Some here at the Frog Pond are expressing unhappiness with the pursuit and sharing of information about what the Russian government and its contractors, surrogates and allies did to influence the 2016 Presidential election, and how the Trump campaign and its own contractors, surrogates and allies may have colluded with a foreign adversary to undermine the American people, our government, and our confidence in our electoral process and media institutions.
To these community members who are spending valuable time and credibility expressing unhappiness with the pursuit and sharing of information about this subject, I ask of you:
- What do you believe House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is up to with his recent actions?
- What is your opinion of the Senate and House Intelligence Committee Chairs agreeing, when asked to do so by the Trump Administration, to provide statements to reporters on background which defended the President, his campaign staff and surrogates?
- What is the explanation for Nunes’ apparent collusion with the White House to prevent former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying to the Committee in open or closed session?
- Do you believe a truly independent committee should be established to investigate these issues involving the 2016 Presidential campaign and its aftermath?
- Why do you believe Michael Flynn was forced to resign as Trump’s first National Security Advisor? Do you accept the Administration’s explanation of this?
- Why is Boris Epshteyn now about to be tossed overboard?
- Why is Vladimir Putin essentially the only foreign leader who President Trump constantly praises and defends from criticism?
- What do you make of Donald Trump publicly asking the Russian government to hack Hillary Clinton’s personal communications and share its most politically damaging contents during the campaign? Are we to ignore that this actually took place?
- What do you think of the Russian government’s massive corruption and broad crushing of civil rights? Do you believe Russia’s economic policies broadly share the wealth? Is economic inequality a problem in Russia? Should our President, Secretary of State and other government officials be willing to talk about these subjects when asked? If they should be willing to do so, why are Trump Administration officials unresponsive to these questions?
- If Congressional Democrats and liberals/progressives are doing something wrong by responding as they are, what is it you think they should be doing?
- What would have happened to the United States if Congressional Democrats had refused to mount investigations into the Nixon Administration’s involvement in the Watergate burglary? After all, intelligence officials hadn’t provided any proof of the President’s involvement to Woodward, Burnstein, Schorr, Rather and others reporting disturbing information, right? Besides, the FBI senior staffer who has now been identified as Deep Throat had an axe to grind against President Nixon, so he was not to be trusted, correct?
I conclude with these viewpoints of mine:
- Properly investigating this issue does not and would not act to shield Hillary Clinton, her Presidential campaign, or the Democratic Party of all warranted criticisms.
- Properly investigating this issue does not and would not act as a declaration of war on Russia, even if a credible investigation concluded that the Russian government was directly responsible for intentionally propagandizing the American people during the 2016 campaign in order to alter the outcome and/or undermine the winner of the Presidential election.
- The Russian government wants corruption, denials of civil rights, spoiling of the environment, destructions of democratic institutions, and economic insecurity to increase in the United States and around the world.
- Failing to see to it that this issue does not receive a proper, nonpartisan investigation could prevent the Bernie Sanders movement from succeeding in winning future elections and improving government policies.
On this last declaration, Senator Sanders appears to agree. He asked for an independent commission yesterday:
This can be done. It doesn’t mean we have to credulously believe everything coming from intelligence officials, and it doesn’t mean we have to saber-rattle.
Provocative. Wtf are you talking about? No judicial training in asking leading questions full of bias?
I do know the quality of western democracies in Old Europe and the election campaigns overseas. US Congress has the worst ratings with the public ever. With all the US election issues of gerrymandering, number of voting booths, voter registration … the US is a third world country. Don’t need the so-called Putin interference to undermine what???
What about Trump’s corruption? Clean up your own tainted house before putting blame on other nations …
Quality in US infrastructure of rail, roads, bridges is a mirror of the electoral proces … lacking maintenance and on the verge of collapse.
Oh really oui, that is a lousy job of distraction. It’s like attacking the federal government for prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion because, you know, what about the Teapot Dome scandal and the guys who got away scot-free?
What else has he got besides deflection with a dash of ad hominem?
Yeah, about what I expected. I used to consider him a credible critic of American foreign policy a couple of years ago but he’s not much more than a reflexive Putin defender these days.
No effort made to even answer the questions before the angry insistence that Americans have no right to question anyone else.
