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Judge blocks Wisconsin law curbing labor rights

On Friday, Dane County Circuit Judge MaryAnn Sumi issued a restraining order stopping publication of a law signed last week by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) severely restricting state employee’s right to collective bargaining. The restraining order halts the procedural step essentially blocking the measure, which would go into effect once it is formally published.

The judge issued the order after Dane County’s Democratic District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed a suit alleging the joint committee of the legislature violated the state’s open meeting law when it abruptly called a session to get the measure passed last week.

While Sumi’s ruling does not speak to the legal merits of the law, it states that Ozanne’s suit must be completed before the publication can move forward.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, praised the judge’s action in an interview with the Associated Press, “Judge Sumi confirmed today what we knew all along — that the bill stripping hundreds of thousands of hard-working Wisconsinites of their voice on the job was rammed through illegally in the dark of the night.”

Sometimes the beauty of the system works. Sometimes men like Governor Walker, who think they can run a blind campaign deceiving the voters and then push through an agenda to destroy Unions because they believe they are the bane of everything good and wholesome in America’s free market system are checked, just as the state constitution was designed.

If Walker has proven anything, he’s proven one thing, he’s going to be a one term governor.

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2011 in Constitution

 

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Rasmussen screws up another poll?

Latest poll numbers for the President show he’s doing a good job, except for one poll; anyone care to guess which polling group shows the exact polar opposite of five other major polling organizations? That’s right; it’s Rasmussen, the pollsters of FOX PAC!

Of polls conducted in the last week on the President’s approval:

Bloomberg = 51 approve – 43 disapprove

ABC/Washington Post = 51 approve – 45 disapprove

CNN = 50 approve – 47 disapprove

Gallup = 48 approve – 44 disapprove

Rasmussen = 42 approve – 56 disapprove

Come on guys, really? You’re going to be this transparent?

Of course, Rasmussen almost always polls significantly to the right of center. This means you can’t ever really trust Rasmussen’s polling numbers. And since Rasmussen is the exclusive poll of choice for FOX PAC, and FOX-type personalities, Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly et al, this means those viewers – or listeners – are being fed daily exactly the numbers they always want to hear; and it also means Rasmussen is never going to conduct legitimate polling because it’s never going to shoot the goose laying the golden eggs.

With the exception of the FOX PAC bought and paid for Rasmussen polling, which is so absurdly opposite everyone else numbers it’s laughable, President Obama is in very good shape midway through his first term, much better shape than Ronald Reagan was at the same midterm point when his numbers had fallen to around 40%. President Obama’s positive numbers are currently anywhere from 47% to 52%.

Sorry Rasmussen, sorry Rush, sorry FOX, perhaps you need to look at a broader demographic than polling mainly middle age to elderly, angry, white, male FOX PAC viewers.

 

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Kansas State Representative Comes up with a Final Solution to Illegal Immigrants, Shoot Them Down Like Hogs?

Virgil Peck, a Kansas State Representative suggested yesterday during a House Appropriations Committee meeting that undocumented immigrants should be hunted down and shot, and yes he’s a Republican.


The Lawrence Journal World reports that during a debate on appropriations for controlling Kansas’ feral swine problem Peck suggested the problem could be handled by shooting them from helicopters.

But wait, there’s more, Peck continued his observation on shooting wild pigs – adding how he would solve the state’s illegal immigration problem too, “It looks like to me if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a [solution] to our illegal immigration problem.”

Of course Peck – in good old fashioned GOTP manner – has refused to acknowledge he might have spoken inappropriately, saying he was “just speaking like a southeast Kansas person” and that he expected no further controversy over his comment.

Is this yokel for real? He was speaking like a “southwest Kansas person”? So, by his comment we can assume people from southwest Kansas are racists?

Somos Republicanos, a national Hispanic Republican organization, has called for an apology saying, “We are sick and tired of the bigotry from state legislators who would rather advocate for violence and shooting people than to focus on reasonable solutions.  Hasn’t Mr. Peck learned from the mistakes of Sarah Palin when she put what appeared to be gun sight crosshairs over our Congresswoman, Gabby Gifford’s district?…In a time of extreme tension and occasional violence over illegal immigration, such as the slaughter of a Mexican-American family in Arizona including a nine-year old girl, allegedly by Minutemen, elected officials should refrain from the use of violent metaphors.”

