Republicans are back to playing dumb, as Trump does the unforgivable

Fearing the wrath of Dear Leader, congressional Republicans are either refusing to comment on Donald Trump's disgusting pardons of violent Capitol insurrection convicts, or are flat-out lying about what Trump actually did to avoid having to criticize his behavior.

Hours after being sworn in to his second term, Trump gave unconditional pardons to 1,550 people who either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of crimes related to their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

According to The New York Times:

The pardons and pending dismissals also covered more than 600 rioters were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers at the Capitol, nearly 175 of whom were accused of doing so with deadly or dangerous weapons including baseball bats, two-by-fours, crutches, hockey sticks and broken wooden table legs.

Trump also commuted the sentences of members of right-wing militia groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in planning and encouraging violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—leading to the release of those men from prison.

But multiple members of the House and Senate, including Republican congressional leaders, told reporters on Tuesday that they couldn’t make a judgement on the blanket pardons Trump issued because they haven't read up on them yet—the least believable lie on earth.

“I haven’t gone into the detail,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said.

SEN RICK SCOTT: “If you violate the law you should be prosecuted.” ABC: “What about those [Jan 6 rioters] who assaulted police officers and then were pardoned by the president?” SCOTT: “I haven’t gone into the detail.” pic.twitter.com/TlIU4sidCn

— Jay O'Brien (@jayobtv) January 21, 2025

“I don't know all the cases. I certainly don't want to pardon any violent actors. But there's a real miscarriage of justice here so I'm totally supportive of it,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told Fox News reporter Chad Pergram, apparently unaware that Trump pardoned violent actors.

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said he wouldn't be for pardoning the violent insurrectionists, but wouldn't comment because he "didn't see" if Trump did that.

Republican Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota knew that Trump issued pardons, but played dumb about what they entailed.

“My understanding, there was a range of actions that he took. And I guess I want to look and see what those are,” Hoeven said

Other lawmakers straight-up lied about the pardons, saying Trump issued them on a "case-by-case basis." 

“We’re not looking backwards, we’re looking forward,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN’s Manu Raju, adding, “I think they were case-by-case.”

Meanwhile, a number of GOP lawmakers refused to comment at all on the pardons, or tried to shift the conversation to former President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons of his family members, who were likely to be harassed by the Trump administration.

“Republican senators are physically shrugging when reporters ask them what they think of Trump pardoning January 6 defendants,” Haley Byrd Wilt, a Capitol Hill reporter for the nonprofit news outlet NOTUS, wrote in a post on X.

Former Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now Trump's secretary of state, said he wouldn't comment.

"I'm not going to engage in domestic political debates," Rubio told NBC News.

In another interview with CBS, Rubio refused to comment again, saying “I work for Trump.”

“You said the images of the attacks stirred up anger in you. You said the nation was embarrassed. How do you reconcile that with the pardons?” RUBIO: “I work for Trump.” pic.twitter.com/enD3dJQRwW

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 21, 2025

“I assume you're asking me about the Biden pardons of his family,” Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told Semafor’s Burgess Everett—a ridiculous whataboutism. “I’m just talking about the Biden pardons, because that is so selfish.”

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jim Banks of Indiana also tried to pivot to talking about Biden’s pardons.

“You've seen President Biden's preemptive pardons. Pardons of his own family. The power presidential pardons is one granted to a president and there's really no role for the Congress … it's the president's prerogative,” Cornyn said.

The pardons go against what Trump's own vice president said just a few days ago that Trump would do. 

“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” JD Vance said in a Jan. 11 appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” 

WATCH: @JDVance lays out President-elect Trump’s pardon process for January 6th participants. Tune in tomorrow for the rest of Shannon's exclusive interview with Vice President-elect JD Vance. pic.twitter.com/RvqXrL6rO3

— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) January 11, 2025

To be sure, a few Republicans criticized Trump.

“I’m disappointed to see that and I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the few Republicans who’s actually stood up to Trump in the past, said.

"Anybody who is convicted of assault on a police officer, I can't get there, at all. I think it was a bad idea," Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said.

“Well I think I agree with the vice president,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told Semafor, referring to Vance’s belief that violent insurrectionists shouldn’t have been pardoned. “No one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers.”

