230 Comments
Aug 12Liked by Jay Kuo

Yeah, in 2016 Politico did a daily live stream on days the documents were released. Now they are developing a journalistic integrity? Et Tu Washington Post? All the same the Harris / Walz campaign should make sure they don't encourage the publishing of the documents in any way. The timing is really strange to me, Politico and the WP confirm they have the documents right before the convention? Information from trumps criminal defense lawyers law firm? Could be a plant so trump can continue to whine that he's the victim.

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The Harris/Walz campaign doesn't need this distraction. MAGA does. This has all the earmarks of a " Look! A squirrel! maneuver. As for Axel Springer, one of the the few major publishing outlets to survive Nazi Germany? Just luck, I'm sure.

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I agree, it's a diversion. Even if the information is real, Politico and the WP chose to tell everyone that they have have it NOW?

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I would like to point out that ProPublica received leaked Project 2025 Training videos, 14 hours of them. They published this information in summary form with clips woven throughout illustrating points they were making. At the end is a link to all 14 hours of tapes so you can draw your own conclusions. So glad that I no longer subscribe to NYT or WaPo, but support ProPublica. They are the ones breaking the important stories in this election. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election

Please share these with everyone you know. We have a right to know what is planned for us, and no one is going to get that from listening to Trump blather on and on about nothing having to do with policies about turning our student loans into more grift for securities investors, and in general setting us up to become a third world country like the one I taught in when I first got my master's in teaching.

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Yes, ProPublica is doing the investigative journalism the MSM won't!

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… when it conveniently boosts any flagging interest and $$$$? Yeah, sure. Journalistic integrity, my ass.

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Exactly

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deletedAug 12
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I think that it smells like a Trump attempt to utilize planted information on JD Vance, to get rid of JD Vance. Toss him off of the ticket and place a minority woman like oh say-NikkiHaley on the ticket? Just my own conspiracy theory.

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This is the most likely thing. It gives Trump a reason to drop Vance. And the photo of him in drag is reminiscent of the Madison Cawthorn release of embarrassing photos when the GOP wanted to ditch him. That's how they do it. Also the 3 week delay was to see how the voters were reacting to Vance and it wasn't good, so out come the photos.

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Never gonna happen. Felonious T hates Nikki Pelosi🙄

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And all brown poersons, really.

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Yes, but her voters are actively working against him. The thing is can he do it legally?

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I may be wrong, but I am not sure there is any legality involved.

Political parties are private organizations that can boost any campaign they choose.

Where there may be issues is ballot access, but if Republicans are considering dropping Vance post convention that seems like a ‘house is burning down’ type action.

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Peter Thiel paid $15 million to get Vance where he is. Petey's not gonna like his $$ going down the drain

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Ah, it's OK - the Space Nazi will make it up. And Thiel can find $15MM in his couch cushions...

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Eeewwww.

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And he funded him in vulture capitalism so he would look sucessful enough to run.

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🏆 today’s web winner!!!

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Trump intends to drive his campaign into the ground and then claim voter fraud.

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First thing I thought of!

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Not sure about Nikki but the Vance part sounds right.

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Worth considering however is if Trump drops Vance it highlights Trumps age, and it admits that his first choice was bad/not enough to beat Dems. I am not sure Trumps ego could swallow that.

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He has a history of first praising his hires saying he only hires "the best people", then throwing them under the bus and say they are terrible later on when they snitch on him. So he will have no issues doing the same to Shady Vance.

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I think it is almost ‘part of the contract’ I suspect anyone who joins Trump’s team knows that they may be thrown under the bus.

He seems to know who is susceptible to his promises of being ‘close to power’ almost as if he is grooming them.

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Too late, early voting is early. And October surprise? Those days are gone. No one believes the MAGA party anymore. Not after 1/6. Sure he has the "faithful," but their numbers are shrinking. What would the surprise be? That Vance really thinks the childless people really like children? Iran making a definitive move? Assassinating the tangerine turd would not be to their advantage, then they would have the man who doesn't know his own name, but isn't quite as wacko, he's just malevolent, which makes him more dangerous.

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deletedAug 12
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Politico was founded by real right-wing assholes, it has always been a smug self-important rag. Charles Pierce dubbed them: "Tiger Beat on the Potomac."

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deletedAug 13
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It is also a teen-heartthrob magazine, a fan mag for young prepubescent girls. (when I was young it featured Donnie Osmond, and David Cassidy.)

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Good article...I had no idea Politico was bought by a Trump supporter. Of course, this election isnt over till it's reallllly over. We are vulnerable to our enemies....and need to vote blue in such record numbers there can be no denying who won. 💙✌️

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I had no idea, either. They disguise it much better than most, probably because they still have a staff of journalists that aren't (yet) goose steppers.

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Right. It's incredible to me how the mainstream press has failed democracy. I am grateful for independent journalism ...

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The mainstream media is also failing themselves. Look at Russia with its state run media. They must know this is coming if Trump wins. And there is not much money to ne made in that system.

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"Oh, no - he would never do that to US! After all we did for him..."

Those who fail to learn from history...

