Salon.com > Fox News http://www.salon.com Fri, 03 May 2013 21:04:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Conservatives rally behind MSM’s Howard Kurtz http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/conservatives_rally_behind_msms_howard_kurtz/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/conservatives_rally_behind_msms_howard_kurtz/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 17:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13288819 You would expect Howard Kurtz' departure from the Daily Beast to be fodder for conservative critics of the liberal mainstream media, but probably not in this way.

The problem they seem to have with the incident is not that Kurtz falsely accused openly gay NBA player Jason Collins of concealing his engagement to a woman, or that he spread himself too thin and let the quality of his work suffer, but that the Daily Beast fired Kurtz for it. Here's popular conservative blogger Ace of Spades, spelling out what many saw as a double standard:

Clearly Kurtz erred, and rather dumbly. But he does this a lot, and no one's had a problem with it in the past. Why now? I think it's pretty obvious -- Jason Collins is now the Gay Black Sandra Fluke, and therefore now An Hero, and the Left protects its heroes.

And John Nolte of Breitbart News:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/conservatives_rally_behind_msms_howard_kurtz/feed/ 8 Fox News: Plan B “covers up rapes,” is “boon for creepy uncles” http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/fox_news_plan_b_covers_up_rapes_is_boon_for_creepy_uncles/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/fox_news_plan_b_covers_up_rapes_is_boon_for_creepy_uncles/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 17:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13288836 On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced its decision to make Plan B available over the counter and without a prescription to anyone aged 15 or older, and Fox News' "The Five" wants to talk about it.

The group bemoaned the FDA's decision, falsely labeling Plan B an "abortion pill" (the drug prevents fertilization before it happens, for more on how that works please see here) and announced a theory that increased access to birth control will somehow "cover up rapes." This line of argument is not based in reality: forensic investigations do not require a pregnancy to confirm an assault and women's bodies are not incubators for evidence in rape cases.

After all of that, Greg Gutfeld chimed in that the FDA's decision is a "boon for creepy uncles."

Let's see if you can follow his logic:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/fox_news_plan_b_covers_up_rapes_is_boon_for_creepy_uncles/feed/ 16 Ron Paul casts lot with extremists, conspiracy theorists http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/ron_paul_casts_lot_with_extremists_conspiracy_theorists_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/ron_paul_casts_lot_with_extremists_conspiracy_theorists_partner/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:47:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13284826 The Southern Poverty Law Center Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, has started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.

As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as “a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.”

And just who are the far-right luminaries helping guide Paul’s new endeavor?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/ron_paul_casts_lot_with_extremists_conspiracy_theorists_partner/feed/ 95 Fox News ignores right-wing extremists http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/fox_news_ignores_right_wing_extremists_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/fox_news_ignores_right_wing_extremists_partner/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:20:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13284798 AlterNetOn August 5, 2012, just before 10:30 in the morning, Wade Michael Page pulled up outside the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., took out his semi-automatic handgun and started killing worshipers. An Army veteran and an avid bass player in a neo-Nazi rock band, Page killed two Sikhs outside the house of worship and then made his way inside. There, he reloaded and killed four more, including the president of the temple who was shot while trying to tackle Page. Three more were critically wounded in the massacre.

When local police descended, Page opened fire and shot one officer nearly ten times. When the authorities returned fire and shot Page in the stomach, he took his 9mm pistol, pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger.

According to acquaintances, the 40-year-old killer hated blacks, Indians, Native Americans and Hispanics (he called non-whites "dirt people"), and was interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan. Immersed in the world of white power music, Page's band rehearsed in front of a Nazi flag.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/fox_news_ignores_right_wing_extremists_partner/feed/ 31 Glenn Beck is back http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13282730 "I've missed you so much," Jon Stewart whispered longingly at an image of Glenn Beck on Wednesday night's "Daily Show," before kissing his fingers and then pressing them against the virtual cheeks of Beck's floating head in the video box over his right shoulder.

You thought the conservative broadcaster had been banished to the Siberia that is the Internet since he left Fox News in June of 2011, but thanks to some signature conspiracy theorizing in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Beck is back, baby. Just look at this Google Trends chart for searches of his name beginning the month after he left Fox:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/feed/ 32 Fox “liberal:” No more Muslim or Chinese immigrants for a while http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/fox_liberal_no_more_muslim_or_chinese_immigrants_for_a_little_while/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/fox_liberal_no_more_muslim_or_chinese_immigrants_for_a_little_while/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13280066 In the pantheon of dumb responses to the Boston Marathon bombing, this just might take the cake. Bob Beckel, the token liberal and politically incorrect comic relief on Fox News' "The Five" roundtable show, said today that we should stop allowing Muslim students to come to the United States for a little while, at least until we can deal with all the ones who are here now:

“I think we really have to consider, given the fact so many people hate us, that we're going to have to cut off Muslim students coming to this country for some period of time so that we can absorb what we've got and look at what we've got and decide whether some of the people here should be going, be sent home or sent to prison."

