Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Don't
be silly, Stephen Miller. You're taking the fall. The fall
(00:30):
for contemptive court in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the
rogue deportation flight cases. The target to at least be fined,
may be jailed for contemptive court in each is Stephen Miller. Ah,
that's a shame, not Stephen Miller. The picture is clarifying slowly,
(00:51):
the focus is sharpening painstakingly. But it seems evident now
that contempt cases being built by District Judges Jeb Bosberg
and Paula Zennis, the effort to get depositions about and
charge so but he with contempt of court in the
abduction of mister Abrago Garcia and the renditioning of dozens
of others to L Salvador after Judge Bosberg ordered the
(01:14):
plane to not take off. The slow, methodical attempt to finally,
at long last, about damn time, holds somebody in the
Trump crime administration responsible for something. This whole move to
put somebody behind bars is in both courts targeting Stephen Miller.
(01:36):
The finding by Judge Bosberg of probable cause for contempt
citations against the Trump gang, and these depositions scheduled by
Judge Zennis are apparently designed to confirm what Miller and
the other Trumpian monsters are boasting about in private. Miller
is the architect of the deportation scheme, and Miller is
(01:56):
the architect of its essential baseline component of cruelty. The
man who has allegedly hated Hispanics since a girl he
asked out in high school turned him down is also
the architect of the scheme to disobey the district court
orders to bring Abrego Garcia home, and to disobey the
Supreme Court in the process. That is what these courts
(02:19):
are moving towards, proving the man who greets every warning
from a court or an attorney or a human with
a conscience to stop now before it is too late
for him by getting louder and getting angrier and getting
more monstrous. The man behind whatever step towards ethnic cleansing
is next is clearly Stephen Miller. It sure looks like
(02:46):
Judges Bosberg and Zennis want to put this ass behind bars.
NBC News quote one figure seems to have more responsibility
than anyone else for this mess. Trump advisor Stephen Miller,
former Judge John E. Jones, the third now president of
Dickinson College on a legal website quote, it's one big
(03:07):
show of contempt for the court, rife with dishonest behavior,
and I think Bosberg is entirely right to vindicate the
authority of the court and commence these contempt proceedings. In
the case of Judge Zennis, she's not there yet. What
she's doing in stages is attempting to test the government's compliance.
From one of my favorite analysts, Brian Foutler of Off Message, quote,
(03:30):
most shrewd observers suspect that the contemner, the person who
faces imprisonment for orchestrating defiance of a court order, is
Stephen Miller, the monstrous TWRP fascist who conceived of Trump's
lawless immigrant expulsion regime. Trump would likely and corruptly order
DOJ not to try a contempt case against Miller or
(03:52):
anyone else in his administration. A judge might then invoke
his or her prerogative to a point outside council to
stand in for the prosecution. DOJ might challenge the constitutionality
of this judicial power. It was Miller who called Judge
Zennis quote a Marxist judge who now thinks she's president
(04:14):
of El Salvador. Why the back part of that would
be a Trumpian insult since Trump owns the president of
El Salvador. I do not know. But it turns out
Miller has done more than just insult judges and defy
their orders. The website TPM notes quote, a think tank
founded by Stephen Miller, sued Chief Justice John Roberts and
(04:36):
the office that administers the Judiciary, claiming that the White
House should run the federal courts. The America First Legal
Foundation sued, and the case ostensibly proceeds as a freedom
of information lawsuit, with the Trump aligned group seeking access
to judiciary records, but in doing so, it asks the
(04:57):
courts to sed massive power to the White House. The
bodies that make court policy and manage the judicial day
to day operations should be considered independent agencies of the
executive branch, the suit argues, giving the president, under the
conservative legal movement theories, the power to appoint and dismiss
(05:18):
people in key roles. So this isn't just Miller and
Trump trying to ignore and defy the courts, it's them
setting up conflict with the courts and defying them, and
perhaps having Miller martyr himself by going to jail or
fighting going to jail, and trying to build up maga
(05:38):
rage against all judges, even the ones on the Trump
owned Supreme Court. While TPM reports legal scholars are expressing
both dismay and laughter at all, this we should express neither.
Last week, after Ice arrested Judge Dugan in Wisconsin, Fox's
(06:00):
NEPO baby Peter Doocey asked the White House official liar
Caroline le quote, would you ever arrest a federal judge
or even a Supreme Court justice? Instead of saying, of
course not, Levitt's reply ended fascistically. Anyone who is breaking
the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials is putting
(06:21):
themselves at risk of being prosecuted. Absolutely, does it make
sense to behave like this? Does it make sense, even
for Trump in his delusional state, to move so far
towards active dictatorship that you start making John Roberts believe
he could be arrested for refusing to enable Trump, even
(06:43):
after Roberts issued a statement about the existential need to
keep the judiciary intact and independent. No, of course, it
does not make sense. It does not have to make sense.
It's Stephen Miller, and of course it's Trump. Trump veering
between preening that he is the mastermind of this anti American,
(07:04):
anti humanity purge and insisting he knows nothing about it.
Don't you need to follow the Constitution about their rights?
He was asked yesterday. I don't know, he answers gullible
deniability and the refusal to endorse the Constitution. Either way,
Stephen Miller is the tumor inside the Maga brain. I
(07:27):
want both these judges to charge Stephen Miller with contempt
and send bailiffs to detain him. Whatever happens after that,
I do not think it will be what Miller expects
it to be. Plus, to take a page from the
appeal to Heaven, folks, maybe we'll get really lucky and
Miller will resist rest and it's no longer just judges.
(08:15):
The next target of this regime, whose ability to restrain itself,
even when restraining itself means furthering its own evil aims,
seems to be disintegrating governors. Gestapo chief Tom Homan was
asked about the guidance to state workers from Governor Tony
Evers of Wisconsin to not stop ICE from carrying out
(08:38):
actual deportation orders, but to seek guidance from legal counsel
if they are confronted by ICE, or if ICE tries
to get into state facilities, and to refuse demands for
documents or other items demands from ICE without an Evers
administration state attorney being there. Responding to Evers two orders,
(09:00):
both of them about as pro Ice as anybody could
actually be. The Homan squealed, quote, I meant what I said.