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Me, too. BlueSky has a lot of virtue signaling that can get pretty annoying, but it's still a nice alternative to Twitter, and there seems to be a concerted effort among its users to stifle right wing content.

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Agreed. I’ve been on BlueSky since the middle of May, and it has the best things about Twitter, but not very many bots or trolls.

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I just blocked someone for virtue signaling. I made a joke about deporting Musk and someone said "don't make jokes about deporting people!" Apparently not understanding that he's going to interview someone tonight who is calling for mass deportation.

Rather than explain the irony, I blocked. It's just easier.

But overall it's pretty good.

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Deporting Musk, and Thiel, and Murdoch (though he mostly lives in London) would be making America great again, for real they are the real, bad, immigrants who give the rest a bad name.

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Yeah, that they were bought by a trump supporter threw me for a loop too.

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They've always been right leaning though, started by a couple of repubs.

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RECORD NUMBERS!!! 🌊💙🌊💙🌊💙🌊💙

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They weren't.... There is no evidence Doepfner actually supports Trump (and a lot of evidence against it).

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It's nebulous, but his email was pretty ridiculous. From the WaPo article:

Doepfner said in his email to staff that Trump had made the right moves on five of what he deemed the six most important issues of the last half century — “defending the free democracies” against Russia and China [not true] , pushing NATO allies to up their contributions [who cares?] , “tax reforms,” [not true unless you're filthy rich] and Middle East peace efforts [he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem and coddled Netanyahu FFS, so also not true] , as well as challenging tech monopolies [not true and now his VP is a phony Hillybilly tech bro] ."

So at a minimum, I hope he's keeping his nose out of the newsroom. He's clueless.

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Really? Good to know.

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Charles Pierce calls it "Tiger Beat on the Potomac".

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I didn't either. I need to pay more attention to when reviews are updated.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/politico-media-bias

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The rating was from spring 2022.

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Thanks for the link. :)

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I had no idea Politico was now also part of the right-wing propaganda machine. Thanks, Jay for revealing that. I think I finally understand why this is considered a close election: Fox News and right wing radio early on. Elon Musk now blasts daily anti-Democracy tweets for the alt-white. There's the Sinclair Group, which owns many local TV stations and regularly hammers the airwaves with alt-white propaganda.

(If it seems like I'm picking on whites, too bad. I'm white, so I get to say it loudly because I'm sick of this crap)

And now Politico? Who else? For example, what does the Redstone family own these days? As I remember, they were part of this crowd.

I think we need to do more than get money out of politics. We need to find a way to get it out of media, too. Don't ask me for details on how.

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You are definitely not "picking on whites." You are identifying prominent instigators whe deserve to be called out. Thank you for that.

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Thanks for that. I'm not shy about calling them out but I appreciate the thumbs up anyway. :-)

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“I think we need to do more than get money out of politics. We need to find a way to get it out of media, too. Don't ask me for details on how”.

I’m pretty sure that ship sailed when the MSM at the time basically got rid of its “news” division and stuck it in the entertainment division; to make more money, of course. News was a loss leader for them and that had to stop.

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The grim thing is that even ProPublica was started by rich billionaires. They just happened to be nice people.

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I’m white and my current favorite pot shot is “oh, how white of you”. So thank you for calling out one of our huge problems, white billionaire media owners. I’ve been dissing them for months now.

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Thanks. Lol I used to say that sometimes. I also tend to be point out that the majority of whites voted for Trump across all age and education groups in the last election, according to exit polling. This is something I'm pretty loud about, too. I think that may change during this election cycle.

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*sigh*

I'm white - but I'm neither stupid nor butt-hurt about women and brown people being treated like, you know - people, so when The Convict came down the escalator, I said, "Ohhellno." and made it stick.

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I was so stupid that I didn't take that escalator ride seriously at all.

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Well, same. I thought it was a joke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Then Scarborough gave him his nearly daily platform, and here we are.

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Yes, I just had this exact conversation with someone yesterday on The Dworkin Report substack. There are basically seven media corporations in this country, that's already a monopoly and antitrust issue - it seems that right wing media is simply an extension of the Republican Party. We can no longer rely on fact-based or even fact-checked, balanced journalism from those billionaire owned junk news stands. . These billionaires are buying up small town newspapers in order to exert disinformation, this is the epitome of fascism, it's the hitler, putin, orban playbook. We need a Truth In Journalism law in this country, that covers paper, internet, social platforms. Do we need someone like the pritzker group to go by faux news, nyt or WP. Media should not be like this, we need to get fuckin fascist liars out of media.

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"Junk news stands" is exactly it.

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I'm with you. Now we just need to figure out a way to make that happen without doing extreme violence to the 1st Amendment. I'm kinda fond of that one...

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I hear ya. I know there are way smarter people in Washington DC and Law Offices across the US that could draft something together that would not impede freedom of speech. Hate and violence speech is not freedom of speech. Example: I don't want to see the Nazis marching through Nashville again under the guise of freedom of speech.

Jay Kuo just posted the EU letter regarding DSA (Digital Security Act) they sent to Elon today related to his upcoming Trump propaganda ad (not interview, propaganda & lies) he's doing tonight on X. I wonder if DSA is starting point.

