The PSC’s latest giveaway to Georgia Power
From former Public Service Commissioner Angela Speir Phelps and the Georgia Online News Service:
The phrase “a chicken in every pot” was a slogan used during Herbert Hoover’s presidential campaign in 1928. A year later, the Great Depression began. We are very blessed that we are not suffering as those who came before us did, but it’s tough times these days.
Georgia ranks in the top 10 in the country for foreclosure, bankruptcy, and unemployment. During these trying times, if we are going to have a chicken in every pot, then we need to make sure we don’t have the fox guarding the hen house. This scenario comes to mind when I think of recent decisions made by our elected representatives, such as the five statewide elected public service commissioners who voted this week to commit $6.4 billion dollars of consumer’s money to Georgia Power without implementing the safeguards recommended by their own staff. Read more
Blue Dogs get bad rap
An opinion piece from Chris Kromm and the Georgia Online News Service:
The Blue Dog Democratic Coalition is one of the favorite punching bags of the progressive blogosphere. From DailyKos to OpenLeft, the Blue Dogs — a group of 51 “moderate and conservative” House Democrats — are routinely held up as a symbol of all that’s wrong with the Democratic Party.
A piece in Firedoglake is typical of the anti-Blue Dog genre, in which they are savaged for being hypocritcal about government spending, opposed to hate crime laws and being the descendants of racist Dixiecrats (although the majority of Blue Dogs aren’t in the South).
Defenders of the Blue Dogs respond by saying that these Democrats come from “hard districts,” and they can’t take progressive stands because they’ll get voted out of office by their conservative constituents.
Put aside for the moment the unpleasant implication that Blue Dog votes are devoid of moral conviction and based purely on political calculation. Even on its own terms, is the idea that Blue Dogs come from uniquely conservative “hard districts” even true?
An analysis by the Swing State Project might give the Blue Dogs some backup. Read more
Mental distress = red state
From Tom Baxter and the Georgia Online News Service:
Life is full of misery
Tears so many I can’t see
Seems somehow
I never can be free
Blues stay away from me
Blues why don’t you let me be
Don’t know why
You keep on haunting me
(“Blues Stay Away from Me”)
The Centers for Disease Control last month released what amounts to a map of the blues, though befitting a government study, it was wrapped in a colorless title: Geographic Patterns of Frequent Mental Distress.
The map and the report it’s in, published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, are based on data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which bills itself as the world’s largest on-going health survey system. During 1993-2001 and 2003-2006, the BRFSS asked some 2.4 million Americans how many days over the past 30 they would say their mental health had not been good, and mapped the results by county.
The results show that the land where the blues was born still has a lot of it.
Two Southern regions, Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley, had particularly high and increasing rates of Frequent Mental Distress (FMD), while the Upper Midwest, for all its dour Scandinavians, had low and decreasing rates. Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia had the biggest increase in FMD over the two survey periods, and Kentucky had the highest overall rate: 14.4 percent, compared to 6.6 percent in Hawaii, which had the lowest rate.
The study’s authors note a number of factors – poverty, obesity, domestic violence, smoking, drinking and drugs – which go along with FMD and could affect the geographical distribution. However one accounts for it, the distribution has been consistent over a very long survey period, and there’s a good argument the map would have looked much the same in 1930 or 1870. Those lowdown blues and mournful country songs didn’t materialize out of thin air.
On a purely wonkish note, this means that the need for public mental health services is greatest in some of the states where the budget for these departments tends to drag the national average.
From a political perspective, there are interesting similarities between the FMD map and that often referred-to map of the counties that voted more Republican in 2008 than in 2004. People in this swath of the American heartland were dealing with a lot before Barack Obama got elected, as the FMD map reflects. Their mood today is likely to be darker than in the nation at large, to judge from recent national polls showing a positive response to the new administration and a surprising degree of optimism about the direction the country is headed in, despite the frequent economic distress.
Politics in the South generally awards cheerfulness in its politicians, even in the worst of times. Kentucky had Happy Chandler, and Louisiana’s songwriting Gov. Jimmy Davis wrote “You Are My Sunshine.” But as the next political season approaches, the South has more than its share of mentally distressed voters.