Peck attempted to back pedal his way out by saying he was merely voicing the frustration his constituents feel about the lack of governmental response to illegal immigration.

So, when he said he was speaking as a “southwest Kansas person”, he was speaking as his constituents would speak? So, he was saying people from southwest Kansas were racists?

Of course, why should this surprise anyone? Kansas is, after all, the home of the Westboro Baptist Church, those fine upstanding Christian folks who protest military funerals claiming “God hates America” and he allows soldiers to be killed because “God hates faggots”.

Ah yes, the many faces of today’s Republican Party, the many faces of the conservative Midwest. Enjoy.

 

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Hatch to be overthrown by Utah Tea Party?

Six-term Republican (GOP) Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah is facing re-election next year, a usually not to difficult task, however, in recent months the political phenomenon known as the Tea Party movement has turned what used to be a cake walk into a very steep uphill battle.

Groups such as Save the American Republic (STAR) and Utah Rising are not falling in line behind Hatch, and many other Tea Party (TP) groups are also not so sure if they will throw their support behind him.

But Hatch isn’t the only Republican possibly fighting for his political life in Utah, two other Republicans closely associated with Utah, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, both possible presidential candidates are also facing the chopping block because as far as TP members are concerned they’re simply not conservative enough.

“We oppose all three,” said David Kirkham, a businessman who helped found one of Utah’s first Tea Party groups in a recent New York Times interview.

Romney’s biggest obstacle to overcome is his leadership – as governor – in passing the Massachusetts health care overhaul that is anathema to many Tea Party members who see it as a model for the Obama plan passed last year.

Huntsman’s on the “list” for nonsupport because he played the “moderate” on many social issues as Utah’s governor and he also supported carbon emissions cap-and-trade legislation to reduce heat-trapping gases. Of the two, the latter is the larger sin in the TPs estimation.

“On a good day, he’s a socialist,” said Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of Utah Rising, a clearinghouse group, referring to Mr. Huntsman also in the NY Times. “On a bad day, he’s a communist.”

Really, Jon Huntsman a socialist, or a communist? It’s laughable to think anyone would ever place those nomenclatures on the former governor, which simply highlights how far to the right edge of the political spectrum some of these TP nuts are.

As for Senator Hatch, Mr. Kirkham said in the NY Times, “We have exactly the same game plan as we did last time with Bennett.”

Meaning former Senator Bob Bennett, a Republican whose long political career was unceremoniously ended in 2010 when Kirkham and other TP-inspired delegates swept into control at the party’s state convention, where in short order the TP delegates denied Bennett’s re-nomination, and in his place put Mike Lee, a former clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the Supreme Court, who – not surprisingly – handily won the general election.

For the coming 2012 elections it is indeed looking grim for the GOP in Utah, the monster all the Republicans thought was controllable, the one they thought they could politically potty train, is messing all over their carpet, and no amount of rolled up news paper is going to change that.

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2011 in 2012 Election

 

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So, when are Republicans going to stop whining?

He’s the President, get over it.

Quit whining about taxes, you’re not paying anywhere near what your parents and grandparents were paying.

We’ll go for spending cuts when you stop protecting the top 2%.

9-11 was almost ten years ago, give American Muslims a break.

You failed to get Bin Laden and sent us into a hopeless war in Iraq, you gave up the right to whine about either national defense or foreign policy.

Stop screaming you want to “take the country back”. News flash, the majority of Americans don’t want to “go back” to any America you’d take them to.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2011 in Politics, Right Wing Crazies, Tea Party

 

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Gingrich Says it was Love of Country Which Led to His Affair?

GOTP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has officially lost his mind. He has said it was his passion for his country that contributed to his marital infidelity.

Excuse me? OK, first, the word “love” should never be used in the same sentence with “marital infidelity,” and second, it wasn’t so-called love of country it was lust for your staffer. Let’s be clear about this Newt. And third, is this supposed to make anyone feel comfortable with you running for the presidency? How many staffers will need to be hired if you win to help you show how much you “love” your country?

“What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them,” he said.

You know Newt, this is the interview that just keeps giving isn’t it?

“Forget about all this political stuff. As a person, I’ve had the opportunity to have a wonderful life, to find myself now, truly enjoying the depths of my life in ways that I never dreamed it was possible to have a life that was that nice,” Newt said.

