Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Go Home, Hillary.

Correction: A couple of days after the New York Times quoted Hillary as saying Gabbard was “being groomed by theRussians”, they were forced to issue a correction. What she had, in fact, said was that Gabbard was being groomed by the “Republicans” to run as a third party candidate. A “horse of a different color”, I would say, if red wasn’t favored both by Republicans and Russians.

…and take Bill with you.

Hillary Clinton has succeeded in distracting everyone from Donald Trump’s very, VERY bad week; so much so, that one could as legitimately ask if she is a Russian asset, as she suggested someone in the 2020 Democratic lineup might be.

What a waste of time.

Tulsi Gabbard assumes that she was talking about her, and perhaps she was.  Nevertheless, Hillary has only succeeded in breathing new life into Gabbard’s feeble campaign, so that she might rise from 1% to a higher single digit.

I actually heard voices on the Saturday morning talk shows opining that Hillary “must know” what she’s talking about since she’s had do much personal experience with Russian interference!  Pu-lease!

This is the kind of conspiracy theory rumor mill that wound-up Crazy Donald and the Donaldettes in the first place.  She of all people should know better!

What possible value did Hillary imagine her little sideshow would bring to the already fraught but critical process of selecting a viable general election candidate?

She’s slipping into her Bill’s habit of wrong-footing it into the limelight just in time to provide new talking points for her opposition.

With “friends” like these, who needs enemies.

By the way, who’s to say she WAS referring to Tulsi Gabbard?  Knowing Hillary’s center-right hawkish leanings, she could have just as well been referring to the current second lead, after her fav Joe Biden. ‘Talk about wrong-footed!  Joe’s been hemorrhaging money and credibility, and just can’t seem to make it right.

Enter: Hillary, being “helpful.”

If she has any sense remaining after the Republicans have bounced her around like a football for the past two decades, she should apologize for musing out loud, blame cold-meds or some other reality-altering substance; then return to her novel for the duration. She has well and truly worn-out her welcome.

Obama, Sanders and Clinton beat Trump! Says end of year poll

What was wrong with 2016? Well at least it is coming to a close and various year end lists and polls are appearing. One of them is Gallup’s most admired person poll.wwww2016

Since 1946 the Gallup organization has conducted a poll of Americans asking them which man or woman in the world they admire the most. Perhaps the good news for Democrats stung by the recent election is that for the ninth year in a row President Obama was the one found to be most admired. Hillary Clinton was named the most admired woman. The poll conducted Dec. 7-11, 2016, was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,028 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Obama won with 22 percent of the vote. Trump came in second with 15 percent, Pope Francis was third with 4 percent and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came in fourth place with 2 percent of the vote.

Obama has the second-largest number of first-place finishes among men. The first place goes to former President Eisenhower, who was named Most Admired Man 12 times.

On the female side, Americans named Hillary Clinton their Most Admired Woman. It was her 15th consecutive year at the top spot, and her 21st time overall at the top of the list, a Gallup record.

First lady Michelle Obama came in second among the most-admired women, followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. 

Not sure what value any of this has in the bigger scheme of things but given the grim year coming to a close maybe it offers a wee bit of a bright spot.

The not-so-good news is President-elect Trump was only seven percentage point behind Obama. So what was wrong with 2016?

waylaughing

No discernible debate strategy? Not good Donald … sad!

Tonight mercifully, the final of the three presidential debates will be held between Republican Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton the Democratic candidate.

I don’t plan to watch it tonight but will catch up on it tomorrow. So figured I’d at least get a bit of a preview today of what might take place in Las Vegas.  And one of the angles All thing Considered’s (and Fox News) commenter Mara Liasson ponders is the following question:

What is Trump’s strategy? : That hasn’t been clear in the past couple of weeks. [or longer, one could argue] When you type “Is Trump trying” into the Google search bar, the first thing that comes up is “to lose.”

Here’s all of what came up for me on the Google search: is Trump trying …trumpstrategygoogled

I guess he’s got options, but at this point it seems none that are likely to help him win. Sad.

