Top 100 most popular podcasts
Weird Little Guys is a weekly show about the worst people you?ve never heard of, taking you beyond the headlines to get to know the race warriors and aspiring terrorists trying to unravel the fabric of our society. Weaving together the origin stories of modern American white supremacist groups and the crimes that land their members in court, independent journalist Molly Conger exposes the monsters for what they really are - some weird guy. Whether they?re conspiring to build bombs or serving swastika shaped cookies at a dinner party, the weird little guys trying to destroy America are a little less scary with their masks off.
After winning his battle with a Kansas City cable company over the right to air his Klan public access television show, Dennis Mahon never made a second episode of Klansas City Kable. He was too busy organizing nazi punks in Tulsa and getting Klan chapters started in Germany.
Sources:
Ronson, Jon. “The Debutante.” Audible Originals, 2023
Ronson, Jon. Them: Adventures with Extremists. Picador, 2001
Forbes, Robert and Stampton, Eddie. The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement 1979-1993. Feral House, 2015
Moore, Jack. Skinheads Shaved for Battle: A Cultural History of American Skinheads. Popular Press, 1993
Travis, Tiffini. Skinheads: A Guide to an American Subculture. Greenwood, 2012
Kushner, Jacob. Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants. Grand Central Publishing, 2024
Newton, Michael. White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. McFarland and Company 2014
Lee, Martin. The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. Little, Brown and Company, 1997.
Ketter, Pia. "Zwischen Mord und Kreuzverbrennung. Der Rechte Rand, March/April 2016.
Rink, Nina. "Anleitung zum »Rassenhass«" Der Rechte Rand, March/April 2016
Charles, Roger. “Prior Warning.” Soldier of Fortune Magazine, November 1997
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/21/us/3-to-stop-racist-talks-in-mister-rogers-tone.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/12/us/klan-is-told-to-stop-imitating-mister-rogers-on-the-phone.html
https://okmag.com/blog/a-punk-music-history/
https://flatlandkc.org/news-issues/changed-elohim-city-including-beliefs-residents/
https://www.texasobserver.org/906-editorial-the-phones-were-ringing/
https://issues.texasobserver.org/pdf/ustxtxb_obs_1997_03_28_issue.pdf
https://issues.texasobserver.org/pdf/ustxtxb_obs_1997_03_14_issue.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/03/world/klan-seizes-on-germany-s-wave-of-racist-violence.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/01/world/a-wave-of-attacks-on-foreigners-stirs-shock-in-germany.html
https://jeffmaysh.substack.com/p/how-an-undercover-exotic-dancer-captured
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In 1990, a single episode of a public access show called "Klansas City Kable" aired in Kansas City, Missouri. The klansman who fought city council for his right to produce it was never prosecuted for the bombing campaign he claims to have carried out in the decade prior, but his long career as a professional racist took him all over the world before a years-long undercover operation finally put him away.
Sources:
Kennard, Matt. Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror. London: Verso. 2012
Newton, Michael. White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. McFarland and Company 2014
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/03/world/klan-seizes-on-germany-s-wave-of-racist-violence.html
Ketter, Pia. "Zwischen Mord und Kreuzverbrennung. Der Rechte Rand, March/April 2016.
Rink, Nina. "Anleitung zum »Rassenhass«" Der Rechte Rand, March/April 2016
Norton, Bill. "The Cop and the Klan." Star Magazine, October 9, 1988
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For over a decade, neo-Nazis and Klansmen were hand-delivering VHS tapes of a California-based public access TV show to local television stations in cities across the country. The stations had no choice but to run the show on local public access channels. The show's host, Tom Metzger, received a gift of $300,000 in 1984 that gave him the financial freedom to pursue his dream of delivering his racist message to as many Americans as possible, right through their television screens.
Sources:
Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Harvard University Press, 2018.
Flynn, Kevin, and Gary Gerhardt. The Silent Brotherhood: Inside America's Racist Underground Free Press ; Collier Macmillan, 1989.