Wow, it’s very gratifying for all of us to know that you’re having such a wonderful life Newt, thanks for sharing that with us. How’s that second wife doing, the one you divorced after cheating with mistress/wife #3? And how’s your first wife? You remember her Mr. Family Values? The one you were stabbing in the back during your affair with wife/mistress #2 while she was undergoing chemotherapy?

Just how stupid do you think Republicans are Newt? Not to mention the rest of us? You really think this kind of confession helps your chances of running for the White House? You can’t even admit it was your fault can you? Nope it wasn’t Newt’s fault everybody; it was his “love” of America that drove him into multiple woman’s bed

You can’t make this stuff up. This is the rank hypocrisy of the GOTP. You led the impeachment of President Clinton for having an affair, and for lying about it, while you were having an affair, lying about it, and then you blame it on your “love” of country? Please, really, just go away. You’re embarrassing yourself; you’re embarrassing your family; you’re embarrassing your party. But, you know what? At least you’re giving the late night comedy writers plenty of material.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2011 in 2012 Election, Politics, Right Wing Crazies, Tea Party

 

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Congressman Is Going to Examine Islam in the United States?

OK, so let me get this straight, nearly a decade after the 9-11 terrorist attacks Congressman Peter King, yes a far right Republican (GOTP) has decided what the House of Representatives really needs to spend time, and money, on is to conduct hearings on radical Islam in the U.S.

Why stir a pot that most Americans want to move on from?

Why stand and scream, “HEY! LISTEN TO ME! THERE ARE MUSLIMS HERE IN AMERICA AND WE NEED TO PERSECUTE THEM!”

Why hold hearings now? Because Mr. King is – in every sense of the Shakespearean annotation – an ass; as in a jackass; as in a dumb animal braying for everyone to pay attention to him, and because the GOTP is in charge of the House, and King (aka Skippy the talking jackass) now has the power to call attention to the issue as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, that’s why.

Skippy has told The Associated Press that “radical Islam is a distinct threat that must be investigated regardless of whose sensibilities are offended”.

“You have a violent enemy from overseas which threatens us and which is recruiting people from a community living in our country. That’s … what this hearing’s going to be,” he brayed.

According to the AP, “in the past two years, authorities say there have been more terrorist plots uncovered or attacks foiled than during the final seven years of Bush’s presidency.

Gee, some would probably deduce it’s the result of better law enforcement – and by instances of Islamic community leaders helping the authorities. You see, that’s what happens when you stop torturing people, and suspending habeas corpus, they actually start helping you. They help you with viable, real intelligence, instead of telling you what they think you want to hear.

Unfortunately, when you up the ante and you start persecuting people for their religion you play right into the very hands of the people you’re claiming to be fighting.

On the bright side, House GOTP leaders don’t seem very excited about all this and it’s a pretty fair bet they don’t want anything this inflammatory distracting the country from more important matters, though exactly what those are with this group who can tell? Certainly not jobs; and probably not the economy, but more than likely important issues mean stopping abortion, and overturning the health care law, and reinstating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, basically anything to do with anything the President is in favor of.

Now, “Radicalized Muslims” have been the centerpiece of at least a dozen congressional hearings on violent extremism since 9-11. The latest push, however, coming from Skippy, a far right wing GOTP type who has repeatedly brayed that America has too many mosques and that as many as 85 percent of Muslim leaders were not cooperating with authorities is unsettling. King is not looking for answers, he’s looking to make a name for himself, and to reignite Islamic phobia in the country. There is no other explanation. One has to wonder, “What’s next, a set of hearings on far left communists’ infiltrators in the State Department?”

 

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Top 10 Worst Things about the Republican Budget?

The GOTP is not, repeat NOT, a friend to students, teachers, woman, the poor, or most especially to our country’s veterans … cutting in half the vouchers being given to vets to prevent homelessness. Once again they send soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen to fight, and then stab them in the back! This is a disgrace! But everyone who voted for the GOTP in November, you go ahead and continue to sleep warm and comfy in your beds while vets are under bridges, they didn’t do anything for you.