You cannot support what we're doing, and you can support
sanctuary cities if that's what you want to do. But
if you cross that line to impediment or knowingly harboring
and concealing an illegal alien, that's a felony, and we're
(09:22):
treating it as such. Unquote. And of course, as we
have seen, the trumpest human trafficking gang will not let
judges or others not under its control decide where that
line is or who has crossed it. They make up
the laws as they go along. Homan has threatened the
governor of Wisconsin and the governor of every Democratic state
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and going as they say in Hockey, from high to low.
Last week, ICE conducted a raid in Irvine, California that
they thought was so important that they did it in
armored vehicles rolling past the overwatered lawns of the upscale
part of that town. Deployed drones to record overhead video
of the tanks, and sent the acting chief ICE thug
(10:08):
todd Lyons to be there in person for this the crime.
They have accused an unidentified suspect of committing, printing and
posting flyers showing the photos, names and what may or
may not be the phone numbers and locations of ICE
agents in the Irvine area. The flyers are in Spanish.
(10:32):
There are no home addresses. There's not even a suggestion
that there should be retribution or threat against the Ice mobsters,
just a warning to the community using publicly available information.
And they wanted to record the purp walk from overhead
with drones to make it prettier for Fox News and
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Charlie Kirk and all the other propaganda outlets. And they
brought the ICE director, though not Christy Noman eate new
action dress up outfits to crow about it, brought him
in in a tank. They are depraved monsters, happily like
most praved monsters. They did not allow for the possibility
that they are stupid, depraved monsters. The suspect wasn't home,
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and what he does doesn't even vaguely fit the law
under which they were hoping to prosecute him. Persecute him,
the ice slug lions claimed the flyers put targets on
the agent's back. Nice work, mister Lyons, you just confirmed
the info is accurate. As immigration attorney Aaron Reichland Melnick noted,
the law in question that they want to use. Eighteen
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US Code one nineteen demands intent to quote, threaten, intimidate,
or incite the commission of a crime of violence against
the government representatives. A flyer that reads in Spanish watch
out for them is not a threat. It is a
response to a threat. It is fully protected under the
First Amendment until Trump suspends the First Amendment. There two
(12:05):
other next steps here. Trump and his minions have been
examining if they can label foreign or foreign born cartel
and gang member suspects who are inside this country as
enemy combatants and thus deny them legal roots out if
they are detained, or maybe even deny them access to
legal counsel if they get away with this, it is
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then just a short leap to be able to do
that to native born Americans. And if they can get
away with that, combine it with Gestapo Tom Holman's threat
to arrest governors, and the next judge or governor, or
commentator or ordinary civilian who crosses Trump could not only
then be arrested, but could be seized and declared an
(12:47):
enemy combatant. And they could be in Gitmo or El
Salvador before anybody else knows about it, or at least
they could be in a GEO Group brand private prison.
GEO is one of the leaders in this burgeoning field
of privatize jails, especially the dangerous fetid ones. As the
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Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee noted back in January,
GEO Group quote has faced criticism for safety violations, providing
inadequate healthcare, and poor management practices. These actions have negatively
impacted the welfare and rights of incarcerated individuals and the
immigration detainees, and the GEO Group stands to earn hundreds
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of millions of dollars during the Trump administration, as ICE
is its largest source of revenue unquote, and guess who
has been lobbying for this company. Guess who has been
lobbying for GEO Group, a heavy duty special interest firm
called Ballard Partners. And guess who one of Ballard Partners
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in house registered lobbyists is somebody who could have a
direct connection to the direction of money to the Geo
private prison cartel, but certainly has an indirect connection to that.
None other than Pam Bondi. Attorney General Senator Dick Durbin
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has now awakened and asked her to recuse from all
prosecutions and DOJ business relating to immigration and other kinds
of cases that would ultimately line GEO Group's pockets. My
guess is that Bondi's answer, at least the one inside
her otherwise empty head, would be something like recuse. Why
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would I recuse? Why would I stop helping getting more
immigration prisoners into GEO prisons? Why the hell do you
think he made me? Attorney General? So is John Fetterman
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in distress. We have two leaked stories and one leaked
video implying just that. The video, which was from February,
is of him refusing to wear his airplane seat belt
outside his sweatshirt while a flight attendant patiently explains to
him that he will be taken off the plane, and
the plane will not take off if he doesn't. The stories,
(15:21):
both from his former chief of staff, Adam Gentilsen, portray
a senator so gone that last year he was quoting
New York Magazine, avoiding the regular checkups advised by his doctors.
He was preoccupied with the social media platform x, which
he'd previously admitted had been a major accelerant of his depression.