Of course, we don’t want to praise anyone for doing the bare minimum and speaking the truth about Trump’s awful actions.

And McConnell is largely to blame for the fact that these pardons took place at all, as he refused to convict Trump in the impeachment trial in January 2021, allowing Trump to run for president again.

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Trump ends Secret Service detail for former ally—in another petty move

Donald Trump has terminated the Secret Service detail assigned to his former national security adviser John Bolton. The move comes at the same time that Trump revoked Bolton and other former national security officials’ security clearances.

“I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has made this decision,” Bolton confirmed to CNN. “Notwithstanding my criticisms of President [Joe] Biden’s national-security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to once again extend Secret Service protection to me in 2021.” 

In 2022, the Justice Department revealed that Bolton was allegedly the subject of an assassination plot by a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “The Justice Department has the solemn duty to defend our citizens from hostile governments who seek to hurt or kill them,” the DOJ explained in a statement at the time.

At the time, the DOJ said that Bolton and other Trump-era officials became a focus of the IRGC after Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. The Biden administration levied sanctions on Iran over the alleged plots to kill Bolton and others in 2023.

Not surprisingly, Bolton was a part of the “enemies list” Trump posted on social media last week. Bolton has publicly criticized Trump, saying his former boss was bewilderingly ignorant about foreign policy, and calling him “unfit to be president” in the runup to the 2024 election.

Bolton is a crummy person who ran into a more powerful crummy person. The concoction that creates a fascist is power, vindictiveness, and pettiness—and it doesn’t hurt to be a little stupid in order to delude yourself. Trump’s got it all.

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Infamous Jew-hating racist Mel Gibson gets ‘special’ job from Trump

Donald Trump is appointing three washed-up actors to serve as "special ambassadors" to Hollywood, including the notoriously racist and antisemitic Mel Gibson.

"It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California," Trump wrote in a Thursday post on Truth Social. "They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!"

Choosing Gibson to serve as whatever this is ... is certainly a choice.

In 2004, Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” was panned as antisemitic for depicting Jews as responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. 

Then in 2006, Gibson went on an antisemitic tirade during a drunk driving arrest in Los Angeles.

According to a police report, "Gibson blurted out a barrage of anti-semitic remarks about 'fucking Jews'. Gibson yelled out: 'The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.' Gibson then asked: 'Are you a Jew?'"

Gibson later apologized, saying, “I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.” 

But as the saying goes: in vino veritas

Then in 2010, audio tapes were released in which Gibson was heard verbally abusing Oksana Grigorieva, his then-girlfriend and the mother of one of his children.

"You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of [N-words], it will be your fault," he screamed at her. Gibson also threatened her, saying on tape, "I am going to come and burn the fucking house down ... but you will blow me first."

That Trump would choose someone so vile to serve his administration in any capacity at all is despicable.

But it’s also random.

Maybe Trump thought of the “Mad Max” for this ridiculous made-up role because he saw Gibson’s Jan. 10 appearance on Fox News, where he spread paranoid theories about the raging wildfires in Southern California.

“I can make all kinds of horrible theories up in my head, conspiracy theories and everything else,” Gibson told fellow bigot Laura Ingraham. “But it just seemed a little convenient that there was no water, and that the wind conditions were right and that there were people ready and willing and able to start fires, and are they commissioned to do so or are they just acting on their own volition?”

Gibson: I can make all kinds of horrible theories up in my head… But, it just seemed a little convenient that there was no water… and that the wind conditions were right and that there were people ready and willing and able to start fires and are they commissioned to do so.. pic.twitter.com/1x2iZUBdub

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 11, 2025

Gibson also appeared on podcast bro Joe Rogan’s show, where he claimed to know people with Stage 4 cancer who were cured after taking ivermectin, the horse deworming pill COVID deniers are bizarrely obsessed with. Ivermectin does not cure cancer

In a karmic twist, Gibson later revealed that his Malibu home was burning down while he was yakking it up with Rogan in Texas.