This article originally appeared in Southern Political Report.
Governor’s race taking shape
From Tom Baxter and GONSO:
Maybe it says something about how next year’s governor’s race is shaping up that the early jostling has involved two back surgeries.
The more widely publicized of these was performed, reportedly with good results, this week on Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. He had been viewed as a top contender in the race for the Republican nomination until he announced at a tearful press conference earlier this month that a back problem had convinced him to abandon the governor’s race and run for his current job.
There was so much skepticism about the real reason for Cagle’s departure that he showed his X-rays and MRIs to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway as proof he genuinely is in too much pain to take on such a big race. No doubt pain did have a great deal to do with Cagle’s surprise decision, but the timing – a week after the end of the session, long enough to get on the phone and test the climate for political fundraising – suggests money might have had a little to do with it also.
Since Cagle’s departure, the Republican dominos have fallen in a striking pattern. Three potential contenders from the Atlanta metro area – U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens, and state House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter – have decided they’re not getting in the governor’s race.
Again, there must be a lot of reasons why they all opted not to get in this race. But a casual glance at the business pages suggests one overriding factor: any campaign that might have counted on Atlanta development money is finding out there’s a lot less of it available in this election cycle. (Not to mention that there are four Republicans already dialing for dollars: Secretary of State Karen Handel, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, state Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton and states rights advocate Ray McBerry.)
Meanwhile, two candidates from outside metro Atlanta who weren’t on the radar for this race have jumped in it. Senate President Eric Johnson of Savannah switched from the lieutenant governor’s race, thus avoiding the returning Cagle and upping the ante on his own ambitions. U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, who wasn’t even on the short list of Republican congressmen interested in the race, has also been letting colleagues know he intends to announce soon.
Both add some intriguing dimensions to the race. Johnson has the potential to benefit from the GOP’s growth in eastern Georgia, and he’s already put together an organization. As an up-and-coming legislator and during his first couple of years in Congress, Deal enjoyed a best-and-brightest image in the Democratic Party that reminded some of Roy Barnes. Since his party switch in 1995, Deal has swung more to the right on issues like immigration, and he never really assumed the leadership position in his adopted party which some had envisioned for him as a Democrat. But it will be interesting to see what cross-party appeal he might have next year.
Speaking of Barnes, the other back surgery was the one performed on him back before Christmas of last year. He told a former staffer the week after that operation that he was about 50-50 on getting in the race. If he was 50-50 after going through something like that, Barnes might seem likely to make his fourth bid for governor. But sources who’ve talked with him in recently haven’t seen any signs that he’s committed.
Until he makes his intentions known, which should be some time in May, the Democratic field consists of three people with whom the former governor has important connections: David Poythress, whom Barnes appointed state adjutant general, Attorney General Thurbert Baker, with whom Barnes carefully coordinated his 1998 and 2002 races, and House Minority Leader Dubose Porter, who was a floor leader for Barnes when he was governor. Whether Barnes is in this race or not, he’s going to have a lot to do with how it’s run.
Tom Baxter is editor of the Southern Political Report and senior vice president of its parent company, InsiderAdvantage, a media and polling firm. He was the chief political correspondent at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 20 years. [full bio]
Georgia’s stimulus bonanza
From GONSO’s Jeanne Bonner:
Georgia expects to receive $7.3 billion in federal stimulus funds, or about $1 billion more than has been previously reported.
The state provided the estimate to the General Accounting Office, which reported it Thursday as part of a review of funds issued through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
State officials said as recently as last week that they did not have a figure but had been told by federal officials that they would receive about $6 billion. Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue, said Thursday that the state and the GAO developed the new estimate jointly after reviewing Georgia’s programs and looking at increases in the number of citizens who are seeking assistance such as Medicaid.
He said the new estimate still may be revised in the future, but is more accurate than the original figure.
The federal report, the first in a series of bimonthly reports, reiterated information the state has already reported but also provided detail into how the state will account for the money and expected difficulties in tracking the funds.