Hamm, Mark S., and Ce?cile Van de Voorde. ?Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research, and Prevention.? Trends in Organized Crime, vol. 9, no. 2, 2005
National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence, Bigotry and Cable TV: Legal Issues and Community Responses (Institute Report No.3), Baltimore, Maryland: The Institute, 1988.
Bradley J. Howard, Pulling the Plug: Controversial Programming on Public Access Television and the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 28 J. Marshall L. Rev. 399 (1995)
Rendahl, Stephen E.. "White Aryan Resistance: A Radical Communication System." North Dakota Journal of Speech & Theatre, vol. 4, no. 1, 1 Sep. 1991, pp. 44 - 52.
Rendahl, Stephen (1990). Media access and the radical right: Public access to "race and reason." Unpublished paper presented to the Central States Communication Association, Detroit, MI.
Spring/Summer 1989 issue of ?No KKK No Fascist USA,? Newspaper of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC37_scans/37.nokkk.spr89.pdf
December 1985 issue of Searchlight magazine https://ia600700.us.archive.org/4/items/searchlight_126/searchlight_126.pdf
https://casetext.com/case/us-v-mahon-19
https://idavox.com/index.php/2020/12/10/american-strasser/
https://northernstar.info/16419/news/city/crusade-adds-fuel-to-flame-of-tensions/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-08-10-ca-99-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-02-13-me-23281-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-10-me-11091-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/16/us/klan-wins-a-battle-for-cable-tv.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/20/us/racist-aryan-nations-group-inducts-new-disciples.html
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/chris-hobson-bruce-augustyniak-bruce-kala
https://memorial.bellsystem.com/pdf/1988ATTar_Complete.pdf
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The Fire Will Not Consume Us: Barry Black, Part 1
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the mere act of burning a cross, absent evidence of specific intent to intimidate, is protected by the first amendment. But who was the klansman who got his case all the way to the highest court in the land? This is the first half of the story of Barry Black, a Pennsylvania Ku Klux Klan leader who won two write-in campaigns for constable, waged war on a rural gay bar, and spent decades fighting for his right to intimidate.
Original Air Date: 10.3.24
Freedom to Burn: Barry Black, Part 2
In part two of the story of Barry Black, we finally get to the landmark supreme court case that won the klansman the right to burn crosses. Barry's Keystone Knights faded into relative obscurity after the high profile case and Virginia passed a new law aimed to prevent men like Barry from using fire as a tool of intimidation.
Original Air Date: 10.10.24
Sources - Pt. 1:
https://www.salon.com/2009/07/24/liddy/
https://www.fec.gov/resources/legal-resources/litigation/berg_ac_berg_emerg_mot_proh_cert.pdf https://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/Obama/Evidence/AFFIDAVIT-Bishop.pdf
https://barthsnotes.com/2009/08/25/meet-ron-mcrae-the-birther-bishop/ https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/278475/dykudrama/ https://digdc.dclibrary.org/islandora/object/dcplislandora%3A266739/datastream/OCR/view https://archives.rainbowhistory.org/files/original/367cf04d6456e9b3c311296a806863cd.pdf https://youtu.be/o4o0tZPETAc
https://archive.org/details/BarryE.Black/mode/2up
Heibel, Todd (2004). Blame It on the Casa Nova?: ?Good Scenery and Sodomy? in Rural Southwestern Pennsylvania. In Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. Routledge.
Sources - Pt. 2:
https://law.duke.edu/voices/virginia https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-1107 https://unprecedented.substack.com/p/transcript-bodily-harm-is-coming https://time.com/archive/6615465/south-carolina-backfire/ https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/us/georgia-kkk-adopt-a-highway-lawsuit/index.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-kkk-headquarters-terrorized-town-years-now-will-become-diversit-rcna20865
Unite the Right audio from videos by photojournalist Zach D Roberts & publicly available video recorded by the marchers themselves
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When Oath Keeper Darren Huff returned to Madisonville, Tennessee on April 20, 2010, he was planning to take control of the courthouse. It didn't quite work out that way. He didn't even see the inside of a courthouse until his own arrest a week later.