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Trump and his ilk are HYPOCRITES in the first degree. They are all in for bad things to their opponents, but the second those bad things happen to them, it’s clutching their pearls and whining about how unfair it is. Vote blue down the ticket!

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I deny everything.

Robert in Vermont

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Lol!

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Oh, there you are!

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Well, if the hacker or hackers really want the story out, there are hundreds of other widely-read media outlets - both online and print - that would gladly dump the contents. If nothing more happens, and Politico/NYT/ WaPo continue to sit on the story - if indeed there is one, well then one can certainly suspect total BS and zero credibility in the whole operation here. And since it's centered on tRump campaign personalities, an enhanced level of skepticism at least is certainly mandated.

Those who reckoned the 2024 election run-up and the election itself would be a yuuge shitshow may indeed be proven correct, as any and all things involving tRump inevitably rotate toward crapification, we've all learned that lesson surely.

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Yup, big media is still in the tank for Trump. Color me surprised.

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OK Jay great letter. And please give attention to this story too — Trump’s own Goebbels. Can’t something be done about Musk’s fraud and misrepresentations and AI generated videos of Harris saying things she never said??? https://popular.info/?utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web

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I can’t do much more than Judd on this! Great work

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But what can be done? Anything legally????

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Amendment I would seem to forbid.

It ain't against the law to spread political lies. It just isn't. You'd be hard pressed to think of any campaign EVER that was squeaky-clean in that regard.

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That link is to today’s Judd at Popular Information. Should work.

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Aug 12Liked by Jay Kuo

Maybe it's just me, but, “No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” Döpfner said of Trump." More WHAT? Shit all over the USA? Commit Felonious Treason?

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He was referring to a few specific policies. Here is the background and context https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/06/mathias-dopfner-trump-email-axel-springer-politico/

Most of us can probably get behind them, even if Doepfner was wrong to give Trump credit on some of them. Such as, filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google (something the Biden admin continued, and recently won).

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His statement is improperly formed; to the degree that it caused this discussion. For me, anyone who is that vague with their communication must be a politician. (that's not a compliment)

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😂 The broligarchs!

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At least your statement was accurate. He did give his donors a huge tax-cut that raised the deficit considerably.

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Aug 12Liked by Jay Kuo

“We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government — Never a nice thing to do! They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature.”

- Trump 2024

“I love Wikileaks”

- also Trump 2016

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Yes, "Hey, Russia, if you are listening" has become "hey, Iran, if you are listening" for the other side...

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Good article. I get the impression from that article that they are STILL BREAKING LAWS. That they are completely unimpressed by the U.S. Justice Department's (and other jurisdictions) efforts to throw people into prison for trying to help a near vegetable regain access to the nuclear codes.

I am hoping that Prosecutor Harris finds herself a tougher AG.

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Oh. We actually have an AG… good to know.

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I didn't say that we have one now, lol.

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Lol. No, we do not have one now. Merrick sucks. He never should have been appointed. Im almost convinced he's a Republican decoy.

Who should Harris appoint when she wins? Jack Smith maybe. Letitia James.

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Jasmine Crockett! :-)

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Aug 12·edited Aug 15

Thanks Charles! Regarding the current AG: His calm and cautious demeanor make him much better suited for a Supreme Court Justice, which was the original intent! Mitch McConnell (illegally) thwarted that. - AG was second choice! Probably not the best solution!

Oh well! We shall see what the future brings BUT, NOW -

VOTE BLUE up & down your ENTIRE ballots!

Give us a WORKING government again!

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Yes, he would have been and still may be a great justice. Absolutely!

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Sally Yates, she's tough, accomplished and held the job as acting manager until trump fired her for being too good at the job.

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Great article. Thanks for sharing.

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Is Chaos someone within the Trump organization who is trying to distance himself?

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Yes trump is "Captain Chaos".

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Let’s see, John Miller was Trump, John Baron/Barron was Trump, David Dennison was Trump. Anyone else wondering if Richard (aka Dick) could be Trump, too?

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Ha! Well he did use an AOL account…

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I had the exact same thought. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but if it quacks like a duck....

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This is a intriguing thought, and very possible.

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Aug 12Liked by Jay Kuo

"Or so the Trump campaign claims."

On first hearing this story I thought immediately, " How does this story of leaked or hacked documents benefit the guy who cannot ever speak truthfully. I'm still in this space. However, the fingerprints of media, organizations, and law firms supporting the former guy still organizing and working to undermine and overthrow democracy is certainly no secret. So glad you connected so many dots. Too bad the "legacy" media won't follow your reporting example. CONGRATULATIONS on the new baby coming into your life. Enjoy this time with your wife and baby in 12 days. May everything go well for both of them. 🥰

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TFG and his campaign have lied so much and so often that any time they open their mouths whatever comes out is twisted and shaded and outright false, we cannot tell any truth from all the lying. So this whole hacking thing? Probably a false flag drama. And as Jay writes, nothing bad has come of it for TFG and that is the telling result,

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Funny, in a sadly ironic way, but in the Nixon administration who fixed leaks?

Plumbers.

That ended well.

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