As for the other two men Trump appointed as “special” ambassadors, Voight is a vocal right-winger who has long backed Trump and bizarrely called for President Joe Biden’s impeachment. And Stallone has also emerged as a MAGA minion, ridiculously comparing Trump to George Washington

Appointing these three clowns to somehow tell Trump how to fix Hollywood feels more like the latest attack on California from the notoriously fame-hungry incoming president.

Trump has spent the past week spreading disinformation about the deadly wildfires that have ravaged homes and communities in the Los Angeles area. Even worse, Trump is threatening to withhold recovery funding from the state. 

Hey Trump—just leave the people in and around Hollywood alone for once. 

Donate now to support Southern California relief efforts

Nancy Pelosi will skip Trump’s inauguration

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, her spokesperson confirmed to Daily Kos. 

Pelosi is the second big-name Democrat to announce that they won’t attend. Earlier this week, former first lady Michelle Obama said she also plans to skip the event, which will take place on Monday. Other Democratic lawmakers who will play hooky that day include Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

News of Pelosi’s pending absence was first reported by ABC News

Pelosi’s spokesperson didn’t elaborate on why she won’t make the pilgrimage to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., this go-around. Her absence may be because Pelosi is still recovering from hip surgery she underwent in Germany following a fall in December. It’s also possible that, like most Democrats, she just hates Trump

No one would blame her if that were the case. The two have long had a tumultuous professional relationship. Since Trump’s first administration, their disdain for one another has seemingly only increased. Pelosi famously spent the final days of Trump’s first term trying to oust him from the Oval Office after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump, for his part, spent much of his first term avoiding Pelosi, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged states and lawmakers attempted to work together to deliver aid.

Since then, Trump has called Pelosi “crazy,” “crooked,” “evil,” and “sick,” among other abhorrent things. In November, he nearly called her a bitch during a campaign rally, though he stopped himself from saying the word outright. 

Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“She’s a bad person, evil. She’s an evil, sick, crazy—” Trump said at a rally in Michigan amid his 2024 campaign, sounding out the letter “B” but stopping just short of uttering the obscenity. “It starts with a ‘B,’ but I won’t say it. I wanna say it.”

Pelosi’s inauguration absence marks a break in tradition for the octogenarian. In addition to attending Trump’s first inauguration, in 2017, ABC News reports that Pelosi has gone to 11 presidential inaugural events.

Senior leaders of both parties typically attend presidential inaugurations, regardless of the incoming president’s party. But Trump has no room to complain about Pelosi’s absence: He famously skipped President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

In reality, Trump probably won’t notice that Pelosi’s gone. He’ll be too busy trying to impress his trio of tech-bro sugar daddies—Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—who have been rewarded with plum seats at the inauguration. (All three men also donated at least $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.)

Meanwhile, while they will attend Monday’s inauguration, former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama will skip Trump’s inaugural luncheon. According to NBC News, both Obama and Clinton were invited but declined. Bush’s office told the outlet that he never received an invite.

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Watch: Day 2 of Senate confirmation hearings for Pam Bondi

The race to confirm Donald Trump’s nightmare Cabinet has entered its final stretch: Senate confirmation hearings.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is Trump’s nominee for attorney general and returns to the hot seat Thursday as her confirmation hearing enters its second day. The ride-or-die Trump ally defended the former president during his first impeachment trial and was at the forefront of his efforts to steal the 2020 election that he lost to President Joe Biden. 

Highlights from the first day of Bondi’s hearing include her lying about Trump’s well-documented attempt to pressure Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes” to help him win the state in 2020, as well as refusing—multiple times—to admit that Trump lost to Biden in 2020.

Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins its second day at 10:15 AM ET Thurssday. Read her opening statement here.

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Watch: Senate confirmation hearing for John Ratcliffe

The race to confirm Donald Trump’s nightmare Cabinet has entered its final stretch: Senate confirmation hearings.

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick for CIA director, quickly withdrew his first DNI nomination in 2019 amid concerns he was unqualified. In the end, he was confirmed in 2020, on Trump’s second try. A former Texas congressman, Ratcliffe’s grilling of special counsel Robert Mueller and intense defense of Trump during his first impeachment trial are largely credited with his brief ascent to the first Trump Cabinet.

Ratcliffe’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee begins at 10 AM ET on Wednesday. 