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/04/army-birther-under-investigation-035823
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/army-birther-lakin-released-from-leavenworth/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/roger-stone-kristin-davis-robert-mueller/
https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/gan/press/2011/11-01-11.html
https://time.com/archive/6597707/the-secret-world-of-extreme-militias/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxxers-charge-followers-to-join-fake-anthony-fauci-grand-jury/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4382623/fitzpatrick-v-bivins/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5092131/united-states-v-huff-tv1/
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In 2010, conspiracy theorists around the country were convinced that Barack Obama was not the rightful president. Some of them filed lawsuits. Some of them tried to have the President indicted. And when none of that worked, some of them took matters into their own hands and tried to arrest the county court employees they thought were standing in their way. In the first half of this story, Walter Fitzpatrick unsuccessfully storms the courtroom in Madisonville, Tennessee. The outcry over his arrest would motivate Oath Keeper Darren Huff to rally supporters for a second attempt.
Sources:
Jardina A, Traugott M. The Genesis of the Birther Rumor: Partisanship, Racial Attitudes, and Political Knowledge. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. 2019;4(1):60-80. doi:10.1017/rep.2018.25
Josh Pasek, Tobias H. Stark, Jon A. Krosnick, Trevor Tompson, What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology, and anti-Black attitudes, Electoral Studies, Volume 40, 2015
Hughey, M.W. Show Me Your Papers! Obama?s Birth and the Whiteness of Belonging. Qual Sociol 35, 163?181 (2012).
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/birther-movement-founder-trump-clinton-228304
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33388485
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/12alabama.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oath-keepers-poll-watching_n_58122566e4b0990edc2f8178
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/25/judge-lamberth-jan-6-trump-00137960
https://www.tncourts.gov/rules/rules-criminal-procedure/6
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In 2022, Ethan Melzer pleaded guilty to plotting to help al Qaeda ambush and kill his entire unit while on a sensitive mission in Turkey. But Melzer's co-conspirators turned out to be a Canadian teenager and a government informant, not members of al Qaeda. And the satanic cult that drew him down this nazi rabbit hole turned out to have been run by a man on the FBI payroll.
Sources
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17286246/united-states-v-melzer
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69307006/united-states-of-america-v-melzer/
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-exploits-of-an-extremist-fbi-informant/
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In June of 2020, US Army Private Ethan Melzer was arrested for leaking information about his unit's deployment to Turkey with the intention of causing a mass casualty incident. The plot was hatched in a Telegram chat room for a group calling itself Rapewaffen, an Atomwaffen splinter cell that was committed to the beliefs of a neonazi satanic cult called the Order of Nine Angles. This episode follows the rise of satanism within Atomwaffen and the chaos that influence caused.
Sources:
https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/national-guard-soldier-who-deployed-to-dc-identified-as-neo-nazi/
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280
https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/06/23/the-rapewaffen-telegram-channel/
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There's no new weird little guy this week, but I wanted to check in with you about how the show is going so far and squeeze in a few weird little facts that got left on the cutting room floor of past episodes.
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Tyler Bradley Dykes entered a guilty plea last year on the charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate for his participation in the 2017 Nazi torch march in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was sentenced to just six months and was probably expecting to see his parents waiting for him outside the jail on his scheduled release date... but it was the FBI who picked him up.