Bernie makes a binary pitch

Senator Bernie Sanders had a busy Labor Day in New Hampshire. The campaign visit to Vermont’s upside down doppelganger is the first since his big win over Hillary Clinton in the early spring primary. On this trip he headlined three rallies to support Clinton for president, including a Labor Day breakfast sponsored by the AFL-CIO. upRdown

Sanders expressed support for, and urged supporters to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. “We are talking about which candidate will better represent the needs of the American people.”

He stressed the points of agreement with Clinton but made it clear what the stakes are. “I am not the world’s most partisan person,” he said. “But the truth is, if you look at Donald Trump’s record, what you find is that this guy is a pathological liar.”

Clinton, he said, “is the superior candidate, hands down.”

Speaking prior to Sanders at the breakfast event, Democratic Senator Jean Shaheen reminded voters about New Hampshire’s recent history with third party presidential candidates: “What happened in 2000 is Al Gore lost New Hampshire by about 7,000 votes, and 19,000 people voted for Ralph Nader,” she said. “And we got George W. Bush, and we got the war in Iraq.”

Shaheen translation:  “You can’t bet half a cigarette. If you break it in half, you don’t get two nickels, you get shit.”

Bernie Sanders and the super-duper email list

After all the  hard-fought campaigning in the Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders came together and held a unity rally in New Hampshire under the banner, “Stronger Together.” Said Sanders by way of conceding: “She will be the Democratic nominee for president, and I intend to do everything I can to make certain that she will be the next president of the United States.”

Understandably there were awkward moments, but Bernie ended his remarks unequivocally by saying: “Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding President, and I am proud to stand with her today.”

His endorsement was accompanied with word that Sanders had a large (yuuge?) influence on the Democratic Party platform. Unity amendments on a $15.00 minimum wage, higher education funding, and improvements in Social Security were included, thanks to Bernie. Writing in The Nation, one Sanders representative who worked on the platform committee said they delivered “the most progressive platform in Democratic Party platform history.” Note to self: go back and read FDR’s Democratic Party platforms.

BGTLAUONITParty platform, hugs and kisses not withstanding, Bernie is reported to be holding on to his email list of donors — all the information that helped him raise more than $222 million in small donations.

And wow, has there ever, ever been such a list? The Sanders email data is being called “perhaps the most coveted and valuable catalog of potential voters and donors in the Democratic Party at the moment.”  There were reports in April that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s office and Sanders were talking about how best to utilize the fabled “list.” And speculation certainly continues that the Democratic Party (who shared their party data with the Sanders campaign)and Clinton campaign would be happy to have access if Sanders decides to share his email data.

However, not everyone likes the idea of sharing data lists with his former rival. “Young people have been very clear that they don’t want their information handed over and it’s not going to be,” RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of the Sanders-supporting group National Nurses United, told BuzzFeed last month. “Sanders could surprise me, but I don’t think so.” Sanders has not made clear his plans for his fundraising donor data, although he is talking about starting an organization to help fund progressive candidates around the country.

It’s hard to imagine Bernie, a veteran politician, never playing his “most coveted” donor data to advantage for his causes — but share it, I guess not so much.

Somebody, please neuter Bill Clinton

As a baby, was Bill Clinton dropped on his head?

No one has contributed more to Hillary Clinton’s credibility problems than ol’ Blue Eyes, himself. Unbelievably, with  his impromptu drop-in to the Attorney General’s plane, he’s done it again…big time!

It’s almost as if he does it on purpose.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was Bill’s bright idea to have a private email server!

I’ve never quite seen what some people like about this corn-fed romeo, but nobody thinks more highly of Bill than he obviously does of himself.

If I’d have been Hillary, I’d have left him facedown in the dirt many years ago.

She was obviously so much smarter than he, even as he occupied the Oval Office. Perhaps it was the subliminal knowledge of her fundamental superiority that egged him on to act out passive-aggressively in riskier ways.

Many would argue that his choices of where and with whom to misbehave on the most famous occasions were expressing a subconscious desire to get caught.

Should the worst come to pass and ‘Il Dumbi‘ beats Hillary in the General, everyone will undoubtedly blame Bernie.