He drove his car so quote recklessly. Gentlesen said that
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staff refused to ride with him. He had also bought
a gun unquote. The magazine quoted other staffers, former and current,
who insists many of these mental health red flags are
resuming right now. Just as Fetterman was denying the New
York Magazine story and his wife was asking why is
this a story, the old old video appeared, and then
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so did a second story in The New York Times,
reporting that the same ex chief of staff wrote a
letter to Fetterman's doctor a year ago this month about
Fetterman's mental health. Quoting from the letter, I'm worried that
if John stays on his current trajectory, he won't be
with us for much longer. The Times added, quoting its reporter. Now,
other former members of his staff, speaking on the condition
(16:29):
of anonymity, report that their colleagues sometimes were frightened to
be in the Senator's presence if he was in an
amped up mood. Being in distress is no longer a
disqualification for national office, of course, ask Trump, Ask a
majority of Republicans in the House, and many of them
(16:52):
in the Senate in a rare bit of bipartisanship. The
only time being in distress comes into play anymore is
when the sufferer votes against his own party's principles or
a lack thereof, or against its interests. Fetterman, of course,
was showing that in January, vowing to work with Trump
and then joining Schumer in caving to the Republicans on
(17:13):
a bill that, among other things, blocked any investigation of
what the hell Elon Musk is doing to us speaking
of being in distress. So sadly, the answer is, I
don't care if Fetterman is sick or not. He's acting
like a Trumpist. Get him out of the Senate and
speaking of Trump and cognitive health as in Trump's cognitive
(17:36):
living death, More and more and more evidence of more
and more and longer and longer delusions meet the press
yesterday about the coming explosive diarrhea form of inflation and
the coming shortage of everything. Quote. I don't think a
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beautiful baby girl that's eleven years old needs to have
thirty dollars. I think they can have three dollars or
four dollars. Now you have to admit a party platform
heading into the midterms of I'm taking your child's dolls
away from them is novel. It's insane, but it's novel,
(18:18):
at least for this country. Lenin and Stalin tried something
like it. I mean, it's basically a modified version of
taking candy from a baby. Oh, and pencils. In Trump's world,
those eleven year old girls who just got a rock
for Christmas also quote don't need to have two hundred
and fifty pencils. They can have five, because on top
(18:39):
of everything else, after dolls, Trump believes and eleven year
old's next favorite thing is pencils. A reminder that the
eleven year olds who were introduced to politics and to
Trump's insanity by just this quote, or who will be
in the months and years to come, Those eleven year
(19:00):
olds will be voting in the year twenty thirty two,
so in case all the MAGA aren't in prison by
then and they run a candidate, bookmark these quotes for
those now eleven year olds. One also assumes Trump lost
more veterans many of their groups are furious about his
dictat that November eleventh Veterans Day is no longer Veterans Day.
(19:24):
It is now Victory Day for World War One, and
May eighth it will be this Thursday is now Victory
Day for World War II, which, on top of being
just nuts, also faces the minor difficulty that World War
Two only ended when the Japanese surrendered on August fifteenth,
(19:45):
nineteen forty five. Trump doesn't know that. Forgot it. Was
consulting his Russian calendar and noticed they celebrate May ninth
as victory Day. Well, now that's a coincidence. I guess
we should just be happy he didn't rename Veterans Day
(20:06):
Gulf of America Day, or Gulf between Trump's Ears Day. Also,
Trump again claimed yesterday that gas is below two dollars
in many states, like the state of advanced Dementia. One
online commentator offered one thousand dollars to the first person
to show him where in America gasoline is one dollar
(20:28):
and ninety eight cents a gallon. Commentator still has his
one thousand dollars because it is only one dollar ninety
eight cents a gallon in the gas pumps of Trump's
brain like the circles that you find in the windmills
of Trump's mind. Of course, asked if it's quote okay
(20:50):
in the short term to have a recession. Trump's answer
in the same interview as a shrug and quote, look, yeah,
it's everything's okay. This is a transition period. I think
we're going to do fantastically. The White House tried to
cover this quote up. Trump endorsed having a recession in
(21:12):
that quote. They tried to cover this up by claiming
that the yeah and the okay in the answer look yeah,
it's everything's okay, we're filler words, and he never endorsed
having a recession. He did. They also blamed all this
on Biden's economy. But that imaginary dollar ninety eight cent
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to gallon gas, that's the Trump economy. Rationing dolls. Not
sure whose economy that is sounds like stalins. Check your
calendar to see if today it's Biden's economy day, or
if it's Trump's economy day, or if it's possibly Obama's
economy day, or if it's victory in World War three day,
(21:56):
and Trump again Julius caesared his own lot to break
the Constitution and run for a third term or just
never leave office. So many people want me to do.
I have never had requests so strong as that, But
it's something that, to the best of my knowledge, you're
not allowed to do. But there are many people selling
the twenty twenty eight hat, because that's what this is
(22:18):
all about, selling a hat. Making a decision like that
based on the hat. The Constitution he don't know, Constitution
hats he knows. Hats. Speaking of hats, there is still
the Trump Pope photo. It is, I believe, blasphemy. Worse,
(22:41):
it's mocking a religious leader who just died and those
of his faith who are still mourning him. It has
infuriated Catholics around the world. Some of them are just
seeing it today and Pope hats off to Charlie Sykes
who responded to it by calling Trump and quote absurd, juvenile,
(23:04):
el chowed. I understand not everybody knows that last word
c hode chowed, I'd advise you to google it, and hey,
President Ted Bundy Trump, if you're thinking of resigning the
presidency to become pope, you have my full one hundred
(23:26):
percent endorsement. If not, you know what would make your
cult just as amused as that that Pope Trump picture.
Put another one of these out, only only to pict
yourself as the prophet Muhammad. The reaction to that would
be huge. By the way, a House Democrat has now
(23:52):
moved to impeach Trump and it got zero attention. Shri
Thanadar of Michigan did it seven articles. Al Green still
has plans for his own set, though he may combine
now with Thanadar. The reaction from the Democratic leadership to this,
The chair of the Democratic House Caucus gave, naturally the
wrong answer, quote. Impeachment is at times a tool that
(24:15):
can be used. This president is no stranger to that.
He's been impeached twice. This is pete agiar speaking. But
we don't have any confidence that House and Senate Republicans
would do their jobs, and so this is not an
exercise that we're willing to undertake. So what you don't
(24:35):
file to impeach because you're guaranteed to remove him from office.
You don't file to impeach because you're guaranteed to pass
the articles. You don't even file to impeach because you're
guaranteed to vote on your motion. You file to impeach
because the bastard should be impeached. And because, as I've
shown before, serious impeachment attempts, even the ones that go nowhere,
(24:56):
are always except for the second Trump impeachment and the
twenty twenty two midterms, they are always followed by a
victory by the impeaching party in the next election, House, Senate, presidency,
sometimes all three, even in twenty twenty two, and it
didn't work. The Democratic loss in the mid terms was
far smaller than predicted. The only hesitation should be about
(25:18):
this growing attempt to repurpose impeachment by MAGA. There is
apparently a viewpoint from the more realistic members of that
cult that by this time next year, Trump will have
wiped out any chance they have of retaining the House
and maybe even the Senate, and that a serious impeachment
attempt and their response to it to protect Trump could
(25:40):
be the only Republican campaign platform, their only rallying cry.