Later, Beckel took a moment to clarify and backpedal a bit "before I get complaints." Instead, he added Chinese students to the list of personas non grata, because, he said, they will just end up hacking us:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/fox_liberal_no_more_muslim_or_chinese_immigrants_for_a_little_while/feed/ 7 6 memorable news bloopers http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/6_memorable_news_blooper/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/6_memorable_news_blooper/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:03:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13278988 A.J. Clemente had a rough first and last day as a news anchor for NBC affiliate KFYR-TV in North Dakota, getting fired for saying, “Fucking … shit" on air.

Clemente's slip-up was pretty bad, but local news has long been a source of unintentional comedy, rife with f-bombs and sexual innuendo that have gone viral. Below are some of the most memorable slip-ups in recent history:

1. Keep fucking that chicken:

2. Curb job, blow job:

3. The ass cream vendor:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/6_memorable_news_blooper/feed/ 7 New York GOPer defends saying he’d torture Boston suspect http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/new_york_goper_defends_saying_hed_torture_boston_suspect/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/new_york_goper_defends_saying_hed_torture_boston_suspect/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:11:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13278456 State Sen. Greg Ball, a Republican from New York, doubled down on his tweet suggesting that torture should be used on Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, telling Fox & Friends that if it would "save one innocent life," he would be fine with it.

“If getting that information, including torture, would save one innocent life, including, that we’ve seen, children, would you use torture?" Ball said. "I would be first in line.”

Ball tweeted on Saturday:

[embedtweet id="325411515333230592"]

Via HuffPo.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/new_york_goper_defends_saying_hed_torture_boston_suspect/feed/ 19 The right’s new Boston conspiracy theory http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/the_rights_new_boston_conspiracy_theory/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/the_rights_new_boston_conspiracy_theory/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:55:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13275210 Were you one of the pundits or newspapers who too quickly jumped on the Saudi "person of interest" story, only to have some egg on your face when authorities later cleared him of wrongdoing? Well, thankfully, Fox News' favorite "terrorism expert" Steve Emerson has found an escape clause.

Emerson, a former journalist who has since made a career out of being a self-styled expert, was himself a little too credulous on the New York Post-boosted story line about the Saudi national, telling C-SPAN Tuesday morning that based on "certain classified information" that he was "privy to," he was pretty sure authorities had found their man in "the Saudi national." But six hours later, on Fox, he broke the news that "the Saudi suspect has been ruled out."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/the_rights_new_boston_conspiracy_theory/feed/ 35 Fox News poll: Homegrown terrorists bigger threat than Islamic terrorists http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/fox_news_poll_homegrown_terrorists_bigger_threat_than_islamic_terrorists/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/fox_news_poll_homegrown_terrorists_bigger_threat_than_islamic_terrorists/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13275160 In a somewhat surprising new poll from Fox News taken in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the majority of voters surveyed say that homegrown terrorists are a bigger threat to U.S. soil than Islamic terrorists.

From Fox News:

By a wide 62-20 percent margin, voters think homegrown terrorists are more likely than Islamic terrorists to have been behind the Boston attacks.  Nineteen percent are unsure.

In general, voters say homegrown terrorists like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (51 percent) pose a greater threat on U.S. soil than Islamic terrorists (26 percent).

Fox News itself jumped on the New York Post's false report that a Saudi national was a suspect in the bombings.

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/fox_news_poll_homegrown_terrorists_bigger_threat_than_islamic_terrorists/feed/ 2 CNN’s Boston embarrassment: How a “scoop” turns sour http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/cnns_boston_embarrassment_how_a_scoop_turns_sour/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/cnns_boston_embarrassment_how_a_scoop_turns_sour/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:54:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13274049 At 12:04 p.m., CNN's Breaking News Twitter broadcast that a "suspect" in the bombing of the Boston Marathon had been "ID'd."

[embedtweet id="324569129187168257"]

This scoop was credited to CNN reporter John King, who, as of this writing, is not on air. Less than an hour later, CNN declared there had been an arrest.

[embedtweet id="324582239134416897"]

Other news outlets chased CNN, with the Associated Press and Fox News reporting a similar story shortly after 1 p.m. in each case.

