’t spell an end to Google’s involvement with the Pentagon. Far from it.

“We want to be clear that while we are not developing AI for use in weapons, we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas,” Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said in a separate blog post.

“These include cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans’ healthcare, and search and rescue,” he added. “These collaborations are important and we’ll actively look for more ways to augment the critical work of these organizations and keep service members and civilians safe.”

Whether the tech giant can prevent its technologies from being weaponized (or even if that’s wrong) will be up for debate. But the new policy also lays out a roadmap for Google’s AI development. For instance, the company’s artificial intelligence will be built and tested for safety; they’ll also be designed with privacy in mind, an apparent nod to the controversy surrounding Google Duplex, an upcoming feature in the company’s voice assistant that can potentially trick people into thinking it’s human. Under the new policy, Google’s AI technologies will give “opportunity for notice and consent.”

“While this is how we’re choosing to approach AI, we understand there is room for many voices in this conversation,” Pichai added in his blog post. “As AI technologies progress, we’ll work with a range of stakeholders to promote thoughtful leadership in this area.”

via PCMag.com Security Coverage

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Facebook Bug Changes Privacy Settings of 14M Users

Heads up, Facebook users: Some of the posts you made last month may have had a much larger audience than you realized.

The social network on Thursday said it recently discovered a software bug, which, for several days last month, changed the suggested audience of all new posts to “public.” Facebook’s audience selector tool usually remembers the audience you shared with the last time you posted something (public, friends, friends except…, or only me) and suggests the same audience when you share again.

The error occurred while Facebook was building a new way to share featured items, such as photos, on your profile. Featured items are always public, but someone accidentally made the suggested audience for all new posts, not just featured items, public.

The bug was live between May 18 and May 27. During that time, some 14 million people made public posts on the social network, many of them likely believing they were sharing with just friends.

“We have fixed this issue and starting today we are letting everyone affected know and asking them to review any posts they made during that time,” Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan said in a statement emailed to PCMag Thursday. “To be clear, this bug did not impact anything people had posted before, and they could still choose their audience just as they always have. We’d like to apologize for this mistake.”

Upon discovering the bug, Facebook changed the audience of affected posts from public to whatever audience the person had been using before the error occurred. The company halted the glitch on May 22, but didn’t get all the posts changed back until May 27.

If you’re among the 14 million people affected by this bug, you’ll see a notification about it when you log into Facebook. The notification (pictured at the top of this article) contains a link to a page where you can review your affected posts.

This new privacy gaffe follows revelations that Facebook offered dozens of device makers —including Chinese vendors Lenovo, Oppo, TCL, and Huawei Technologies—special access to user data. According to The New York Times, those data-sharing agreements let the vendors access “vast amounts” of Facebook users’ personal information, including in some cases, the data of users’ friends who “believed they had barred any sharing.”

via PCMag.com Security Coverage

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Should we continue to preserve the fictions around ‘anchor babies’?

My son and his wife went to a Boston hospital last weekend to induce labor.  They were joined in a room by five other couples going through the same process.  My son said one couple was Asian, where the man spoke English and the woman did not.  A nurse asked the man for the name of their pediatrician, and he said they didn’t have one and didn’t need one if the baby was healthy.  The nurse said they needed one before they left the hospital.  My son said the man did not seem very interested in the mother or the baby.  Instead, he was very interested in getting the birth certificate and Social Security card.  He said it was absolutely unacceptable that it would take six weeks to get those items.


Does it sound as though these two are contributing to our economic growth, or does it sound as though they are using us?  They didn’t have a pediatrician, and they couldn’t afford to wait six weeks for documentation.  Does anyone think they had insurance?



We use the term “anchor babies” to describe babies who are born here to parents who are not citizens.  The open-borders lobby objects to the term as dehumanizing.  But make no mistake: I’ve seen instances where the baby is just a pawn for the parents to get an anchor in the United States so they don’t have to go through the normal legal naturalization process.


There are only around thirty other countries that allow birthright citizenship (anchor babies) and, under the IMF definition, only two developed countries: the United States and Canada.


We always hear that Europe is so forward-thinking, but no matter how oppressed people from Syria, Asia, Africa, Mexico, and South America are, a child born to illegals in Europe is not a citizen.  Why don’t we hear Germans and the French referred to as xenophobes for their limiting policies?