Much of the money will be allocated to existing programs such as Medicare and education. Of the $7.3 billion Georgia will receive in stimulus funds, the majority will go to support education (36 percent of the funds), health programs (35 percent, of which 23 percent is earmarked for Medicaid) and transportation (15 percent), according to Thursday’s report.
Georgia is one of 16 states that will be included in the bimonthly reviews. The 16 states, including Florida, North Carolina, Iowa and Mississippi, and the District of Columbia, were selected for special review because they are home to 65 percent of the nation’s population and will receive about two-thirds of the stimulus funds. The GAO said Thursday it also took into consideration unemployment rates and poverty levels in singling out the 16 states.
As of this month, the federal government has provided $521 million in increased Medicare and Medicaid funding to Georgia, of which the state has already drawn down about 60 percent, the GAO report said.
Georgia was quick to establish a team of state officials to oversee stimulus funds, acting even before the bill passed, GAO officials said. The Recovery Act implementation team includes officials from 31 state agencies.
But the state has also said some of the agencies that will receive funds have a history of accounting discrepancies, and as such, Georgia may have trouble tracking stimulus funds. For example, the report cited the state’s most recent Single Audit Act, which found the state Department of Transportation’s accounting system was “unsuitable for day-to-day management.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation allotted $932 million in highway infrastructure spending to Georgia in March as part of the stimulus. Perdue won’t release the money until he has certified the projects. Earlier this month, he announced he had given the requisite approval for $207 million in stimulus funding, which will be distributed to 67 road projects throughout the state, including $24 million for a Gwinnett County project that will extend McGinnis Ferry Road.
The report also said state auditors had found the state Department of Labor was unable “to provide detailed account balances for the Unemployment Insurance because it maintained an inadequate general ledger that consisted of manually updated spreadsheets.”
In an effort to avoid accounting problems with stimulus funds, the state has issued a directive to state agencies that they track stimulus funds separately from other funds.
In addition to GAO staff here and in Washington, D.C., the federal agency’s liaison in Georgia is Celeste Osborn, the state’s deputy chief financial officer. Osborn will coordinate stimulus activities for all state agencies.
Perdue will sign a certification document for every program that receives stimulus funding, which will guarantee the state spends the funds appropriately, Brantley said last week. Osborn will ensure those certifications are signed in time, and will coordinate with the agencies to develop plans to spend the funds in a manner consistent with the certifications, he said.
Perdue has elected to save half of the so-called stabilization funds that are part of the stimulus in order to apply it to the 2011 budget, state officials said last week. Those funds will offset anticipated cuts in education and other areas.
The report issued Thursday coincided with testimony to Congress, said Alicia Cackley of the GAO, who helped write the report. Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earlier this year at Pres. Obama’s urging in an effort to bolster the economy in the wake of the recession.
To find the report the GAO issued Thursday, visit:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09580.pdf
For an overview of stimulus money in Georgia, go here:
http://stimulusaccountability.ga.gov/02/gov/stimulus/home/0,2804,134245182,00.html
For information on stimulus money for Georgia housing programs, go here:
http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/programs/ph/capfund/grants/arra/ga.cfm
For information on transportation and aviation projects in Georgia that will receive stimulus funding, visit:
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/informationcenter/gastimulus/Pages/default.aspx
General information on the stimulus act is available here:
Jeanne Bonner is the senior business writer at Georgia Online News Service.
Trauma care crashes again
From GONSO’s Jason Kiely:
The other day my fourth-grader glanced up from one of her trivia books to announce that a leech – a blood-sucking leech – has 32 brains. In a moment that revealed how low my personal standards have sunk, I replied, “Hmmm … Now I don’t feel so bad.”
She got it immediately, as witnessed by her eye-rolling and reluctance to return my high-five. But I thought I made a valid point: Compare what a leech has accomplished with 32 brains versus what I have done with just one. I feel better about myself already.
It’s a shame that Georgia’s elected legislative body, which has 236 brains, can’t feel better about some of its accomplishments.
Take our still non-existent statewide trauma care network. Year after year, our elected officials, who talk a good game about supporting health care and emergency medicine and saving lives, simply have not put all those brains together to figure out a way to permanently fund a trauma system.