[embedtweet id="324583755350147072"]

[embedtweet id="324584418196983809"]

But by 1:43, CNN had cited the Department of Justice and Boston Police Department in their claim that no arrest was made.

[embedtweet id="324593940223385600"]

CNN's tweets about the events in Boston today link to a liveblog whose URL ends "source-arrest-made-in-boston-bombing/." King's reporting for CNN, preserved in the liveblog, indicates that the police "identified a suspect based on an analysis of video from a Lord & Taylor department store near the site of the second blast, and that video from a Boston TV station also helped."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/cnns_boston_embarrassment_how_a_scoop_turns_sour/feed/ 21 “Please don’t let it be a Muslim” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/please_dont_let_it_be_a_muslim/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/please_dont_let_it_be_a_muslim/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:33:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13273696 The twin bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, which killed two and injured at least 176, inspired divergent responses to a sudden, senseless tragedy. In the immediate aftermath of the blasts, some marathon participants continued running to nearby hospitals to donate blood,  many Boston citizens offered free food and shelter to strangers, and diverse communities sent financial donations and prayers of peace and comfort to victims and their families. Others, however, chose to fan the flames of anti-Muslim bigotry and hysteria for sake of sensationalistic headlines and divisive ideological agendas.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/please_dont_let_it_be_a_muslim/feed/ 106 Gosnell coverup? Fox covered arrest less than MSNBC http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/gosnell_coverup_fox_covered_arrest_less_than_msnbc/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/gosnell_coverup_fox_covered_arrest_less_than_msnbc/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13273680 Did the mainstream media intentionally ignore the case of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia doctor accused of performing illegal abortions, in order to protect abortion rights? That's what conservatives have been up in arms about for the past week, even as Irin Carmon pointed out that it was in fact feminist and pro-choice writers who gave the case the most attention outside of Pennsylvania when Gosnell was arrested in 2011, and I noted that conservative lawmakers and media leaders weren't exactly using their platform to highlight the case until very recently.

Now a new data point from the liberal Media Matters, which tabulated the amount of time the three major cable news networks devoted to Gosnell's arrest in 2011. As it turns out, Fox News gave it the least coverage of the three. Liberal MSNBC gave the case about a third more time, while CNN put both networks to shame by covering the arrest almost five times more than Fox. Here's a chart showing the relative time devoted to coverage on each network:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/gosnell_coverup_fox_covered_arrest_less_than_msnbc/feed/ 10 The real Gosnell conspiracy http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/the_real_gosnell_conspiracy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/the_real_gosnell_conspiracy/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13272848 I want to revise some of my earlier statements. There is, in fact, a conspiracy around the case of Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell. But it's being engineered not by a mainstream media cowed by the left out of covering his trial, but by the antiabortion movement. And while Gosnell's trial deserves fair, accurate and contextualized coverage, some journalists seem happy to stop at playing into the right's hands by buying their phony media narrative.

No one who supports the provision of safe abortion care to women excuses any of what Gosnell is accused of, from willfully gruesome conditions to sadistic treatment to infanticide. He is not typical, and there was, and has been, swift renunciation of his facility. But the case provides the ideal opportunity for the right-to-life movement to conflate his abusive clinic with all abortion as it's widely practiced in the U.S., and to focus on graphic later abortions, conveniently redirecting attention from their desire to ban all abortions for everyone. That desire, by the way, is being enacted into law explicitly in states like Arkansas and North Dakota, and implicitly with laws designed to close abortion clinics in states like Mississippi and Virginia.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/the_real_gosnell_conspiracy/feed/ 141 Let’s not be terrorized http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_not_be_terrorized/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_not_be_terrorized/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:31:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13272358 Tragedies amplify the human tendencies toward both selflessness and assholishness. From a distance, watching horrible things happen (and happen, and happen) on TV, it can be much easier to see the assholishness. Yesterday an asshole planted bombs at the Boston Marathon -- the Boston Marathon, for chrissakes -- and today three people are confirmed dead with many, many more injured, in some cases horrifically.

That horrible situation, though, led to a great deal of examples of how Boston, and much of the U.S., is a pretty damn nice place full of impressive and great people. There was amazing journalism from Boston journalists, and a heroic response from Boston first responders, paramedics, doctors and surgeons. Boston blood banks filled up immediately and the Red Cross and Google both helped people find their loved ones. The Internet and the press even acquitted themselves reasonably well. It was amazing to see, within hours of the attack, eyewitness video from amateurs and professionals. The live stream of WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, was compelling, restrained and informative. Fox News' Shepard Smith was incredibly composed and also very careful not to speculate irresponsibly. The Boston Globe dropped its pay wall and put its heartbreaking and useful liveblog on the front page.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_not_be_terrorized/feed/ 41 After Boston explosions, a scapegoat emerges on the right http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:36:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271964 Should we even be surprised that after an event like the bombing of the Boston Marathon today, immediate suspicion would turn to Muslims? Muslims themselves were not. “The thought of every Muslim right now," tweeted Dubai-based Al-Aan TV journalist Jenan Moussa: “Please don’t be a ‘Muslim.'”