This is the hypocrisy of the right, plain, simple and out in the open. Our nation spends $2 BILLION DOLLARS per week in Iraq and Afghanistan! $2 BILLION DOLLARS! They – the GOTP – continue to cater to the upper 2% of the population providing them with tax cuts which would have provided billions of dollars to the nation’s coffers, all while cutting education programs, gutting NPR and Public television, taking away food and medical help from millions of woman and children – including prenatal care – and screwing our vets!

Notice, however, there are no defense cuts. We don’t want to upset the military industrial complex, we’ll pay them their billions and then screw the troops for serving their country. This is a disgrace!

NEVER again will I vote for a Republican! NEVER AGAIN! Not if this is what the party of Reagan has become.

The Republican budget would:

1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.

So, this is what the GOTP meant about jobs bills, and taking care of jobs in America …

2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.

Yeah, here’s the GOTPs version of the fairness doctrine. They – the GOTP – only want the country hearing Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck. No more programming questioning what they’re doing …

3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers–which will deprive more than three million low-income people of health care over the next few months.

I can hear Ebenezer whispering in Boehner’s ear now, “If they had rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!” This is the GOTP health care plan for America, only the strong and rich will survive in their new America. Can’t afford health care? Too bad!

4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

As Reagan – the GOTP hero of heroes would no doubt intone – All those welfare queens in their caddies suckling from the nation’s breasts. You’re done! Go get jobs! Go beg! But we’re not helping you anymore!

I’m confused? Isn’t this the party that prides itself on America being a “Christian” nation? Wasn’t there something about taking care of the poor, and how it would easier to put a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven?

5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.

The GOTP is tired of taking care of your snot nosed kids. If you can’t afford pre-school then too bad! Your kids aren’t worth it! You’re poor! Send your kids out to beg, like in other countries!

6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.

The GOTP hates teachers, and it hates public education. The Governor of Wisconsin, Limbaugh, Hannity et al, have been screaming about the lousy teachers getting rich doing nothing all day! No more!

7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

According to Boehner and friends, if you can’t afford college you shouldn’t be there! Why should the rest of us pay for your college education! Go dig ditches, or beg or something. Who are you to think you could better yourself?

8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would “send shockwaves” through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research, and cause job losses.

Once again Scrooge is speaking from the pages of literature through the GOTP, “If they’d rather die …” If you’re not wealthy enough to afford health care in Boehner’s America then you should just die. It’s a very simple health care plan. Those who can afford it survive. Those who cannot afford it? Too bad.

9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other woman’s health care.

The GOTP doesn’t care about poor woman, just about their own wives, mistresses and daughters. If you die giving birth to your welfare child, who cares? Not Boehner and company.

10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.

Boehner – who washed out of Navy basic training – could care less. Typical GOTP attitude. Claim to love America, drive around with your “support the soldiers” magnetic yellow ribbon on your car, and then knife them in the back once they’ve fought, and bled for you.

This is a disgrace …

 
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Posted by on March 7, 2011 in Federal Budget

 

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Newt Gingrich Discusses Potential Obama Impeachment?

The Huffington Post has reported that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has said President Obama has overstepped his constitutional authority with his recent decision to order his administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act. While the move didn’t immediately open Obama up to impeachment, Gingrich claimed, it did raise his worry about a future constitutional crisis.

In an interview with Newsmax, Gingrich characterized the president’s latest announcement regarding DOMA, a law that allows states to not honor gay marriages, as “a dereliction of duty and a violation of his constitutional oath” that “cannot be allowed to stand.”

I’m sorry, but maybe someone whose committed adultery and been married three times shouldn’t be the spokesman for the Defense of Marriage Act.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the President had determined his administration would no longer defend a law defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, but it would continue to be enforced pending an actual legislative overturn.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, said in an e-mail he questions why President Barack Obama “thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation” when “most Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending.”

Well Mr. Steele that objection might carry some actual weight if the GOTP hadn’t wasted its first 100 bills trying to limit federal funding of abortion instead of working on the jobs issue.

Gingrich said this plan of action was unacceptable.

So is committing adultery ex-Mr. Speaker. I guess marriage can be defined by the government, but it’s OK for you and half a dozen other hypocrites on the right to then violate your vows? Perhaps under DOMA the government should make adultery a crime and prosecute individuals like you?

“He swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States,” Gingrich said. “He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody.”