This year was no different. In fact, it turned out worse than last year, when the legislators ponied up almost $59 million to keep a handful of trauma centers open. In the closing week of the 2009 session, they squeaked through the Super Speeder law, which will provide about $23 million for the Georgia Trauma Trust Fund in 2010. Unfortunately, running an organized network of trauma specialists and facilities needs about 100 million bucks a year.
Bottom line: We’re going backward, in more ways than one.
At this rate, Georgia will not have a statewide trauma system. Ever. Put another way, let’s just say that if you live or travel south of Macon or west of Savannah, where trauma centers are few and far between, make sure your affairs are in order. More than 5,000 Georgians die of traumatic injury every year. Advocates of a trauma system claim it would save about 700 lives a year, even with moderate success.
In the meantime, people are dying in the streets. And worse, they are dying in emergency rooms, where Georgians often erroneously believe that all trauma care is equal and you will get the maximum care possible. Not so. A fully equipped and staffed state-designated trauma center – of which Georgia has 15 and needs about 30 – is far more likely to save your life than a general ER, which number 137 at acute care hospitals throughout the state. Fewer than a third of trauma victims are treated at a trauma center in Georgia.
Read the rest of this story at GONSO.
Georgia biz leaders upset with state lawmakers
From GONSO’s Jeanne Bonnor:
Disappointment
It’s a word business leaders typically avoid, largely because its use acknowledges that something did not go right.
But in near universal consensus, business leaders across Georgia continue to express bewilderment and, yes, disappointment that state legislators were unable to pass a law that would increase funding for transportation before the legislative session ended April 3.
While transportation was the top priority for business leaders, many also say the legislature failed to act on a host of other pressing issues during this year’s 40-day General Assembly session.
“I guess disappointment seems to be the word that’s used the most and I think it’s the most appropriate one,” said Doug Hertz, president of United Distributors in Smyrna and a key figure in the Get Georgia Moving coalition, which aims to reduce congestion around the state.
Demming Bass, with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, echoed his statement.
“I don’t know how you can continue to disappoint people,” Bass said of the Assembly’s failure to approve a new funding mechanism for transportation. “It was all politics.”
Business leaders, many of whom took the unusual step of supporting a sales tax to fund improvements to roads, bridges and transit, minced no words when they announced in January that transportation was their No. 1 priority for this year’s legislative session. Many vowed comprehensive transportation reform would not fail again, as it had in 2008 when a bill died on the floor of the Senate a little before midnight on the last day of the legislative session.
Instead, the two houses of the General Assembly were unable to reach a compromise on two competing transportation bills, and now, even 10 days after the session ended, the business community is not mincing words about how they feel about this year’s legislative gridlock. And it’s not all about transportation.
“I think everyone was shocked by what an unproductive session it was,” said Renay Blumenthal, the senior vice president of public policy at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, John Rice, vice chairman of GE, whose Energy unit is based in Cobb County, expressed frustration that a “well-written, badly needed bill” aimed at reforming school board governance got caught up in “horse-trading politics at its worst. … How long will we let bad politics and self-serving politicians get in the way of good policies?”
What’s driving much of the business community’s rancor is a core belief that economic development is, as Hertz said, the “lifeblood” for increasing state revenue for services, creating jobs and building more dynamic communities.
To ensure continued economic growth, business leaders say the state needs to reduce congestion around Georgia, a move that would require a new source of revenue.
The need to devote more money to solve transportation woes is so acute that leaders from Walton, Barrow and other counties far outside of central Atlanta said they would support more funding for MARTA, the city’s mass transit system, according to Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission. After the Legislature declined to provide more funding to MARTA, the ARC offered money to help the transit system close a funding gap created by falling sales tax revenue.
“The single biggest impediment to economic development is transportation,” said Hertz, whose distribution company employs 1,200 people at sites in Atlanta, Savannah, Albany and other cities in Georgia.