The real turning point on Oui for me was when I realized he wasn’t so much a skeptic or a critic but an outright nutjob, was back when the first ISIS beheading videos and the video of ISIS setting that Jordanian pilot on fire.
He and Marie were shouting to the rooftops that this had to be a CIA trick to get us into another war, because something something something video quality too good and something something something ‘they’ wouldn’t do that because it’s too cruel/stupid/invoke-massive-retaliation.
I think they finally figured out it wasn’t the CIA making the videos after they burned that pilot to death.
Never did hear an “Oops, we screwed up that call. Sorry for spreading FUD.” from them either.
I bring that up because Oui seems to have a permanent “America must always be wrong.” thought path. Anything that starts to come close to making the US be not wrong, doesn’t have to be something that makes the US right merely not wrong, drives him up the wall and you’ll see him shitpost lines upon lines of links with no reference and a relation to the topic at hand you couldn’t find without being as nutty as Louie Gohmert and having a conspiracy room straight out of A Beautiful Mind.
It’s sad watching people go off the deep end because they just can’t deal with reality.
Ayup. Plus his posts, even his diaries, are almost entirely links and extensive quotations — way past the bounds of the fair use doctrine, by the bye — with little to no actual analysis by him. Strip out other people’s work and there’s damn all left.
Beahmont: Thorough BULLSHIT on your part. Never ever did I post or comment to this statement you pin on me!! NEVER! WhoIs the fucking nutjob now a$$hole.
Anyone who wants could search blog archives, especially anyone leveling that accusation about ISIS videos. I remain agnostic but expect oui knows what he wrote….
Comments by marie2 about the ISIS videos in this thread.
In particular right here.
You are right for once, JDW.
What about those Teapot dome criminals!!!???
Could’a nipped that infection in the bud, but NOOOOoooo…
Now lookit what we’ve got.
Corruption central.
Right up to above the White House.
Bet on it.
What?
You think those accusations about the Russian connection are coming from the Dems?
Wake the fuck up.
AG
This is why you never stop talking about things that damage Trump.
.
Exactly. The guy has almost no political capital left to spend. Even in the realm of politics, I suspect the only thing he will experience is bankruptcy. Not to say he won’t do significant damage, because he is. But keep hitting him with every punch that can land. And hit hard. And it’s possible to do that and still hold a critical (note there is a distinction between critical and cynical) perspective towards what the Democratic Party is up to, just like it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. 🙂
He’s going to do incredible damage with deportations alone. He won’t need a wall for that. He also does not need his wall to discourage foreign tourists, and students.
And good lord…the potential of him fucking up on North Korea!
.
He’s also messed up our image internationally. My sample is limited only to the folks I encountered while on a business trip, but the impression I got was that the US is no longer looked upon particularly well as an ally. I also get the impression that there is a lot of European goodwill still left for those of us who did not vote for Trump and who are doing what we can to keep Trump from doing his worst. We will survive this travesty of a regime, but the world will no longer look at us the same. I would not be surprised if we get used to Angela Merkel and her successors referred to as the “leader of the free world” for the foreseeable future.
Lord, DD!!!
You hangin’ out wid the wrong people.
“Business trip,” indeed!!!
The same people who voted for Brexit…the working classes of all European nations, including the people of color/recent immigrants/refugees who now make up a sufficient portion of their populations to elect a Muslim mayor in London, for example…know damned well what the U.S. is about. This is not “news” to them! Get your head out of your “business” business and look around next time you’re in Europe.
Please.
Sheesh!!!
I saw this shit happening over twelve years ago, in Toulouse, France. A band in which I play was on tour and we got hung up in Toulouse because of bad weather. Our last minute motel booking was in a working class, mixed race area of Toulouse. I thought I knew France pretty well until those couple of days…I speak enough French to get by and I have been performing there off and on for 30+ years. But this neighborhood was different!!! Not “bad,” exactly…the greatest supermarket I have ever seen was only a couple of blocks away, and I still have dreams about it. About a city block in size; aisle after aisle after aisle of great produce, meats, fish and dairy products; aisle after aisle after aisle full of French, North African, Eastern European and who knows what else people…mostly under 40, maybe 60% female, 20% identifiably Muslim…shopping.