Newt, it’s time for you to come to grips with the fact that a black man, a liberal, is president and deal with it. Conservatives are always yelping about the federal budget; well, how much money is wasted prosecuting DOAM and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? But those are OK expenditures I suppose? I suppose anything which upholds your southern view of morality is a justified expenditure? You’d have probably been screaming about the fugitive slave law not being prosecuted too.

“Imagine that Governor Palin had become president,” Gingrich said. “Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her view was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone’s right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed. The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment.”

Well gee, yeah that would be a problem since its established Constitutional law. By the way, the Administration is making the same decision other administrations have made in the past concerning laws considered to be unconstitutional. And exactly, what is the basis used to determine marriage as being defined as a man and a woman? If it’s in any way defined by religious standards, than under the Constitution that is a violation of the separation of church and state, and hence the law would be unconstitutional.

 

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Congressional Leaders Continue to Block WWI Vet Being Honored in Capitol Rotunda?

The daughter of Frank Buckles, the longest-living American to serve in World War I, is urging lawmakers to let her father’s body lie in the Capitol Rotunda to honor all the war’s veterans.

Frank Buckles' enlistment photo into the U.S. Army in 1917, left, and Buckles receives an American flag during Memorial Day activities at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, May 26, 2008. (AP)

“There is no one left,” Susannah Buckles Flanagan wrote in a statement to The Associated Press. “If we lost the opportunity to bestow this highest of honors on the person who was the last surviving representative, there can be no making it up later.”

Congressional Leaders – largely along party lines – have been divided over how to best honor Buckles and the 4.7 million other Americans who served during World War I.

West Virginia lawmakers want to see him lie in the Capitol Rotunda, and are upset with House and Senate leaders – Republican (GOTP) Speaker John Boehner, and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who have objected.

Someone please explain what there is to object over? Who in their right mind sees this as something to oppose? No one is asking every veteran be accorded this honor, although they all deserve it. They’re asking for the body of last soldier of the Great War to be placed in honorable repose as a symbol of the sacrifice made by all.

Flanagan said it was one of her father’s wishes to lie in the Rotunda after his death – not as a personal honor but in memory of all veterans of World War I.

“He looked upon this as his final duty, which he took seriously,” Flanagan said. “If the last American soldier surviving is not suitable to serve as a symbol around which we can rally to honor those who served their country in the Great War, then who can serve that purpose?”

Her point is well taken. Mr. Buckles is the last American to have served in World War I. He’s it; there are no more. What’s the big deal? And why are Boehner and Reid seeking Pentagon permission to conduct ceremonies in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, where Buckles will be buried? This really seems to be a no-brainer, and yet these two are opposing it?

Lying in honor – called lying in state in the case of elected U.S. officials or military officers – has occurred only 30 times starting in 1852 with Henry Clay, a longtime senator and congressman. Others include Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, unknown soldiers from America’s wars and civil rights hero Rosa Parks.

Buckles’ biographer and family spokesman, David DeJonge, said of the debate over how Buckles should be honored, “We want to afford every American full opportunity to pay honor and respect to that symbol of a great generation.”

Flanagan said no extraordinary precedent would be made by honoring Buckles in the Capitol Rotunda, “The next similar request will come for the last survivor of World War II in 25 or 30 years’ time, and it will be appropriate to honor that person, as well.”

The difference will be, for some, that the World War II generation has received an inflated hero status above all other generations. They’re the “greatest generation” meaning none before and none after will ever measure up to their heroism and sacrifice. All of which is hog wash.

No one will dispute that the so-called “greatest generation” overcame tremendous obstacles, but were they greater than the generation which fought and secured America’s independence? Were they greater than the generation which fought and died to preserve the union? Were they greater than those who battled in Korea and Vietnam? Were they greater than the young men and women fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan? The “greatest generation” was a force made up mostly of draftees; today’s fighting force is all volunteer, no draftees. Tell me which – if any – generation is the “greatest”?

Frank Buckles is the last veteran to have fought in the First World War, the “war to end all wars”; he – and his fellow veterans of that great conflict – deserve this honor. If the common soldier who served so well and faithfully, representing his entire generation of soldiers, who likewise served so well and faithfully, doesn’t deserve this singular honor than who does; certainly not those who are objecting to it.

 
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Posted by on March 6, 2011 in Military, Patriotic, Politics, Veteran's

 

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