It's easiest to explain unexplainable -- or yet unknown -- things by forcing them into an existing worldview, so when a shred of evidence came along, such as an unsubstantiated New York Post report that police had detained a Saudi national, many on the right immediately took it and ran with it.

Of course, the Post's report -- which Fox News picked up -- has zero named sources, zero quotes, and was contradicted by the Boston commissioner, who said authorities have no suspects in custody yet, but why let that get in the way of what you're sure is true.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/feed/ 391 Conservative columnist jokes about killing all the Muslims http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/fox_regular_jokes_about_muslims_kill_them_all/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/fox_regular_jokes_about_muslims_kill_them_all/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:55:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271860 Going beyond even Pamela Geller, occasional Fox News guest Erik Rush responded to the Boston Marathon bombing today by suggesting that we round up Saudis and then kill them -- but don't worry, he was mostly joking.

Latching onto a thinly sourced New York Post report that police have detained a Saudi national (the city's police commissioner later said that they have no suspects in the bombing yet), Rush tweeted, "Everybody do the National Security Ankle Grab! Let's bring more Saudis in without screening them! C'mon! #bostonmarathon." The columnist, who boasts on his Twitter bio that he "was the first to break the story of Barack Obama's ties to militant preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright on a national level," followed up with a response to someone asking if he was blaming Muslims: "Yes, they're evil. Kill them all."

Rush appears to have deleted the tweet, but Right Wing Watch screen grabbed it:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/fox_regular_jokes_about_muslims_kill_them_all/feed/ 21 Caught in middle of a Malkin-Colmes Twitter war http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/responding_to_michelle_malkin/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/responding_to_michelle_malkin/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:15:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271433 On Friday, Irin Carmon and I noted that there has been no media coverup of the grisly case of Kermit Gosnell, the doctor on trial in Philadelphia for performing illegal abortions and other crimes, and that conservative lawmakers and media figures didn't make a big issue of the case until very recently themselves.

This morning, Fox News contributor Alan Colmes said on the network that conservative blogger Michelle Malkin "wasn't covering" the case. When challenged by her fans and Malkin herself on Twitter, Colmes cited my story and suggested that I reported that Malkin only mentioned the story once on March 19. In fact, for the record, here's what I wrote:

Twitchy, the Michelle Malkin-backed conservative Twitter-activism site that has been haranguing the media for not covering the case, didn’t offer its first real mention until March 19.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/responding_to_michelle_malkin/feed/ 2 On Gosnell “blackout,” where were conservatives before this week? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/conservatives_should_look_inward_on_gosnell_blackout/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/conservatives_should_look_inward_on_gosnell_blackout/#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:15:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13269394 Piggybacking on Irin Carmon's excellent piece dismantling the myth that the media has intentionally ignored the case of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor now on trail for allegedly committing horrific crimes against his patients, it's worth noting that some conservatives attacking the media now didn't seem particularly interested in the case until a few days ago.

As Dave Weigel points out in his response to Carmon, one reason Gosnell didn't get more attention was because the judge issued a gag order preventing lawyers from speaking publicly about it, but another may be that pro-life politicians never nationalized Gosnell's crimes and made them into an issue that would attract more discussion.

A search of the Congressional Record for the 112th Congress (2011-2012) turns up zero mentions for Gosnell, while a search of the current 113th Congress finds three -- all from yesterday.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/conservatives_should_look_inward_on_gosnell_blackout/feed/ 64 Ann Coulter: “Everyone laughed” at joke about killing Meghan McCain http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/ann_coulter_everyone_laughed_at_joke_about_killing_meghan_mccain/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/ann_coulter_everyone_laughed_at_joke_about_killing_meghan_mccain/#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:44:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13269177 Ann Coulter said something awful on Fox News about something awful she said on Fox News.

In a Thursday interview with Sean Hannity, Coulter defended her "hyperbolic" suggestion in a blog post for Fox News that someone murder Meghan McCain, and called Martin Bashir's rhetorical question about Republicans and gun violence the real scandal.

h/t Media Matters

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