Other issues, including a bill to outlaw embryonic stem cell research, also provoked ire in the business community, for much the same reason: prohibiting such work would deter companies from moving to Georgia. Indeed, the bill to limit scientific inquiry in the state, which did not move beyond the Senate, was seen in the business community as an embarrassment coming, as it did, two months before Atlanta will play host to an international biotech conference where state officials hope to recruit companies to Georgia.
“They didn’t have to pass that,” said Bass of the Gwinnett Chamber.
It’s unclear what the business community’s next step will be; most of the issues will have to wait for the next legislative session, which begins in January. Hertz said Get Georgia Moving may have made a mistake by not endorsing one plan over the other, and he thinks that next year the key to winning the bill’s passage may be support for a plan that authorizes regional taxes for regional projects, rather than a statewide tax.
In the meantime, some economic leaders already have plans to engage in some much-needed “damage control.”
“We are going to have to explain it to prospects,” said Blumenthal, with the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “A lot of prospects know we have traffic, and many cities have traffic. The difference is in Atlanta we are perceived as [not] doing anything about it. We don’t even have a plan.”
Jeanne Bonner is the senior business writer at Georgia Online News Service.
Gold Dome terrorism
From John Sugg and GONSO:
A time trip I like to take about once a year spirits me back to Sept. 19-20, 1863, at a spot along the Tennessee-Georgia border where soldiers did what soldiers do. And that includes dying – 3,969 of them – and being maimed, blinded, shattered and a variety of other almost-but-not-quite-lethal events we describe as wounding – another 24,430.
It was called the Battle of Chickamauga, and if you go to the visitor center at the battlefield, you’ll be captured, as I am on my annual treks, by the photographs of common men in rough blue and gray uniforms. Many of the warriors were mere boys. This is not the fancy dress Civil War portrayed by Hollywood.
Among the larger photos is one of Col. Cyrus Sugg of the Confederate Army’s 50th Tennessee Infantry, who commanded Gregg’s Brigade after Brig. Gen. John Gregg was shot in the neck. One of the plaques scattered around the battlefield even notes where “Sugg took command,” a phrase that appeals to me.
Unfortunately, Col. Sugg rated a calculation in one or both of the numbers above. He was wounded at Chickamauga, and then taken to a field hospital in Marietta, where he expired.
Cyrus Sugg was a relative, and one of many Suggs who fought in the Civil War, so this is personal for me, folks. John H. Sugg, another Tennessean, was a Confederate soldier who ended up as a Yankee prisoner of war. Then there was Joseph Sugg, who kept dodging service in one or the other of the competing armies in Missouri until captured by federal troops who made him join their band. There was even a Rebel steamboat named the Tom Sugg, which was captured by Union soldiers in Arkansas’ Little Red River.
And, there are many African-Americans with the surname Sugg or Suggs, who likely are descended from slaves owned by my ancestors who originally settled in South Carolina. I’ve even attended a family reunion of one branch of the black Sugg family.
So, all things considered, I get this Southern heritage thing. But if I ever in some eternity get to ask Col. Cyrus Sugg a question, it would be: “Suh, jes’ what were y’all thinkin’?”
And if I ever get a chance to ask the Georgia General Assembly, en masse, a question on the subject of history, it would be: “Gentlemen and ladies, if I may use those terms in their loosest application, what the hell were you thinking when you failed to pass urgent transportation funding but did find time to pass a silly law that would have the effect of elevating the fables of Gone With the Wind to sanctified history?”
Which is exactly what a bill that passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses (AKA asylums) of the General Assembly did. The law denoting April as Confederate Heritage and History Month will undoubtedly by signed by Gov. Sonny “Unreconstructed” Perdue.
Let’s consider for a minute exactly what Georgia will be commemorating. A bunch of brigands, in order to preserve their own aristocratic way of life, connived and committed acts of mass terrorism to undermine and overthrow the U.S. government. If there had been a Pentagon in the 1860s, they surely would have bombed it.
They pursued their criminal conspiracy by convincing the most uneducated and unsophisticated citizens that the nation they thought they were part of really wasn’t their nation, but that a mythological fairyland of cavaliers and damsels was their homeland. The treasonous leaders of this conspiracy, especially the military el jefes led by a turncoat named Robert E. Lee, violated their sacred oaths, including those made to God. They claimed to be honorable, but where the hell is honor in betraying one’s country and vows?