They will be wrong to do so for several reasons, not least of which is the contribution to Hillary’s problems that Bill Clinton has made, not just every time he opened his mouth in this election cycle, but over the years of his administration and beyond.  He seems to have done his level-best to handicap any future ambitions of his long-suffering wife by acting on a mixture of impulse and arrogance that is not entirely unreminiscent of You-Know-Who.

Campaign dollars to donuts

Insidegov.com has taken the time to catalog some of the day to day ways the Republican and Democratic presidential primary candidates have spent millions of campaign bucks. Using Federal Election Commission filings they have documented the primary season through the Iowa’s Caucus and New Hampshire primary- from Jan. 1, 2015 to Feb. 29, 2016.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a slight lead over Bernie Sander’s on the amount they spent at Dunkin Donuts.  However Clinton’s donut and coffee tab of $2,806.00 only slightly exceeds the $2,577.00 Sander’s campaign spent. Some still maintain Sanders will close this gap.doughnuts

In addition to coffee and donuts the Clinton campaign has spent aggressively on pizza. Clinton campaign staffers around the country were treated to $17,000 worth of pizzas –mostly from Domino’s.

While the Clinton team munched, Sanders’ campaign bought his book. Reportedly they spent almost $455,000 at Verso Books on Outsider in the White House, the book Bernie wrote.

Republicans and Democrats combined spent $111,703 on Uber Rides . And the filings show the Trump campaign loves Trump’s businesses. Trump ran up $665,461 in rent and lodging expenses with Trump owned businesses Trump Tower, Trump Grill and the Trump Payroll Corporation. It is all about what’s good for the Donald, who also spent heavily on security, shelling out almost $200,000 for  “security services” and “security consulting”.

Not sure if this spending explains anything of significance about each candidate — other than the Clinton campaign goes for pizza, Bernie bought his own book and Trump is feeding his campaign money back to his business empire .

But I for one would love to know what exactly losing Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson got out of more than $6 million he spent on various types of consultants, or what fate has in store for $300,000 worth of Rubio bumper stickers, T-shirts, signs, hats and sweatshirts.

I wonder if Vermont GOP leadership (who cleverly supported Marco Rubio) stocked up on Rubio sweats and T-shirts?

The DNC as Chicken Little

“The sky is falling! the sky is falling!” “Donald Trump is gaining on Hillary!”

It’s Chicken Little time at the DNC.

Following the dust-up at the Nevada Convention all artifice of civility has been suspended.

No, I’m not talking about the handful of Bernie supporters in Nevada, but the hyperbolic response from the DNC as it closes ranks with what it thinks is the best argument for shutting Bernie down.

This is what it’s come to.

Bernie has been saying since he entered the race that he is in it until the Convention, but apparently the Party elders didn’t believe him.

You don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs and you don’t mount a revolution spouting nothing but platitudes and  pleasantries from a place of no-contest.

Suddenly, Bernie Sanders is evil incarnate and has to throw in the towel so as not to ‘damage’ Hillary.

Newsflash: she’s already damaged; she was damaged coming into the race.

As intelligent and experienced as she is, she persistently transmits inauthenticity and entitlement in an election year that despises both. Even if there were no Bernie Sanders, these traits would not win the day.

And dragging out her equally damaged husband as her standard bearer in the crisis only makes matters worse. It plays to the worst stereotypes about women; the ones we had hoped the first female presidential candidate would kick to the curb.

This is a teaching moment for the DNC: never assume.

Why was Martin O’Malley the only card-carrying Democrat to challenge Hillary for the nomination? There certainly is plenty of talent out there, from Elizabeth Warren to the Castro Brothers and Joe Biden; but no, this one was for Hillary. It had been earmarked by the Hillary camp since 2008.

O’Malley’s only hope was to conduct himself so well in the campaign that he would become the Vice-Presidential nominee. No one was looking at poor O’Malley; quite a decent guy, at that.

Bernie was supposed to be a blip of comic relief; here today and gone tomorrow. No one would really support a democratic-socialist for president! Maybe if Hillary was not so damaged from the start, Bernie’s revolution wouldn’t have taken hold; but she was, and it did.

Just like the Republicans, who refused to believe that Jeb Bush wasn’t inevitable, the DNC made the same mistake about Hillary; only the RNC got ‘lucky’ and a bona fide arsonist named Trump dispatched Jeb and set the revolutionary tone for his own party long before Hillary even took notice of Bernie. Oh, the humanity!!