You must put us back even after we caused the
new depression, because otherwise the Democrats will impeach Trump and
throw him out of office the day after they take
over the House in the Senate. In that case, if
(26:04):
this really does develop as not just a Republican running slogan,
but the only one, let's pause, let's research a little bit.
We don't have to do this today. Let's pause the
final decision on impeachment to see how much the fascists
run with it and run on it. Or maybe, you know,
we could see some polling on it. Maybe, I mean,
(26:28):
I understand the pollsters have lost all self confidence, and
with good reason, which brings me to this final whopper.
CNN's Harry Enton does a good job, albeit an often frantic,
unintelligible one, which appears to be what is required now
to be a cable news pollster, But he screwed up
big His survey who would be doing a better job
(26:51):
as president? Registered voters who said they voted in the
twenty twenty four election. He says these numbers should be
a major wake up call for Democrats who would be
doing a better job as president? Results forty five percent,
Harris forty three percent same twelve percent. Firstly, Harris, no
(27:15):
offense to Vice President Harris. But the Democrat you put
into this polling is the one who just lost, who
reeks of the last loss fairly or unfairly. Why didn't
you put Hillary in there, or Michael Ducacas or General
George McClellan. And how about just asking Trump versus anybody else?
(27:44):
Another version of the poll? I want to see, how
about I want to change my vote? How does I
want to change my vote? Due in polling? Also these
results Harry Trump better job forty five percent, Harris better
job forty three percent, and twelve percent who answered same.
(28:05):
Doesn't that mean, let's see, forty three plus twelve is
fifty five. Doesn't that mean that fifty five percent of
voters now think Harris would have done better or at
least as well as Trump. Or you could read it
a third way, that fifty seven percent of voters now
think Trump is doing better or at least as well
as Harris would have. Doesn't that mean the poll has
(28:26):
three conflicting results? Exactly? What use is a goddamn poll
with three goddamned conflicting goddamned results? Oh, silly me, This
is the use right right to kill a few hours
on CNN, and more importantly, to give CNN something new
(28:48):
with which to suck up to Trump. Also of interest,
here there's a worse person in the world and a
best person in the world. In the same story, a
pretend reporter from Tucker Carlson's Daily Cancer tries to troll
Congresswoman Elan Omar over Trump's constitutional renditions, and she gives
(29:13):
him a six word answer, and the last two words
rhyme with kluck cough, and here we go again. Tomorrow
is the anniversary of the day Roger Banister became the
first human being to run a mile in less than
four minutes. Except for the one small detail that he
(29:34):
wasn't the first human being to run a mile in
less than four minutes, not by at least two hundred years,
maybe by at least a thousand years. I got to
explain this every year while half the news outlets in
the world get it wrong. Again. Roger Banister was not
the first human being to run a mile in less
than four minutes. He wasn't even the first guy in
(29:58):
England to do it. That's next. This is countdown. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this edition
(30:31):
to countdown it is that time again. Tomorrow is the
anniversary of the day in nineteen fifty four on which
Roger Banister became the first human to run a mile
in less than four minutes. Except for one thing, He
clearly wasn't the first human to run a mile in
(30:52):
less than four minutes, and we've celebrated him for no
good reason now for seventy one years the day Roger
Banister did not break the four minute carrier. Next in
Sportsball Center First, Believe it or not, there's still more
new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miss Grants,
morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute the latest
(31:16):
other worse persons in the world the Bronze worse. It's
a tie to Trump robots, White House Press secretary. You
can't spell Caroline without le and you can't spell Levitt
without lie. Get her quote here. DEI seeks to divide
(31:37):
and pit Americans. They gainst each other based on immutable characteristics.
President Trump put an end to it. In President Trump's America.
Individual dignity, hard work, and excellence are the only things
that will determine if you get ahead. Or if you
(31:58):
lie on behalf of a psychopath, that'll get you ahead, Caroline.
Or if you get a full scholarship to play a
softball at Saint Anselm's. Or if you're an idiot but
you have a television smile and you look like the
beer waitress on the bottle of Saint Paul Girl Beer,
in which case, you, Caroline Levitt, are a different kind
(32:19):
of dei hire, aren't you. She's tied with somebody who
could challenge Levitt for dumbest by their own definition dei hire.
In the Trump junta, Laurie Chavez de Rimmer, the Secretary
of Labor, or more correctly, the Secretary of ripping off
labor the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, issued a statement
(32:40):
correctly excoriating Trump for the tariff hallucination and the unnecessary
trade wars that will essentially shut down America's ports in
the next few months and get a lot of longshoremen
and warehouse people fired because, as the statement ended of
quote a president's whims unquote. Secretary Chafez de Rimmer was
(33:02):
brought on to CNN to respond, and she correctly repeated
a memorized statement about how the Longshoreman's Union was essentially
in agreement with Trump because they all wanted great trade.
It's technically true. It's true in the same sense that
I am in agreement with Trump because both of us
(33:22):
want air so we don't stop breathing and die. I
prefer to make efforts to have clean air. Trump prefers
to have efforts to have poisonous air because he makes
money off of it. But we degree we want air.
But when anchor Pamela Brown kept hitting that one phrase,
(33:44):
a president's whims, it was clear Secretary of Chavez Duremer
didn't know what the word whims means. Brown said, whims,
and it's nice to see a newsperson, especially on CNN,
who is still astonished by the twenty four to seven
hot and cold running bullshit coming out of this dictatorship.
(34:04):
Raymer replied that quote sounded exactly in line with the president,
to which CNN's Brown replied, in frustrated astonishment, they're criticizing him.
Good for you, as to the secretary, never admit, never apologize,
never fail to use your stupidity against them. As in aside,
(34:27):
Secretary of Chavez, d Rahmer's great uncle has a star
on Hollywood Walk of Fame, in part because in a
Disney film once he played a tree squirrel. The runner
your runner up, you could speak better than I could,
That's for sure, the runner up. Speaking of tree squirrels.