The plebeians were largely duped into joining the 19th Century’s version of Al Qaeda, but the law allows little room for those who are determinedly stupid. Just as many uneducated Muslims are conned by “leaders” into committing vile and unforgivable acts of terrorism, so too were the farmboys of the South deceived into believing in a “cause” that never really existed.
That’s not quite the magnolia and Scarlett O’Hara version of Confederate history that the legislators envision. Without regard to the implications, their proposed law calls on all Georgians “to honor, observe, and celebrate the Confederate States of America, its history, those who served in its armed forces and government, and … the cause which they held so dear from its founding on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, until the Confederate ship CSS Shenandoah sailed into Liverpool Harbor and surrendered to British authorities on November 6, 1865.”
Indeed, it’s worth noting that they did not pass a law endorsing the rich, fruitful “Southern history,” only that part of the South’s past as it relates to a band of usurpers, terrorists and traitors. But, of course, defining it as “Confederate” history means it’s white history. Blacks, as we know from the Holy Gospel of Margaret Mitchell, had only supporting roles, mostly to be whipped or be treated with about the same paternalism as one shows to a good dog.
In part, this Confederate history law is a mean-spirited swipe at the idea of black history months. The legislation would equate the fantasy of a noble “lost cause” with the actual reality of the African-American narrative, a story that has been suppressed, often viciously so, by the South’s Jim Crow mentality. Put another way, to follow the Georgia legislature’s logic, the Aryan myth of Nazi Germany would be just as valid as the true history of the Holocaust.
Since this is Georgia, everything is about race. The Republican (AKA Neo-Confederate) dominated legislature didn’t pass transportation funding or other critical legislation because the rural good ol’ boys were playing racial politics, at least in part. They don’t want to be perceived as doing something that would help all of those blacks, interloping white Yankees, gays and other minorities in Atlanta.
The Confederate history law is more of the same mindset. Indeed, its Senate sponsor, John Bulloch, hails from that part of the state 200 miles south and 200 years in the past from metropolitan Atlanta. It’s a part of the state where more than a few folks have folded sheets and hoods in their attics. I’m sure Bulloch has no intention of teaching about the legacy of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Ku Klux Klan, and the 5,000 or so incidents of terrorist lynchings by fans of Confederate history. That would be simply inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Racism has been a sure road to power for some Republicans. When former state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) introduced a requirement for photo voter registration in 2005, U.S. Justice Department lawyers reported that she said, “If there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud,” and “when black voters … are not paid to vote they do not go to the polls.”
Sadly for the GOP, being beholden to the “Old South” is about as viable a long-term political strategy as Germans who still believe a fellow named Adolf had some great ideas for running the world. Aunt Pittypat bemoaned: “Oh, dear. Yankees in Georgia. How did they ever get in?” Bad news for Pittypat (and Georgia legislators):
A lot of Yankees and a lot of Southerners (like me) who won’t tolerate racial politics and who most definitely don’t believe in honoring terrorists, whether named Osama bin Laden or Jefferson Davis, now live in Georgia.
State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta) chided his colleagues on the Confederate history month law – but his comments are equally applicable to much of what goes on at the Gold Dome. “These Southern states really still have not come back into the Union,” Brooks told the Los Angeles Times. “That is why it’s been so difficult over the years to get the states to recognize that flying the Confederate emblem on the flag, holding reenactments and pushing these calendar events as a matter of law is a reflection . . . of their Confederate mentality. … The Confederacy lost, and the majority of the American people will not accept these ideas about a renegade group of folks who decided they would overthrow the U.S. government.”
Put another way: Do un-American acts have a shelf-life? If certain acts were un-American less than 50 years ago, weren’t they un-American 150 years ago? If so, who would expect us to honor those acts today? Are these people terrorist sympathizers? Are they un-American?
John F. Sugg is executive editor of the Georgia Online News Service. [full bio]
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