Now, the RNC is way ahead of the DNC at restoring itself to at least functional unity.

The DNC is still in denial of its diagnosis while the RNC is already at the acceptance phase in the process. They may not like Donald Trump but it it won’t be the first time they’ve gotten lucky with a feckless idiot, and they know that. Think George W. Bush and the miraculously (and posthumously) rehabilitated Ronald Reagan.

Instead of watching and drawing a valuable lesson from Bernie’s ability to engage a whole new and untapped electorate, easily matching those enlisted by DT on the other side, the Hillary Camp (and the entire Party hierarchy) plucked superficially from the message to garnish Hillary’s presentation, like parsley on potatoes.

Only the parsley proved to be much more appetizing than the potatoes and Bernie began to actually win votes no matter how much the convoluted rules worked against that end.

Even burying the debates in impossible time slots did not protect the presumed nominee from damage.

Bernie was apparently not expected to lay a glove on Hillary, and when he actually raised salient questions about her ties to Wall Street, her judgment on matters of war, and the sacred memory of her husband’s global economic policies, the Party twitched visibly but still plastered a strained smile on its lips.

Bernie, they said, would ‘toughen’ Hillary for her ultimate clash with Trump, and that was ‘a good thing.’ Behind the scenes, the Party of Hillary tightened the screws on the inevitability machine even more. Unfortunately, their collective slip was showing, and some Sanders supporters, new to the rigging process, began to cry ‘foul.

The Nevada DNC’s biased chairing of ‘their’ caucus proved to be the last straw for a a few attendees who became loud and abusive in their language, but not violent.

Despite breathless news reports to the contrary, there is no evidence that a chair was thrown. Video shows one man picking up a chair, then putting it down again. There were nasty phone calls and social media outbursts, but these have not by any means been confined to Sanders supporters.

The Sanders campaign condemned the bad behavior, but also condemned the biased conduct that had prompted it. Apparently Bernie was expected to dress in sackcloth and cover himself with ashes, never mentioning the pattern of bias that has permeated the primaries under Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He did not, and the floodgates of Democratic establishment figures aching to tell him to F.O. was suddenly opened.

One state, one caucus, a handful of Sanders supporters behaving badly, and everyone is insisting that Sanders should do the ‘decent’ thing and drop out before the convention.

Meanwhile, finally under some impulse control by the RNC, Trump has risen in the polls and Hillary has fallen. Much as the DNC would like us to believe that this has something to do with Bernie’s continued resistance to her inevitability, that is not the case.

Trump is proving to be an armor-clad wrecking ball of nastiness. He needs no help from anyone. It’s what he does.

With her extremely long and checkered political history, Hillary is the softest target imaginable.  Whether or not she can successfully prevail in the general is looking more and more like an open question.

Further alienating that energized Bernie base by going all Head Prefect on their chosen candidate will not help.

Suggestion? Stop insisting that it’s up to Bernie to unify the party ‘because that’s what Hillary did in 2008.’ This isn’t 2008 and Bernie’s revolution won’t be politically disciplined by a promise of support for 2016.

If the Hillary camp values the support of Bernie’s base, they will have to convincingly demonstrate a willingness to include at least some of that base’s priorities in the party platform, not just pay temporary lip-service and claim to be a ‘progressive.’

Dollars to donuts she won’t call herself a ‘progressive’ in the general, and that’s okay because its only a word; but if she continues to beat a path to the right as she has already begun to do with that remark about having Bill balance the country’s checkbook, she will only reinforce Bernie supporters’ conviction that she doesn’t represent our interests.

There’s only so much that Donald Trump (or Hillary) threats can do to blackmail a disenchanted electorate into turning out to hold their noses at the ballot box.

Time to reassess the fairness and efficacy of a two party system.

Phil Scott supports Hillary Clinton!

Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Phil Scott is helping Hillary Clinton run for President. It must be true: Newt Gingrich thinks so.ScottHRC

 Gingrich : “You’re either for Hillary Clinton or you’re for Donald Trump.

If you’re not for Donald Trump, you are functionally helping Hillary Clinton. I think it’s just that straightforward.”