The streets were much the same. The motel owners were North African Muslims. We got kind of a break from the usual snooty French thing towards crude Americans because we were latin jazz musicians and a thoroughly mixed-race band. We were good “crude,” just like the neighborhood. I got a number of friendly earfuls from locals about the U.S. during my stay there, and I’m sure the last decade or so hasn’t done anything except solidify those opinions.
As with my little tour of flyover America…the one that convinced me that Trump was going to win the presidency even before he won the nomination…I see so many people here who think that their little bubble of middle class, college-educated leftiness represents the rest of the world. I guess it does if they never leave that bubble, but that kind of blindered life is what has brought us to the Trumpist crossroads at which we now stand.
Wake the fuck up. Those “deplorables?” Not just the ones of which HRC spoke, the whole kit and kaboodle of them all over the globe? Just working class, get-up-every-morning-and-go-about-their-business-as-best-as-they-can human beings?
They despise and fear the United States.
And…they outnumber those who do not by an incalculable percentage. If it were possible to take a real poll on this subject…a worldwide, accurate-on-every-level-of-society poll? The U.S. would be the big loser as far as opinions go.
Bet on it.
“My sample is limited only to the folks I encountered while on a business trip.”
Perfect.
Just like our politicians’ samples are “limited only to the people they encountered while on a political trip.”
Hustlers glad-handing hustlers in an effort to extort the most amount of profit in the least amount of time.
Have you seen the horror and surprise in some of those pols’ faces in videos of the recent “Town Hall” meetings across the country?
Have you seen the approval ratings of Congress?
Alla them “deplorables”…fairly simple, working people that they may mostly be…know more than almost any pol in a position of power in the U.S. now. And that goes for the rest of the “deplorable” world as well.
WTFU.
Climb out of your “business” bubble and take a fucking look around.
Please!!!
You be bettah off.
So would the rest of us.
AG
Is there a reason for this monologue? It’s really the same rant you’ve had more or less for the last several years, and one clearly past its expiration date. Is there any reason why we would even want to communicate with each other? Clearly you see nothing in my writing worth your while. Nor do I yours. In the meantime, when I travel, I am merely at a location long enough to do whatever work is required with fellow professionals. That is it. Glad you have the luxury for extended tourism. Must be nice to have that privilege.
I will tell you what is “past its expiration date,” D. D.
Kneejerk, middle class, entitlement-blinded Democrats like you.
My so-called “rants” quite accurately predicted the loss of your own kneejerk, middle class-raised, entitlement-blinded Democratic candidate (Hillary Rodham Clinton) to a total amateur…although professional faux media star…politician.
It is you and yours that are past their expiration dates, and should your jiveass DNC-programmed opposition to Trump actually prevail…no big triumph, really, because he is as flawed a president as we have had in living memory (Butch II, Nixon and Reagan included)…all that will happen is that another entitlement-blinded asshole will take over the reins of the government and continue driving the U.S. in its ever-accelerating downward death spiral.
Nice work.
Thanks loads.
ASG
P.S. I hold no hope whatsoever of actually reaching eyes-wide-closed fools like yourself.
I aim for the undecideds.
They are our only hope.
Bet on it.
One mind at a time.
P.P.S. “Extended tourism!!!???” I work at what I do, unlike business tourists like you. I go out among the people…the real people, your party’s “deplorables” of all races and classes…and play music that uplifts them. I do it for relatively low wages…working class at best…and I do it out of love.
You?
What the fuck is your “business?”
Seriously.
Deliriously!!!
What do you do that necessitates sequestering yourself amongst people who are suddenly…very late in the game…realizing that the U.S. ain’t so goddamned hot after all?
Do you work for the World Fucking Bank?
Get real.
My business is nunayobidness. Like dat! Deal widdit.
I knew that already!!! If it was any of my own “business,” you wouldn’t still be fast asleep, eyes wide closed.
In keeping with your PostFactual writing, it was a PostRhetorical question.
AG
P.S. Read my latest post.
THE RUSSIAN ISSUE!!! (Amidst Much Gnashing Of Media Teeth.)
Keep telling yourself that. It has as much credibility as your shilling for the Pauls and referencing the likes of Ayn Rand and the Austrian School of economics as somehow “progressive.” If anyone ever deserved the description of neoliberal, you truly wear it well.