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Watch: Senate confirmation hearing for Pam Bondi

The race to confirm Donald Trump’s nightmare Cabinet has entered its final stretch: Senate confirmation hearings.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, was part of Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment. The second choice for the role—after former Rep. Matt Gaetz was forced to withdraw amid multiple scandals—first made a name for herself by fighting the Affordable Care Act as the Sunshine State’s first woman AG. Bondi also was at the forefront of Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election. Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins at 9:30 AM ET Wednesday. Read her opening statement here.

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Musk’s DOGE minions are already annoying federal employees

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, created by Donald Trump, is now interviewing federal workers at multiple agencies as part of the group’s stated plans to cut government spending.

The Washington Post reports that representatives from DOGE have spoken to employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, the Treasury Department, and at the Department of Homeland Security.

Musk was named as the cochair of DOGE along with failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The advisory committee has no legal authority within the U.S. government and despite its name is not an actual department, as that is a status that can only be conferred via a congressional vote. DOGE can merely make recommendations to the government, like any other group of citizens.

Musk was awarded with the DOGE leadership position by Trump after he donated at least $250 million to political groups designed to win the election for the Republican nominee.

“Send Him Back”

During the presidential campaign, Musk said a commission like DOGE would be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But in a recent podcast interview with disgraced political strategist Mark Penn, Musk already began to tamp down expectations.

“I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion],” Musk said.

Recent political activity by Musk is perhaps an early warning sign of how DOGE will operate once Trump is in office.

In December, Musk used his account on social media site X to agitate against a bipartisan spending agreement in Congress. Musk spread numerous falsehoods about the bill, leading to Republican leaders pulling the legislation. Failure to pass the bill could have led to a government shutdown and triggered billions in lost productivity as has been the case in previous shutdowns. Ultimately a new bill passed, without funds for programs like pediatric cancer research.

Despite these disruptive actions, another Republican leader has adopted a DOGE-style program. Recently elected New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced that she would create a “Commission on Government Efficiency.” COGE will operate outside of the state government and purportedly offer up recommendations to cut spending.

Musk has said that government spending must be curbed, even if middle income people experience “hardship” when services are curtailed. At the same time, Republicans are pursuing legislation that would include continued tax cuts for billionaires like Musk (he is the richest person in the world).

DOGE interfering in federal work is part of the strategy to get a pro-Musk agenda in play, even if it means disruption and problems for everyone else.

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Biden to leave office less popular than Trump

Americans are giving President Joe Biden harsh reviews before he leaves office in less than two weeks, on Jan. 20. And worse than that, they appear to be judging him even more harshly than his two most recent predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

According to a survey released on Friday by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just one-quarter of U.S. adults (25%) said that Biden was a “good” or “great” president, compared with Trump, whom 36% of U.S. adults gave the same ranking after his first term in office ended, in 2021. (Notably, though, Trump had slightly higher “poor” and “terrible” ratings than Biden.)

Even more remarkable is that the survey about Trump was conducted shortly after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And this is backed up by other polling as well. For instance, between Jan. 7-20, 2021, Trump’s approval ratings dropped from 42% to 39%, according to 538’s average. But at present, Biden’s job approval ratings sit at about 37%, according to 538’s average.

The result of this past November’s election, where Trump got very close to earning a majority of the popular vote, showed that voters preferred a return to Trump versus a continuation of Democratic rule, perhaps especially one tied to Biden. But now we have even more verification of the degree to which voters, after seeing both men govern, simply (if slightly) prefer Trump to Biden.

According to a national tracking poll by Civiqs, just 38% of registered voters have a favorable view of Biden. In fact, he has been below 40% since Nov. 10, making the odds of a rebound ahead of Trump’s inauguration pretty slim. Meanwhile, 45% of voters have a favorable view of Trump, according to Civiqs, and his favorability has been steadily increasing since about February 2023.

These data points starkly illustrate just how tarnished Biden’s legacy has become, despite an impressive domestic record. Not only did he pass landmark legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, to help combat climate change, but Trump is also inheriting a strong economy, for which he has Biden to thank.