Sources:
https://atlantaantifa.org/2023/04/19/inside-southern-sons-active-club-part-i/ https://atlantaantifa.org/2023/04/19/inside-southern-sons-active-club-part-ii/ https://sunlight161.noblogs.org/technology-king-lowcountry-ceo-tyler-dykes-bluffton-sc-marine-nazi/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67681795/united-states-v-dykes/
https://the-devils-advocates.ghost.io/burning-hate-bond-review/
https://the-devils-advocates.ghost.io/unite-the-right-marcher-pleads-guilty-to-j6-charges/
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/white-nationalist-active-clubs-1234835015/
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In part two of the story of Barry Black, we finally get to the landmark supreme court case that won the klansman the right to burn crosses. Barry's Keystone Knights faded into relative obscurity after the high profile case and Virginia passed a new law aimed to prevent men like Barry from using fire as a tool of intimidation.
Sources:
https://law.duke.edu/voices/virginia https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-1107 https://unprecedented.substack.com/p/transcript-bodily-harm-is-coming https://time.com/archive/6615465/south-carolina-backfire/ https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/us/georgia-kkk-adopt-a-highway-lawsuit/index.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-kkk-headquarters-terrorized-town-years-now-will-become-diversit-rcna20865
Unite the Right audio from videos by photojournalist Zach D Roberts & publicly available video recorded by the marchers themselves
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the mere act of burning a cross, absent evidence of specific intent to intimidate, is protected by the first amendment. But who was the klansman who got his case all the way to the highest court in the land? This is the first half of the story of Barry Black, a Pennsylvania Ku Klux Klan leader who won two write-in campaigns for constable, waged war on a rural gay bar, and spent decades fighting for his right to intimidate.
Sources:
https://www.salon.com/2009/07/24/liddy/
https://www.fec.gov/resources/legal-resources/litigation/berg_ac_berg_emerg_mot_proh_cert.pdf https://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/Obama/Evidence/AFFIDAVIT-Bishop.pdf
https://barthsnotes.com/2009/08/25/meet-ron-mcrae-the-birther-bishop/ https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/278475/dykudrama/ https://digdc.dclibrary.org/islandora/object/dcplislandora%3A266739/datastream/OCR/view https://archives.rainbowhistory.org/files/original/367cf04d6456e9b3c311296a806863cd.pdf https://youtu.be/o4o0tZPETAc
https://archive.org/details/BarryE.Black/mode/2up
Heibel, Todd (2004). Blame It on the Casa Nova?: ?Good Scenery and Sodomy? in Rural Southwestern Pennsylvania. In Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. Routledge.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In 2019, the FBI arrested a coast guard lieutenant who'd been buying pain pills online, but it wasn't just Tramadol they found in his apartment: he'd spent years stockpiling weapons and studying mass shooter manifestos. The investigation revealed an obsession with sniper rifles, a kill list, and his secret skinhead past.
Sources:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/02/22/sentence-upheld-for-former-coast-guard-officer-tied-to-terror-plot/ https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/02/21/coast-guard-lt-christopher-hasson-wrote-notorious-neo-nazi-harold-covington https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/05/14/nazis-showing-in-nc-race-embarrasses-gop/84295cd5-37c3-449c-b8b6-cea599978b14/ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/base https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/07/25/harold-covington-founder-white-separatist-group-dies-64 https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/resources/5422 https://www.wbay.com/2024/08/12/uncle-fester-aka-stephen-preisler-returns-court-new-drug-charge/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14581072/united-states-v-hasson/
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A teenager who murdered two people outside of a gay bar in Slovakia, a teenager who stabbed five men at a mosque in Turkey, and a teenager who planned to destroy infrastructure in New Jersey had one thing in common: they'd all been reading terrorism manuals produced by a group of neonazi propagandists. A new indictment alleges two Americans are responsible for inciting acts of white supremacist terror all over the world.