Jesse Waters, the Fox guy with the skeletons in his
(34:49):
closet who hosts the eight PM show, Not the one
with the skeletons in his closet who hosts the five
PM show or the midnight show, nor any of the
ones who have skeletons in their closet who hosts the
other shows. Jesse, the one at eight o'clock, is so
dumb that it is remarkable that he's not in the
Trump cabinet. The Trump Government of the Undead is so
(35:10):
secretive about Doge or Douche or whatever it's called, that
they wanted to prosecute people who revealed the names of
some of Musk's degenerates who were illegally wiping out entire
government departments. But they brought waters At a Fox video
crew into the Doge Douche Dungeon, and Musk gave the
(35:33):
Fox propaganda addict some fresh crack. He gave them and
Jesse Waters a tour of the place. And guess who
blew the thing. Waters clipped the video of him and
Musk and posted it with this caption exclusive an inside
like at the Caves of Bureaucracy with Doge. For several minutes,
(35:54):
I had no idea what he meant, an inside like
at the Oh that's look, meathead, an inside look, Jesse,
an inside look at the caves of bureaucracy. Just read
these things aloud before you hit send. It takes a
(36:14):
second and it saves you all sorts of typos. Also,
don't ever go in a cave with Elon Musk. Just don't.
But our winner, Miles Morrell, how much morell do we have?
We got Miles Morrell. Miles says he'll be a congressman someday.
Right now, though he is a quote reporter unquote with
(36:36):
the Daily Cancer Foundation, which for obvious reason in public
calls itself the Daily Caller Foundation, but it was launched
by Tucker Carlson. It's the Daily Cancer Foundation anyway. Miles
doesn't even try. He claims to be a reporter, and
yet his homepage photo is him doing two thumbs up
in front of a Trump plane. That's two thumbs up,
(36:59):
presumably to match the fact that his two eyes are
on the two opposite eyes of a sides of his
own head. Miles tried to interview Congresswoman Ilhan Omar the
other day. I have my problems with the congresswoman, but
every time I think they amount to something important, she
wins me back over. Listen carefully to Miles trying to
(37:21):
do an interview with the congresswoman. Or if you don't
like cuss words, A, why are you listening to this podcast?
And B, don't listen carefully to this SoundBite congress want Omar.
I'm Miles Morale with a Daily Caller News Foundation. Do
you think more of your Democratic college should be traveling.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
To El Salvador to advocate on behalf of the bit
to Goo Garcia, I think you should.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, I'm sorry, what Congress? Who should you? Why me
if you're asking any of my questions right now? But
here you are. Yeah? Thanks, glorious. If this were every
Democrat's answer to the right wing propagandists who try to
troll them, simply put, there would be few right wing propagandists. Miles,
(38:08):
I'm reminded of the line in Monty Python's Life of
Brian when Brian says that to the crowd swarming his home,
and they reply, oh how shall we f off? Oh
lord morel of the daily Cancer, Today's other worst person
in the world.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
This is sports Senate. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Ulberman.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
From six oh four pm prevailing local time in England
on the early evening of Thursday May sixth, nineteen fifty four,
continuing until the day the man died on March third,
twenty eighteen. Not a day went by, probably not an
hour went by without somebody congratulating Roger Banister on becoming
(39:12):
or having become, or being or forever being or being
immortalized by being the first human to run a mile
in four minutes or less, the man who broke the
four minute mile. Except for one small detail, he wasn't.
(39:37):
We cannot now comprehend what a big deal this really was.
Neil Armstrong, Times, Charles Lindbergh plus George Washington Maybe. The
next day, The New York Times published ten different stories
about Roger Banister breaking the four minute mile barrier, plus
an editorial. An editorial on the editorial page that asked
(40:01):
if anybody in world history would ever do it again?
Roger Gilbert Banister began the Times on the front page
ran a mile in three minutes fifty nine point four
seconds tonight to reach one of man's hitherto unattainable goals.
(40:22):
There's just one problem. Not only was Roger Banister probably
not the first man to run a mile in less
than four minutes, but there is also a lot of
evidence that that record was broken in May of seventeen
seventy by a guy who sold fruits and vegetables from
a push cart on the streets of London, a guy
(40:46):
named Parrot. Sixty nine years later, and this is still
the most famous run in the history of the world.
May sixth, nineteen fifty four, on an ordinary spring evening
at the if Lee Road Track at Oxford University in England,
(41:09):
even as an unfavorable wind worked against him, Roger Banister
ran through the tape in three point fifty nine to
four and ran directly into not just sports history, but
human history, the four minute mile, the first human ever
to run that far that fast, like the first man
on the moon. No matter how much farther we go,
(41:31):
but glory is his, indefinitely, forever, always eternal, immortal. Neil Armstrong,
but in shorts or there had already been a four
minute mile run in seventeen seventy, And Banister has no
more claim to immortality than do you or I. And
(41:51):
this is really a story about bureaucracy supporting bureaucracy, and
what the experts call recency bias, and a lot of racism.
And the story should be about a guy who used
to sell fruits and vegetables on the streets of London,
and who ran his spare time for money in the
decade before the American Revolution. And his name was Parrot,
(42:11):
as in look, maby, I know a dead parrot when
I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
We begin in the pages of a British book dated
from seventeen ninety four, which seems to be for you
back to the future fans, a kind of Gray's Sports Almanac.
The seventeen ninety four tome bears an amazingly modern title
(42:34):
The Sports Magazine, and its chronology of top sports events
of recent years past includes for the year seventeen seventy
this quote seventeen seventy May ninth, James Parrot a costermonger.
A costermonger sold fruits and vegetables from a pushcart on street.
James Parrott, a costumonger, ran the length of Old Street viz.