Lates.
I have never in my life had a good word for Ayn Rand. She could not write…or speak, more than likely… a good, understandable sentence, therefore as far as I am concerned she could not think straight. And “the Austrian School of Economics” was just another bunch of flatulence-speak academics in my estimation.
I have supported …and will continue to support…any U.S. politicians, academics or writers/journalistswho truly oppose the Post-WWII Permanent War State. It and the acceptance of its corporate ownership of the government It is by far the biggest mistake that this country has ever made, and it will bring us all down eventually if not stopped.
End of story.
AG
And if those politicians that you support just so happen to advocate for policies that would transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%, you’re okay with that? After all, that is what the Pauls were all about. And you know darned well their influences economically. You also know darned well that Ron Paul has been known to paraphrase Ayn Rand quotes. Don’t start dissembling now. Own it. It’s who you are.
Really.
That’s what they were all about, oh Paulist scholar?
Oh.
How much real, impartial attention have you paid to what Ron Paul has said? And how much of your enmity is just regurgitated, force-fed media disinformation? His popularity threatened the PermaGov’s territory in 2011/2012; they successfully nonpersoned him with a massive, concerted media attack and you swallowed it hook, line and s
tinker. If he had the media savvy and experience of Donald Trump plus a little more…charisma…he’d have won the presidency in 2012 and everything that we are suffering through now would have been different.Here’s a little primer for you.
Enjoy.
And the most powerful one of all, in my opinion:
Go ahead…argue with those for a while. I am sure that you will, one way or another. At least it will keep you out of trouble.
AG
That racism quote is a bastardization of a quote from Ron Paul’s hero:
Yep that is Ayn Rand. My guess is I could go down the line and find that he paraphrases from plenty of other sources that honestly have nothing to do with any left I would have ever wanted any dealings with. Then again, if the best that the left can give us is neoliberals like the Pauls, strict party lines that lead one to wonder if the ideology behind the party or movement are little more than secular religions, or folks who simply are always “right” and can never be wrong (cough, cough, AG, cough cough), it is a left that is truly intellectually and morally bankrupt. I’ll stick with mainstream liberalism under those circumstances. See? You actually were mildly instrumental in changing someone’s mind – in the opposite direction of what you intended. Good job, AG.
Ultimately at the end of the day you will not answer the questions posed to you: did either of the Pauls advocate privatizing Medicare or Medicaid? Would either Paul have insisted on doing away with the rest of our safety net (e.g., welfare, etc.)? How would the Pauls have dealt with taxes (e.g., income tax)? If abolishing income tax, what would go in its place? What about public lands? Would those remain public or sold off to private entities? What about public schools? Depending on the answers, I am guessing what we would see is precisely the sort of transfer of wealth from the 99% to the 1%, to use the parlance of our times. In other words, they would advocate and practice precisely the textbook definition of neoliberal capitalism. Those advocating for the Pauls are advocating the same form of capitalism by extension. Hardly progressive, by any meaningful definition. It is what it is. Deal wid it.
Yeah. I lol’d at the “individual liberty” quote. I mean, I guess it’s accurate as long as the wimmin folk don’t exercise their “individual liberty” to control their lady parts.
Also too, didn’t one or both of the Pauls come out and say they would have voted against the Civil Rights act?
Yeah, a couple of assholes those two.
How “progressive” of them. And yet we have poseurs who will cite them whenever convenient. Must be nice to have the privilege to do so.
And true to form, Rand voted today to allow states to strip federal fund from planned parenthood.
What a dick.
Not a single democrat voted for this monstrosity. Not even Manchin or Heitkamp. But both sides are the same, “permagov/deepstate.” Bullshit!
That “both sides of the same” argument is really something. Like cocaine, false equivalence is a hell of a drug. As for Rand Paul, I am not surprised at his hostility toward Planned Parenthood and towards women’s health. But hey – emails.
Rand Paul did not vote to allow ISP’s to sell user data to advertisers. He did, however, co-sponsor it. NSA spying is bad, private spying is good.
Throughout this thread, Arthur studiously works to ignore the subject of the diary post and to draw others away from the subject.
We can see elsewhere on the Frog Pond that Arthur is angry that media outlets are reporting news on this subject, news that Arthur openly concedes may be true.