The issue? Polling suggests voters either don’t know this or believe Biden was insufficient in other ways. The AP-NORC survey found that only 2 in 10 Americans (22%) think Biden made good on his campaign promises. A larger share, 38%, said that Biden did not keep his word. The remaining 39% said he tried but failed to keep his campaign promises.

Biden is also faring considerably worse than Obama was at the end of his presidency. AP-NORC found that Obama left his second term in office with a majority of Americans (52%) describing his tenure as “good” or “great.” This squares with data released earlier this week by Gallup, which found Biden’s standing is similar to that of former President Richard Nixon, who resigned amid the infamous Watergate scandal. (Unlike the AP-NORC survey, Gallup’s involved a retrospective assessment of past presidents, not a contemporaneous one.)

Former President Barack Obama

As other politicos have pointed out, Trump seems to be enjoying a honeymoon period since his win in November. It’s possible, of course, that four years of Biden caused the electorate to reassess Trump, who once had dismal approval and favorability ratings too.

Remarkably, though, Trump has retained relative popularity amid two impeachments, many federal indictments, two assassination attempts, and some of the most unrelentingly negative media coverage in modern history, among many other faults of his. Such a deep catalog of sins would leave most politicians unable to revive their careers, but somehow Trump did—and he’s unfortunately doing better than ever.

The good news for Biden, if there is any, is that Americans’ negative views toward him may change over time. After all, Gallup found that other presidents who left with low approval ratings—including George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter—saw Americans’ perception of their presidencies warm with time. 

Plus, knowing Trump, he’ll surely squander his goodwill with the American electorate in due time. Every honeymoon must come to an end, including Trump’s. And with the high number of unpopular campaign pledges he’s made, he’s likely to only accelerate that timeline.

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Elon Musk admits what we all knew: DOGE can’t cut $2 trillion

Donald Trump's co-president, Elon Musk, admitted on Wednesday that he probably can't cut $2 trillion from the federal budget as he had promised, running into the political reality everyone told him existed but that he refused to accept because he’s a billionaire who thinks he knows better than everyone else.

In an interview with Mark Penn, the contemptible political strategist who once backed Democrats but now has become a Trump defender, Musk said that his toothless Department of Government Efficiency advisory committee can probably cut only half of the original $2 billion he promised to slash.

"I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion],” Musk said in the interview, which aired on Musk's disinformation platform X. “And if we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth, such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome.”

When asked what specific things he'd cut, Musk offered nothing concrete.

“It’s a very target-rich environment for saving money. … It’s like being in a room full of targets—you could close your eyes and you can’t miss,” Musk said, a metaphor so stupid he almost sounds like his buddy Trump.

Experts always said Musk's $2 trillion goal was unattainable.

Elon Musk, left, and Donald Trump attend a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, 2024.

The entire federal budget in fiscal year 2024 was $6.75 trillion, with massive chunks of it spending that is either legally or politically impossible to cut, including Social Security, Medicare, defense spending, and debt service.

“Our federal budget is about $7 trillion a year. And I still think that they're talking about that $2 trillion number with serious purpose, that that's what they're looking at. And it would be unimaginable that we could find $2 trillion in savings out of seven in one year," Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told NPR in November.

Even finding $1 trillion in cuts, as Musk now says he can achieve, will be extremely hard.

Of the discretionary spending Congress appropriates each year, more than half goes toward national defense, while “the rest to fund the administration of other agencies and programs,” according to the Treasury Department. “These programs range from transportation, education, housing, and social service programs, as well as science and environmental organizations.”

According to an analysis from the CRFB, “in order to achieve balance within a decade, all spending would need to be cut by roughly one-quarter and that the necessary cuts would grow to 85% if defense, veterans, Social Security, and Medicare spending were off the table.”

What’s more, Musk admitted in October that slashing the budget would require "hardship" for the American people. And given that members of Congress are accountable to voters, they are unlikely to slash spending for programs that their constituents could punish them for.

This isn't the first promise Musk and Trump are backtracking on after the 2024 election.

Trump recently admitted he probably can't bring grocery prices down—arguably the key reason Trump was elected in November. "It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard," Trump said in an interview with Time magazine.

The American people were sold a bag of goods that they'll never get.

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