(42:57):
From the charterhouse wall in Goswell Street to Shoreditch Church Gates,
which is a measured mile, in four minutes. Fifteen guineas
to five were betted he did not run the ground
in four minutes and a half. So that's it. I
am besmirching the immortality of Saint Roger Banister and everything
(43:19):
you will see in the newspapers about him over the
weekend because of fifty one words about some guy racing
against an eighteenth century watch in the year seventeen seventy,
and the story wasn't even published until twenty four years later. Seriously, seriously,
there is nothing else to say about James Parrott. That
(43:41):
snippet from that book is all that researchers have ever
found or found out about James Parrott. No obituary, no nothing,
no four minute mile, no confirmation he ever existed. Besides which,
as every modern sports fan will tell you, the athletes
of today are the great, greater, greatest of all time. Goats.
If the record book says nobody ran a four minute
(44:03):
mile until nineteen fifty four. Of course, the record books
are right. Since seventeen seventy, humans have evolved, health has evolved,
training has evolved. Why in seventeen seventy you couldn't even
accurately measure a mile, let alone measure exactly four minutes. Actually,
agricultural chains, designed to resolve who owned what property and
(44:25):
where international borders were had been introduced in sixteen twenty
and have proved to be at worst only off by
around two fifths of an inch over a mile. And
if you're saying agracultural chains, you don't use agricultural chains
in sports, let me ask you this. What do they
(44:46):
use in National Football League games to check whether or
not it's a first down? Okay, we're giving them the
accuracy of the agricultural chains we still use today in
our pro sports. You could measure several blocks of London
in seventeen seventy and say from way back there to
right over here in front of the church, that is
(45:07):
exactly a mile, Governor, But how would you time it
four minutes exactly? What? Did they use? A really good
sundial No, that had a thing called a chronometer. The
chronometer was perfected by seventeen sixty one. You may know
the chronometer as a Swiss watch, or as you might
(45:28):
also know it a rolex. So this Parrot runs a mile,
or maybe he runs a mile plus two fifths of
an inch, and he is timed by several guys with rolllexes,
and they all have the same score. He did it
in exactly four minutes. If you're still not convinced, if
(45:49):
you're still googling Roger Banister's descendants so they can sue
this idiot Olderman in his podcast, let me emphasize the
part that convinced me that a man named Parrot did
run a four minute mile two months and four days
after the Boston massacre unleashed the events that would culminate
in the American Revolution. Permit me to reread that last
(46:12):
sentence about James Parrot's run from Gray's Sports almana I'm sorry,
from the Sporting magazine of seventeen ninety four. Quote, fifteen
guineas to five were betted he did not run the
ground in four minutes and a half. This guy Parrot
bet on himself and got three to one odds, and
(46:36):
the five guineas wagered. Here that would be worth about
fifty five hundred dollars in today's money, meaning this was
no eighteenth century Roger Banister hoping to break a record
for Queen and Country. This was a guy who did
this for money, for the equivalent in winnings of about
seventeen thousand dollars, at least as much as his annual
(46:57):
income might have been selling fruits and vegetables from a cart,
and the way it's phrased in that magazine, we don't know.
If more than one bet of fifteen guineas to five
was placed, he might have won thirty four thousand dollars
or fifty one thousand dollars or five hundred and ten
thousand dollars. Because this was for money, the loser or
(47:19):
losers who bet he could not finish the race in
four and a half minutes had to be satisfied that
he had done it in less than four and a half,
in this case, in four As we know from our
own times, losers now like to claim they didn't lose,
and will go to any length to convince others they
did not lose. But James Parrott got his money, which
(47:41):
means that the loser or losers believed James Parrott really
raised a mile and did it in four minutes. I'm
sold antiquated books and four minute miles round one hundred
and eighty three years before the first four minute mile,
and costermongers and agricultural change. They may come and go
and may be trustworthy or untrustworthy, but money is money,
(48:07):
and James Parrott was given the equivalent of his annual
salary at least once because somebody who thought he could
not do it agreed, Yeah, I was wrong. He really, really,
really really did just run the mile in four minutes. Now,
of course, the whole account in the book could be wrong.
(48:27):
I'm old enough that I was actually on the air
doing sportscast on the radio network of United Press International
on April twenty first, nineteen eighty when Rosie Ruiz quote
one unquote the Boston Marathon. Then it turned out two
people had seen Rosy Ruiz burst out of the crowd
of spectators on Commonwealth Avenue and start running alongside the
(48:48):
men runners. And then it turned out that while she
was supposedly completing the nineteen seventy nine New York Marathon,
she had struck up a conversation with a freelance photographer
on the subway, and the two of them went to
the finish line together, and Rosie Ruiz then told officials
she had just finished the race. And Rosie Ruiz was
a total fraud in two different marathons. Maybe the seventeen
(49:12):
seventy four minute mile of James Parrott was just inaccurate.
Maybe it was just an inside joke or a misheard
rumor or a typo, or he took the subway with
Rosie Ruiz, or it was a joke by whoever wrote
the book. I've told you the story before about the
nineteen twelve Saint Louis Brown's second baseman named Proctor, and
(49:35):
nobody could find anything about him. And then it turned
out Procter was the Western Union operator who used to
make up all the official scorecards after each game, and
one day he decided he always wanted to be a
Major League ballplayer, so he put himself in the scorecard.
Maybe James Parrott was the author of this the sports
magazine or his four minute miles and Monty Python jokes go. Now,
(49:56):
that's what I call a dead parrot. So if it's
a mistake, if it's a typo, if it's a hype job,
if it's Rosie Ruiz, if it's Leu Proctor, Roger Banister
is safe. Now he's not because there was also a
runner named Powell, and Powell in seventeen eighty seven said
(50:16):
he could run a mile in four minutes, and he
wasn't messing around. He bet a thousand guineas that he
could do it, one point one million dollars in today's money.
And not only that, but he ran on a famous
English running track near Hampton Court, and five days before
Christmas of seventeen eighty seven, he ran a time trial
so that the gamblers could all come over and see
(50:37):
what shape he was in and whether they should bet
for him or bet against him. And he did it
in the time trial in four minutes and three seconds.
And when Powell said the betters could see what shape
he was in, he really meant it. He was dedicated
to his cause. Five days before Christmas and this guy
ran a mile naked. All that was in the papers.
(51:03):
What happened to the actual race, Yes, we don't know that.