Arthur is angry, very very angry, that Trump/Republicans are being politically damaged by media outlets he feels have no right to damage Trump/Republicans because of his specific claims that these media outlets are morally compromised. He asks us to cancel our subscriptions and stop trusting these media outlets.
During the Obama Administration, Arthur never posted a diary item or made an argument in a comments thread where he demanded that we stop trusting and financially supporting media which reported news which damaged Obama and Democrats. In fact, Arthur was only too happy to use extensive, quite extensive, quotes from news stories and commentaries in his spittle-flecked, photo-filled attacks on President Obama and Democrats.
As we see here, Arthur is an unrepentant Ron Paul supporter. Ron Paul opposes the progressive/liberal movement with every fiber of his political being.
We should use our common sense in drawing our own conclusions about what Arthur is up to here.
Botspeak.
AG
Does a young boy write your stuff now?
Some say your stuff is getting better than ever.
More botspeak.
AG
Lighten up, Francis.
Bot Lite.
AG
Phfffft…
ASG
You write:
Yes, that’s true. It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. But what the “Democratic Party” is trying to do…the one that is controlled by the people who control the DNC, not the one that kneejerk Dems imagine exists…is walk forwards, backwards and all degrees of sideways at the same time. That can kinda be done, but not for long. Not in this culture; not at this point in time. The Dems have their own sins to hide…sins very much like the ones in which the Trump forces have now been ensnared…and forces like Wikileaks are going to make it impossible for them to do so.
Not forever.
Watch.
The Democrat’s dirty rocks will also eventually be turned over again, just as they were during the recent (
s)election. Their squirming insect life will be once again exposed to the light of day. Short of total control of the media and the internet…and I mean total control, as was the case in Hitler’s Germany and Communist Russia…the truth will out, and now it will out big time!!! The Republican/Democratic/Centrist PermaGov can no longer control the flow of information. The only way it that could do so would be to totally tank the internet, and doing that would cause an instant economic breakdown that would make the Great Depression’s Black Monday and Tuesday look minor in comparison.They are stuck.
It’s a lose/lose situation.
All they can do is to continue to prevaricate.
And of course point (deserving) fingers at Trump.
Ain’t gonna be enough.
Not in the long run it ain’t.
Watch.
AG
Why, just this morning my regional news cablecast (NECN, now an NBC affiliate) led the 8:00 broadcast with a story about Paul Manafort’s ties to Putin, wherein the term “money laundering” figured. And on the NECN website there’s this story:
“Ex-Trump Aide Manafort Bought New York Homes With Cash”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-aide-manafort-bought-new-york-homes-cash-n739796?cid=par-a
ff-nbc-necn_20170329
Only a fool or a tool would insist we shut up about Russia.
Also, this, too:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/manafort-linked-accounts-cyprus-raised-red-flag-n739156?cid=eml_nb
n_20170328
Why did Trump hire Manafort?
BBC: Trump Russia dossier key claim ‘verified’
There is a cloud of smoke from US media, but then again smoke can be coming from US media without fire. See for example the whole Benghazi thing.
As far as I can make out, it still hinges on wheter or not it was the Russians who hacked DNC and/or Podesta. If it is, the rest is connections that will be seen as collusion and cover-up, but if it wasn’t, the rest is just corruption with a Russian connection.
With the credibility of Crowdstrike down, if there is evidence of Russian hacking, NSA should have it. NSA might be reluctant to release those evidence as they don’t wan’t to remind the public that big brother is watching, but they should have it.
Except there was never anything about Benghazi, and I’m still not quite sure what the scandal was. As best as I can tell, there was a claim of a “stand down order” made by the president, which caused the death of the ambassador. Or was it over the dispute of why armed people were there in the first place: a video or a planned attack or both. Or was it because Obama didn’t say “Islamic terror!” But, you know, I still have no idea what the scandal was or was not supposed to be, and what Hillary Clinton had done wrong to implicate herself in whatever this scandal happened to be about. Further, while the media did not shower itself in glory, it was not the main purveyor of the nonsense because it was obvious there was nothing there. It did, however, turn into “EMAILS”, which the media did hype up. However, here it is very clear what the issue is, why it’s important, and why it needs to be investigated.