The United States is joined by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, along with nearly every country in Central and South America.  The United States and Canada are the only two “developed” countries, as defined by the International Monetary Fund, that still have unrestricted birthright citizenship laws.


A closer look at the list shows an interesting trend: Countries that offer birthright citizenship are located almost exclusively in the Western Hemisphere.  No country in Europe or East Asia, for example, has a similar citizenship policy.


We hear that the Constitution of the United States and a judge’s ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment requires anchor babies to receive citizenship.  But look what the language of the 1898 judge’s ruling actually says:


… that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship for nearly all individuals born in the United States, provided that their parents are foreign citizens, have permanent domicile status in the United States, and are engaging in business in the United States except performing in a diplomatic or official capacity of a foreign power.


I believe that few of the illegal aliens who come across our borders to give birth could meet those requirements of having permanent domicile status and being engaged in business.


The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution indicates that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship for nearly all individuals born in the United States, provided that their parents are foreign citizens, have permanent domicile status in the United States, and are engaging in business in the United States except performing in a diplomatic or official capacity of a foreign power.


Statistics show that a significant, and rising, number of illegal aliens are having children in the United States, but there is mixed evidence that acquiring citizenship for the parents is their goal.


I do not believe there is any evidence that our founding fathers envisioned illegal immigrants crossing our borders at will.  (Yes, there were always borders.  We had to buy Manhattan Island and make the Louisiana Purchase.)  They also created our Constitution to be a nation of laws, and they would not have envisioned a president and politicians from throughout the United States flagrantly ignoring their oath and laws by having sanctuary cities and states.


We hear all sorts of supposedly well meaning people saying we shouldn’t break up families.  I agree.  People should not break our laws by coming across the borders illegally.  Kids should stay with their parents where they are legally allowed to reside.  People should not be rewarded for breaking our laws.  Whenever I moved, my children moved.  It is an easy concept.


On a personal note: The older I get, the more amazed I am with all aspects of nature and life on Earth.  I am especially impressed with conception, pregnancy, and the miracle of childbirth.  Think of how that sperm and egg got together, and in a few short months, we see fully developed human beings with over two hundred bones, DNA, and all the organs working together to make everything work so well.  To think that my three beautiful children and three beautiful granddaughters were generously given to us is astonishing.  Their human life and development obviously scientifically began at conception, not three or six months after conception, and certainly not when they are just ever so efficiently born.


There are only seven countries that allow abortions after twenty weeks, including the U.S., China, and North Korea.  The Democrats call themselves the progressive party, but there certainly is nothing progressive about abortion itself and especially abortion after twenty weeks.  Yet Democrats do everything they can to block any limitations on what is clearly the taking of a human life.


My son and his wife went to a Boston hospital last weekend to induce labor.  They were joined in a room by five other couples going through the same process.  My son said one couple was Asian, where the man spoke English and the woman did not.  A nurse asked the man for the name of their pediatrician, and he said they didn’t have one and didn’t need one if the baby was healthy.  The nurse said they needed one before they left the hospital.  My son said the man did not seem very interested in the mother or the baby.  Instead, he was very interested in getting the birth certificate and Social Security card.  He said it was absolutely unacceptable that it would take six weeks to get those items.


Does it sound as though these two are contributing to our economic growth, or does it sound as though they are using us?  They didn’t have a pediatrician, and they couldn’t afford to wait six weeks for documentation.  Does anyone think they had insurance?


We use the term “anchor babies” to describe babies who are born here to parents who are not citizens.  The open-borders lobby objects to the term as dehumanizing.  But make no mistake: I’ve seen instances where the baby is just a pawn for the parents to get an anchor in the United States so they don’t have to go through the normal legal naturalization process.


There are only around thirty other countries that allow birthright citizenship (anchor babies) and, under the IMF definition, only two developed countries: the United States and Canada.


We always hear that Europe is so forward-thinking, but no matter how oppressed people from Syria, Asia, Africa, Mexico, and South America are, a child born to illegals in Europe is not a citizen.  Why don’t we hear Germans and the French referred to as xenophobes for their limiting policies?


The United States is joined by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, along with nearly every country in Central and South America.  The United States and Canada are the only two “developed” countries, as defined by the International Monetary Fund, that still have unrestricted birthright citizenship laws.


A closer look at the list shows an interesting trend: Countries that offer birthright citizenship are located almost exclusively in the Western Hemisphere.  No country in Europe or East Asia, for example, has a similar citizenship policy.