Nobody has ever found that newspaper. Nobody's ever found an
account of the race. Only the time trial so we
have to go under the assumption that Powell never did
better than four to oh three. But once again, Roger
Banister's four minute mile has withstood the test of time.
(51:23):
Kinda bah, No, Actually it hasn't. There's also another guy
named Weller. Weller was famous enough as a professional runner
of the time that when he said he could run
a mile on the Banbury Road in Oxford, the newspapers
of the day all showed up to preview it, to
talk about his two brothers, who were also professional runners,
and to cover his attempt on October tenth, seventeen ninety six.
(51:46):
And there it is in the papers. Weller of Oxford
runs a mile in three minutes fifty eight seconds, not
only one hundred and fifty eight years before Roger Banister,
but a second and a half faster than Roger Banister.
(52:07):
So here's the thing. If somebody really ran a mile
in three fifty nine or three fifty eight at the
time of the American Revolution, wouldn't that stand out as
such an impossible performance, then, such an anomaly so startling
that it would be viewed in the same way we
would view news coming up on Monday, that somebody now
had just run the mile in three minutes flat. I mean,
(52:29):
if somebody ran the mile in three minutes flat, we
would check to see if the guy was a space
alien or a time traveler. Wouldn't They have been amazed
on October tenth, seventeen ninety six, disbelieving what they had heard,
not at all. And that's the second half of the
story of the day. Roger Banister did not break the
four minute barrier. Research and computers and simulations show that
(52:54):
people in the seventeen eighties were consistently running the mile
in four minutes and eighteen seconds, four minutes and twenty seconds,
four minutes and fifteen seconds, if the info about is right,
three minutes and fifty eight seconds. All the time, these
numbers were being put up by all kinds of runners.
So a four minute mile would have been great, but
(53:15):
not out of context, not in seventeen ninety six. And
then you have to ask, if it happened, where are
all those records. Who were all those four minute eighteen
guys and four minute three second guys and three fifty
eight guys. What happened to the records? Well, see that's
(53:35):
another scandal. Those eighteenth century records were erased in the
nineteenth century. Because richer, slower people in the nineteenth century
wanted to say they held the records, they erased the
record book. That part of the story, and the additional
(53:56):
sad truth that much of the claims about Roger Banister
are really really racist. Next, we know Roger Banister really
did run a three minute and fifty nine second mile
(54:19):
on May sixth, nineteen fifty four in England. It was
timed and announced to a waiting crowd by no less
a figure than Norris mcwherder, who was later the founder
or co founder of the Guinness Book of World Records.
And everybody who was there saw history and was part
of an impossible dream coming true. And as I mentioned earlier,
(54:39):
the next day the New York Times actually had an
editorial asking whether or not anybody would ever do it again.
There is considerable evidence, as I've laid out here, that
it was done before, like two hundred years before. But
if you were still not convinced that, no, no matter
what else it was, Roger Banister's three minute fifty nine
(55:00):
point four second mile on May sixth, nineteen fifty four
was not first four minute mile. If James Parrott and
the naked runner Powell of Hampton Court and Weller seventeen
ninety six. Don't convince you there is also this. There
is a sports historian named Peter Radford, himself the bronze
medalist in two sprints at the nineteen sixty Olympics in Rome,
(55:23):
and he brought the story of Parrot and Powell and
Weller to the forefront in the British press nearly twenty
years ago. This man found them because he was looking
for and finding the records of more than six hundred
running races in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Running against
the clock, against each other, usually for money, was not
(55:43):
only the most popular professional sport in Britain at that time,
it was also probably the first. And with so many
races and especially winning and losing times recorded, Peter Radford
had data to work with. When guys didn't run a
four minute mile, how fast did they run it? How
fast were these professionals going the average over other distances
(56:06):
in say seventeen eighty nine, what was the range of times?
And his computer looked at all of these races, six
hundred or so, and all of the times and all
of the speeds, and it spit out this conclusion. Factoring
in the margin of error, Radford wrote, the best possible
one mile time would be anywhere between four minutes, thirteen
(56:28):
seconds and exactly four minutes. So no, you cannot say
James Parrott ran the first four minute mile in seventeen
seventy and Weller ran the first sub four minute mile
in seventeen ninety six, not with certainty, but I think
you can say with certainty that somebody did it before
the year eighteen hundred, and that when Roger Banister crashed
(56:51):
through the tape at Oxford at six oh four Greenwich
meantime on the evening of Thursday May sixth, nineteen fifty four,
and the track announcer Norris McWhorter announced that Roger Banister's
time in the mile was and he gave it a
desperately long pause, by all accounts for a minute fifty
nine unfall ten seconds. The moment that happened, Roger Banister
(57:15):
became at best the second man to run a mile
in four minutes or less, but more likely he was
like the twenty second or the two hundred and twenty second.
So why why didn't anybody know this? Why did Roger
Banister live a life of unceasing, undiminished and sorry, undeserved fame.
(57:41):
And that guy Weller who may have run the race
a second faster and one hundred and fifty eight years earlier,
why don't we even know Weller's first name? All sports
are based on history. Records are made to be broken.
The older the record, the louder the break. Who screwed
this up? How did we lose Weller in the nooks
(58:04):
and cranny of history. We didn't lose them. It wasn't
an error. It was deliberate. And that's where this gets
to be a crime. Our historian and ex Olympic runner
mister Radford quoted another ancient book, British Rural Sports by J. H. Walsh,
(58:24):
which was published in eighteen eighty eight, and in it
all the dozens of speed and distant events had two
sets of records. One for professionals like Parrot and Powell
and Weller, the ones who ran for money, the ones
on whom people bet, the ones who bet on themselves.
There was that set of records, and then another set
(58:44):
of records which was given far more weight and far
more importance for the amateurs. By the early twentieth century,
Radford wrote, the professional records had been erased from these books, expunged,
not forgotten, removed. Why because the professionals were far better
than the amateurs. No amateur held the record in the mile.
(59:08):
It was all professionals, but the amateurs were in charge.