To me, to deny Russian involvement at this point — and there are other private actors who agree with Crowdstrike’s finding — would be to continue to deny Syria’s use of chemical weapons. It was initially reasonable to question what was being asserted, and that further evidence was needed. However, we have now reached beyond what reasonable observers would say “evidence for the claim”, and others still demanding “proof” are simply in denial about it, or move goal posts proving that no amount of evidence will ever be enough.
FWIW, my position has been the same since I read this series of Snowden tweets:
Edward Snowden on Twitter:
NSA should with a very high likelihood have the evidence needed. Their reluctance to use it could be from any number of reasons, but when there is an actor that has direct observations and could be heard, I am reluctant to settle for circumstancial evidence.
It is like there is a break-in at the surveilliance camera factory, and everybody goes out of the way to ignore lookig asking for the tapes from the multiple cameras set up around the place. What cameras? Look at all this circumstancial evidence! I get that Snowdens revelations as far as mainstream media is concerned largely has got flushed down the memory hole, but this is ridicoulous.
That is also why I hope for congressial investigations. They should be able to depose the NSA experts, right? Or if they choose not to, in Trumps assortment of generals, there must be some that at least reads Snowdens tweets and calls in the right experts.
I’ll attempt a civil response, knowing it is almost certainly futile:
In the meantime:
We face serious challenges on policy. It has been the consistent tactic of Democrats to believe that attacking Trump’s numerous personal failings will bring him down.
This has not happened. The evidence from polling (taken as whole – there are other polls besides Gallup) does not show much change in Trump’s standing among the base.
I believe, as a result, that while an investigation is worth pursuing, it constitutes a distraction from the central problem: an unprecedented attack on the economic and civil rights of Americans.
In contrast, the policies Trump proposes are massively unpopular.
Some will suggest we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
This was not the case in the election. Clinton spent little time in her advertising on policy, and there is significant evidence that voters were unaware of some of her position because her campaign made the conscious decision to aim there fire at Trump personally.
I believe this was an enormous mistake, something Tom Perez has made reference to.
There is always a lead story. In the last 48 hours Donald Trump has made environmental disaster significantly more likely.
What got more press? That or Russia.
I get it, I get it. You woke up in the morning and had your heart set on waffles, but when you got to the International House of Pancakes they told you the waffle iron was broken, and gave you pancakes.
But you should have known that when you allied with the vegans to drive IHOP out of business, the end result would be all of us eating broccoli for breakfast.
.
fladem participated in direct voter contact campaign work to try to get Clinton elected. We may be displeased with fladem’s rhetoric and conclusions from time to time, but we should recognize that fladem did not try to suppress the vote for Clinton and Democrats. Much the opposite.
Thanks for this respectful response. I’d like to keep the temperature down on the discussion, just as you are expressing a desire to do here.
You seem to propose that if Democrats would just shut up about the increasingly suspicious set of actions the Trump Administration and their Congressional lickspittles are engaging in in their responses to the investigation of whether a Presidential campaign secretly collaborated with a foreign adversary to subvert our Presidential election, that the media would be leading their daily reporting by focusing on the Administration’s actions which are hostile to our ecology/environment.
I question that conclusion. If Democrats weren’t beating the drum on Trump/Russia, I don’t think mass media would be leading with an environmental policy story today. They would be reporting on it as they are, as they did during the Presidential campaign, and as they do almost all the time. They’d be giving it middling coverage, and they’d concentrate their reporting on the policy controversy and the political fight, just as they did during the Obama Administration, and just as they have throughout this century.
I wish our media would help us see to it that political campaigns and discussions turned on policy. They almost never do. If policy responses to climate change, or health care, or immigration, or foreign policy, or other vital issues turned on rational discussions of events and factual information, Trump never would have been elected and we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.
The Democratic Party has not created this circumstance which places us at a disadvantage. Ignoring or downplaying actions which threaten our democracy, actions which are part of an ongoing campaign which intends to permanently fragment the liberal/progressive movement, would not have delivered us the ability to prevent the Trump Administration from taking their environmentally destructive actions this week.
Also, the Democratic Party and the liberal/progressive movement are not the sole drivers of this story. With all the skulduggery and leaking going on around the Trump/Russia investigation, the media has its own interest in pursing this story.