We hear that the Constitution of the United States and a judge’s ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment requires anchor babies to receive citizenship.  But look what the language of the 1898 judge’s ruling actually says:


… that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship for nearly all individuals born in the United States, provided that their parents are foreign citizens, have permanent domicile status in the United States, and are engaging in business in the United States except performing in a diplomatic or official capacity of a foreign power.


I believe that few of the illegal aliens who come across our borders to give birth could meet those requirements of having permanent domicile status and being engaged in business.


The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution indicates that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship for nearly all individuals born in the United States, provided that their parents are foreign citizens, have permanent domicile status in the United States, and are engaging in business in the United States except performing in a diplomatic or official capacity of a foreign power.


Statistics show that a significant, and rising, number of illegal aliens are having children in the United States, but there is mixed evidence that acquiring citizenship for the parents is their goal.


I do not believe there is any evidence that our founding fathers envisioned illegal immigrants crossing our borders at will.  (Yes, there were always borders.  We had to buy Manhattan Island and make the Louisiana Purchase.)  They also created our Constitution to be a nation of laws, and they would not have envisioned a president and politicians from throughout the United States flagrantly ignoring their oath and laws by having sanctuary cities and states.


We hear all sorts of supposedly well meaning people saying we shouldn’t break up families.  I agree.  People should not break our laws by coming across the borders illegally.  Kids should stay with their parents where they are legally allowed to reside.  People should not be rewarded for breaking our laws.  Whenever I moved, my children moved.  It is an easy concept.


On a personal note: The older I get, the more amazed I am with all aspects of nature and life on Earth.  I am especially impressed with conception, pregnancy, and the miracle of childbirth.  Think of how that sperm and egg got together, and in a few short months, we see fully developed human beings with over two hundred bones, DNA, and all the organs working together to make everything work so well.  To think that my three beautiful children and three beautiful granddaughters were generously given to us is astonishing.  Their human life and development obviously scientifically began at conception, not three or six months after conception, and certainly not when they are just ever so efficiently born.


There are only seven countries that allow abortions after twenty weeks, including the U.S., China, and North Korea.  The Democrats call themselves the progressive party, but there certainly is nothing progressive about abortion itself and especially abortion after twenty weeks.  Yet Democrats do everything they can to block any limitations on what is clearly the taking of a human life.




via American Thinker Blog

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Former Senate Intel Aide Charged With Lying To FBI About Reporter Contacts In Leaks Investigation

A former employee of the Senate intelligence committee has been arrested on charges of lying to the FBI about contacts he had with multiple reporters, one of whom was reportedly his lover, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

James A. Wolfe, the longtime director of security for the committee – one of multiple congressional panels investigating potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign – was indicted on three false statement counts after prosecutors say he misled agents about his relationships with reporters.

Though Wolfe is not charged with disclosing classified information, prosecutors say he was in regular and suspicious contact with multiple journalists who covered the committee, including meeting them at restaurants, in bars, private residences and in a Senate office building.

He also maintained a three years long personal relationship with one reporter, which prosecutors say he lied about until being confronted with a photograph of him and the journalist.

That reporter has been identified as Ali Watkins of The New York Times.

In April 2017, Watkins, who at the time was a reporter for BuzzFeed News, published a story which said that Carter Page, a former adviser to the Trump campaign, was recruited by a Russian spy.

According to Fox, communications records reveal he spoke to her half an hour after that story went live.

She left BuzzFeed and joined the Times in December of last year.

Wolfe, of Ellicott City, Maryland, is due in court Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

Each false statement count is punishable by up to five years in prison, though if convicted, Wolfe would almost certainly face only a fraction of that time.

The criminal case arises from a December 2017 FBI interview with Wolfe in which prosecutors say he was shown a news article that contained classified information and was authored by three journalists.

He checked ‘no’ in a written questionnaire when asked if he had any contact with the reporters, even though records obtained by the government show he had been in regular contact with them – including through encrypted messaging platforms.

Keep reading…

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Watch: Two Transgenders Blow Out Girls In State Meet

Via Daily Wire:

You wonder how the other runners may have felt.

On Monday, when Connecticut had its State Open track and field championships at Willow Brook Park, one person broke the State Open records for girls in both the 100 and 200-meter runs.

That person was a biological boy.

Terry Miller of Bulkeley, a transgender, won the events. In the 100 meter dash, the runner-up was Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell, also a transgender.

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