He can still frame an issue with the best of them, but it seems Gingrich lifted this concept from the Bush era war on terror refrain: you are either with us or against us.

Scott’s declared presidential choice, former Governor Jim Douglas, could prove problematic for those who agree with Gingrich. Bruce Lisman, Scott’s primary opponent, hasn’t jumped on the imaginary Douglas-for-president bandwagon, and significantly, he hasn’t ruled out supporting Trump.

Notice Rubio carried only six precincts !
Notice Rubio carried only six precincts.

Gingrich’s framing also leaves most of elected VTGOP leadership (who endorsed loser Marco Rubio) at odds with local Trump supporters — the biggest block of VT Republican primary voters.

Considering the GOP’s state of disarray it isn’t exactly farfetched that Vermont’s Trump Republicans may start snarling at Phil Scott’s ploy. After all it isn’t much more than a marginally clever dodge to avoid dealing with his party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

The big elephant in the room, at the end of May when the VTGOP convenes to choose delegates, will be Trump. Rightwing Republican star John “Tig” Tiegen will be the VTGOP’s featured guest. He is one of the “Heros”of Benghazi (depicted in the movie 13 Hours), a conservative rock star of sorts and an avid Trump supporter.

When he endorsed Trump for President, in February Tiegen said: “Americans want a strong leader, one who cares more about the safety and freedom of the American people than he does winning elections, or what the press might think.”

In the face of Republican cries for a strong leader, it may prove a delicate task for Scott to hide behind his Jim-Douglas-for-president ploy. And even more so when, as the general election heats up, like it or not, he will have to run the race for governor under the Trump flag.Trumpjumping

But for now let’s adjust Gingrich’s remark specifically for Phil Scott: If you’re for Jim Douglas, you are functionally helping Hillary Clinton. I think it’s just that straightforward.

Donald as the Princess and the Pea

As Donald Trump and Paul Ryan, on behalf of the entire RNC, engage in the dance of mutual castration, Democrats have reason for cautious optimism.

By the time the Democratic Convention crowns its nominee, Mr. Trump may be showing a little wear even for his most devoted accolades. That’s because the Republican nominee is as sensitive as the ‘Princess and the Pea.’

Behold a few of the metaphoric mattresses atop which his presidential hopes fitfully sleep:
1)    Cooperating with anybody, let alone ‘establishment’ Republicans is not a good look for the Donald; yet, he now needs them as much as they need him because he isn’t prepared to self-fund his campaign in the general.

2)    He can no longer claim to be self-funded and not beholden to anyone. We already
know by his own words that he understands the quid-pro-quo game all too well and
accepts as fair that there will be no “quid” without the requisite “quo.”

3)    His almost uncontrollable inclination to contradict himself, sometimes going back and forth in a dizzying display of indecision, has finally caught the attention of the media. Decisive he can’t claim to be.

4)    His unlimited need for attention has provided a life-time of stupid and offensive remarks ripe for the picking. If the Republicans didn’t have the balls to do it, Democrats will not hesitate to dispatch them in volleys.

5)    Unlike his Republican rivals, the Democratic nominee can and will resist the temptation to get down in the mud with him because there are plenty of capable surrogates like Elizabeth Warren (not Bill Clinton, please!) to do the job for her or him. Elizabeth Warren ties knots in Donald Trump without breaking a sweat…and both Hillary and Bernie are cool heads under pressure. The Bloviator-in-Chief  is decidedly not.

If, as seems increasingly inevitable, Hillary walks away with the nomination, she just has to leave Bill at home watering the plants, and she’ll be fine.  She’ll owe Bernie BIG time for mobilizing his minions to support her, but I think they can work out that deal so long as he keeps the faith with his supporters all the way to the Convention. It’s the policies that matter most to Bernie and its the White House that matters most to Hillary.

6)    Just because none of Donald Trump’s “unforgivable” insults have proven to be the ‘silver bullet’ necessary to disqualify him for Republican primary voters doesn’t mean
he’s out of the woods. The power high of winning the nomination will only curb his appetite for sensation temporarily. Dollars to donuts, he’s just one or two soundbites away from the next big goof. He’s programmed to offend. He can’t help himself.  And he’ll find that general election voters, reflective of the true diversity of the country, are not nearly so forgiving.