Sources:
https://www.wired.com/story/terrorgram-collective-indictments/
https://www.antihate.ca/uk_first_add_terrorgram_collective_proscribed_groups
https://vsquare.org/bratislava-terrorist-radicalized-on-terrorgram-its-members-take-credit/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/canada-terrorism-far-right.html
https://www.antihate.ca/terrorgram_neo_nazi_collective_heart_international_arrests
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/terrorgram-collective-now-proscribed-as-terrorist-organisation
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A soldier was arrested last month on charges that included lying about his membership in a hate group on his application for a security clearance. But with so many white supremacists in the military, why is it so rare to see this particular charge brought against service members? Molly explores some of the possible reasons the charge isn't used more often and talks about a handful of cases where it's been successful.
Sources:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/26/infiltrating-the-far-right
https://www.rawstory.com/kai-liam-nix-arrested-extremism/
https://jweekly.com/2020/10/23/judge-rules-that-nazi-obsessed-east-bay-man-must-face-trial/
https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/leaked-violent-racists-use-facebook-chat-to-plan-unite-the-right-2/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/north-carolina-soldier-arrested-guns-trafficking.html
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In part two of the life of the Forrest Gump of fascism, Frank Sweeney leads the CIA on an international goose chase, befriends and then betrays a serial killer, and just can't stop committing crimes by mail.
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Frank Abbott Sweeney Jr may be the Forrest Gump of American white supremacy in the 20th century. Starting with a failed bank robbery for the American Nazi Party in the 60s, Frank stumbled his way into being an inconsequential side character in major historical events for decades.
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An investigation into illegal gun sales at Camp Lejeune uncovers a neonazi paramilitary group plotting to cause a blackout in the Pacific Northwest, assassinate the governor of Oregon, terrorize Black Lives Matter activists, and start a race war.
Sources:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/25/marine-kicked-out-of-corps-and-indicted-alleged-neo-nazi-infrastructure-attack-plot-pleads-guilty.html https://www.newsweek.com/active-duty-marine-neo-nazi-website-white-supremacist-identified-1470487
https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3aq8a/exclusive-a-us-marine-used-the-neo-nazi-site-iron-march-to-recruit-for-a-race-war https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nced.183119/gov.uscourts.nced.183119.1.0_2.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nced.183119/gov.uscourts.nced.183119.16.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nced.183119/gov.uscourts.nced.183119.119.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nced.188149/gov.uscourts.nced.188149.149.0_2.pdf
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When someone left a bomb at a Civil War reenactment event in 2017, it looked like antifascist activists were out for revenge after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. A mysterious letter writer claiming to be an antifascist collective took credit for the bomb and threatened even more violence to come if Civil War reenactments weren't called off. But the bomber wasn't antifa - it was a spurned Confederate re-enactor.
Sources:
https://qz.com/1800988/antifa-falsely-accused-of-threatening-civil-war-group https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/02/12/civil-war-reenactor-antifa-threats/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/civil-war-reenactment-in-virginia-canceled-amid-worries-over-violence/2017/08/18/633b71d8-844a-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/we-wanted-to-send-a-message-reenactors-stage-civil-war-battle-despite-threat/2017/10/15/77dd0348-b1c4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html https://www.winchesterstar.com/news/frederick_county/increased-security-planned-for-battle-of-cedar-creek-event/article_aec48f2e-c708-5b7d-8679-1ca677e96f3d.html https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65406287/united-states-v-drake/
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This week marks seven years since the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This is a brief minisode to mark the anniversary and remind myself why I can't stop looking for these weird little guys.
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Why do people keep posting that fake Voltaire quote and who is the pedophile who actually said it? Molly takes you back to the 90s, inside the Nazi compound where Kevin Strom started broadcasting a weekly antisemitic radio show.
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Join host Molly Conger each week for a story about one of the aspiring little Führers of the suburbs, men whose actions altered the course of the lives of their victims, their families, and their communities? but whose stories are ultimately lost in the shuffle of too many middle American Hitlers.
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Weird Little Guys is a weekly show that gives you an uncomfortably close look at the worst people you?ve never heard of. Molly Conger takes a closer look at the far right extremists trying to unravel the fabric of our society. It turns out, they?re all just some weird guy.
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