They were the British upper class. They raced not for money,
but for sport. So the amateurs simply did what the
upper class always does in this situation. They erased the
records of all the professionals. And oh, by the way,
they also erased all records set by women. The British
(59:30):
obsession with the superiority of the amateur over the professional.
If you've ever seen the movie Chariots of Fire, you
already know exactly what I mean. It spread throughout the
world through the Olympics. That's why Jim Thorpe lost all
his gold medals from the nineteen twelve Games. Why the
greatest all around athlete ever died in poverty because he
(59:51):
had once played minor league baseball to make some money
in the summer, and everybody knew about it, and nobody
thought they'd hold it against it, But then they held
it against him. He was a professional, so his records
did not count like James Parrot or fill in the
blank here Powell or I don't remember his first name Weller.
(01:00:13):
So the world record in the mile as of the
year eighteen sixty one was credited to a man, an
amateur named Matthew Green. Matthew Green was the fastest man
in human history four minutes and forty six seconds. Four
minutes and forty six seconds. In my twenties, I might
(01:00:36):
have come close to that number. By nineteen thirteen, the
International Amateur Athletics Federation had taken over, and it recognized
a runner from Cornell, not me, a different runner from Cornell,
as the all time outdoor record holder in the mile
four minutes and thirteen seconds, John Paul Jones, one hundred
and forty three years after James Parrott. The indoor record
(01:00:59):
in the mile was then held by a man named
Abel Kiviat four eighteen and two. I met Abel Kiviat.
I interviewed him when he was ninety. I wish I
had known about James Parrot. Then I didn't. Abel and
I talked about his roommate at the nineteen twelve Olympics,
Jim Thorpe got to tell you that story sometime too,
(01:01:19):
But boy, Abel Kiviat and I could have had a
conversation about amateurs versus professionals and whether or not his
record was actually a record. Anyway, you can see where
this is all going, and we are almost at our
proverbial finish line. Not only did history forget the great
athletes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries like Parrot and
Powell and Weller, who if they did not break the
four minute mile, they came damn close and did a
(01:01:41):
lot better than my friend Abel Kiviat did, or my
Cornell guy John Paul Jones, to say another, of Matthew
Green four minutes and forty six seconds, What did you
do stop for lunch? Not only were the remarkable athletes
like Parrot and Powell and Weller forgotten, they were buried deliberately.
(01:02:03):
It makes the subject of the Roger Banister four minute
mile that everybody celebrates with almost undiminished astonishment every year
at this time. It makes all this a little less
trivial and a little bit more nefarious and wrong and ugly.
(01:02:24):
Speaking of Ugly and Banister, there is one other component
to this story. In the nineteen nineties, having been the
god of the four minute mile for four decades, having
been celebrated every day for breaking a record that was
probably broken one hundred and eighty three years before. Roger
Banister was asked about the new generation of runners, those
of African descent on September twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Sir
(01:02:49):
Roger Banister explained, quote, it's certainly obvious when you see
an all black sprint final that there must be something
rather special about their anatomy or physiology which produces these
outstanding successes. And indeed there may be, but we don't
know what it is. Some countries have the good fortune
to have a high proportion of black sprinters and hurdlers
(01:03:11):
end quote. Nineteen years later, Banister was still driving right
into the Eugenics lane, sounding just enough like Jimmy the
Greek Snyder to make you squirm. I love watching people
like Usain Bolt, Banister said. The West Africans, of course,
have an inbuilt advantage, having been transported as slaves to
(01:03:33):
the West Indies. Only the toughest endured. They have astonishing
muscle composition, with those fast fibers and superior genes. I
will leave it to you and to his maker. An
assessment of how much of Roger Banister was patronizing, how
much was him trying to rationalize how his time had
(01:03:54):
been bettered by nearly ten percent, and how much of
it was just sheer racism. But I will note that
in what Banister said is another reason to believe that
the idea that he was the first human to run
a four minute mile is laugh out loud ridiculous. What
about all of the runners of color over the centuries,
(01:04:20):
over the millennia, in Africa and South America and elsewhere
on this globe. By Banister's own disturbing logic, certainly some
of them must have beaten him to breaking the four
minute tape. No, let me close with this, I don't
(01:04:41):
know for certain who ran the first four minute mile
or when. For all we know, it was broken two
thousand years ago, and for that matter, so was the
present world record of three point forty three point thirteen.
Might have been James Parrott or Powell or Weller whose
first names we don't know, or someone so lost to
history that we don't know their first name or their
(01:05:01):
last name, or their country. We don't know who who
it was. But no matter what you hear, or see
or read, in this Weekend Ahead. It's sure as hell
was not Roger Banister, which brings us lastly to missus
Roger Banister, Moira Elva Jacobson Banister, daughter of a Swedish economist.
(01:05:25):
According to Roger Banister, his wife didn't know a lick
about sports, let alone about running, let alone about him
running for a time. Roger Banister once said, my wife
thought I had run four miles in one minute. You know,
(01:05:47):
as I've been thinking about this and researching that story,
you might as well go with that. Four miles in
one minute no more ridiculous than thinking that Roger Banister
was the first man to run one mile in four minutes.
(01:06:15):
I've done all the damage I can do here for
one day. Thank you for listening. Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanel, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced and
performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, the bass and
the drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. And no,
(01:06:36):
Roger Bannister did not become the first human being to
run the four minute mile. Not in the whole of
that Millennium christ Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
(01:06:58):
by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My
announcer today was my friend, Nancy Faust. Everything else was,
as ever, my fault. So let's countdown for today, Day
one hundred and six of America held hostage, just three
and fifty seven days until the scheduled end of his
(01:07:19):
lame duck and lame brained term. Unless the Deep State
removes him sooner, What where the actuarial tables do? The
next scheduled countdown is Thursday, as always bulletins, as the
news warrants, remember in peach Trump, it won't work now.
(01:07:40):
It will, however, win the Democrats the mid terms. And
I want some polling on a presidential recall vote. How
difficult is this? Stop with the focus groups? Chuck until
next time. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(01:08:24):
of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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