7)    No one even pretends anymore that he might know what he’s talking about. Ignorance ispretty much baked into his identity at this point. His supporters don’t care, but anyone not already in that delusional state is not likely at this point to be persuaded that he is the ‘smart’ candidate, no matter how much money he has…or says he has.

8)    Which brings us to his taxes. The longer he resists releasing them, the more everyone will be convinced they contain a bombshell. Why is the guy whose brand is supposed to be
spontaneity and transparency suddenly so secretive?

9)    Donald Trump has no sense of humor. We’ve all known people like that. They love to
ham it up and make jokes at other people’s expense, so long as they themselves aren’t the
butt of the joke.  In fact, they are particularly thin-skinned; apt to flush in anger and behave unwisely when teased.   I think we can guess what lies ahead in that department.  We’ve all seen the tape of his angry face at the Correspondent’s Dinner when the President poked fun at him.

10)   Donald Trump himself is not at all sure he wants or can even do the job for which he is
competing.  I swear I read somewhere that Trump once said that if he ever ran for President, he’d do it as a Republican because they’ll believe anything. Maybe I dreamt it, but it just seems so like him.

11)   DT says he “does great” among women; but what he really means is Republican women, which is, of and by itself something akin to an oxymoron.  He maintains the same fiction about his popularity with minorities. It was difficult to adequately test those assertions in the Republican Primary, since relatively few minority voters were involved, and there is a certain expectation of dysfunction from  women who identify with the party that would consistently act against their best interests.

The general election is a whole different animal. As unmotivated as minorities were to
vote in the Republican Primary, they will be doubly so motivated to vote Democratic in
the general election; firstly, out of a sense of outrage; and secondly, in preservation of
their own best interests that have been so conspicuously under attack from Donald Trump.

More than half of all women self-identify as leaning Democratic. Roughly 36% self identify
as Republicans. It can safely be assumed that most of these are women who also
self-identify as ‘conservative’ and many generally support conservative principles and
regional Republican candidates, but see Donald Trump as neither conservative
nor invested in their regional Republican concerns.

According to Newsweek (March 15 2016) female voters in the Michigan Republican Primary dividedtheir vote more or less equally between Trump and Cruz and Katich. That’s not a very impressive validation even from the relatively narrow pool of Republican women. As late as March of this year, 47% of Republican women “could not imagine themselves voting for Trump.”

This weekend, the New York Times  announced open season on Donald’s ‘female troubles’ with a scathing retrospective on his playboy years.

A theory that’s been going around is that Trump never really wanted to be president. This whole campaign was just an opportunity to burnish his brand and get a whole lot of face-time.

Now, it’s “Be careful what you wish for” time.

He clearly never prepared to win the nomination. Assured as he thought he was that the GOP would never let him have the nomination, I think he honestly believed he could play the aggrieved losing candidate to a sea of adoring Twitter followers for years to come, ensuring a new reality TV show and all the sycophants he could exploit for the remainder of his vapid life.

He’s not stupid (although he plays a stupid person on TV). He knows that if, God forbid, he ever did land in the White House, he would quickly become the most unpopular president of all time. His negatives would dwarf those of his campaign, and provide absolutely no amusement for him, because he would be stuck in the narrative that he himself recklessly created.

If Obama has had to endure eight years of abuse, can you imagine what thin-skinned Trump would experience in the same office?

I think he can.

Instead of being able to fling his feces at both the President and Congress,
from the safe distance of an ivory Trump Tower, he would himself be the target, day-after-day-after- endless day of blunders, indecision and head-on collisions with reality.

He’s already uncomfortable answering demands for his taxes and questions about his butler.  Even attempts to deflect to Hillary Clinton are failing to engage as the news media belatedly tries to drill-down on his pathological lies.

In what may have signaled the beginning of cognitive breakdown under pressure, Trump now appears to have double-punked the press, first by leaking an old tape of himself pretending to be a press agent boasting about Trump’s romantic conquests, then lying about the lie.  The permutations of his deceits are positively dizzying.

And I expect it isn’t fun anymore.