Monday, April 30, 2012

Sports bar tent collapses

Emergency personnel load an injured person into an ambulance after a tent collapsed in St. Louis on Saturday.
Emergency personnel load an injured person into an ambulance after a tent collapsed in St. Louis on Saturday.
  • Wind hits sports bar tent near Busch Stadium in St. Louis
  • Fire officials say one person was killed, at least 16 hurt

(CNN) -- At least one person was killed and 16 others injured Saturday afternoon when a sports bar tent collapsed during a storm that swept through the St. Louis area, fire officials said.

St. Louis Cardinals baseball fans had gathered after a victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at a local bar, which had a tent set up in the rear, according to fire Capt. Dan Sutter.

The storm knocked down pieces of the tent, which is next to Busch Stadium, officials said.

"We had live wires lying on the ground. We have severe injuries to quite a few people," said St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson. "This gives us nightmares."

CNN's Greg Morrison contributed to this report.

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Extremism In Congress: 'Even Worse Than It Looks'?

It's Even Worse Than It Looks
It's Even Worse Than It Looks

How The American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics Of Extremism

by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein

Hardcover, 226 pages | purchase

Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein are no strangers to D.C. politics. The two of them have been in Washington for more than 40 years — and they're renowned for their carefully nonpartisan positions.

But now, they say, Congress is more dysfunctional than it has been since the Civil War, and they aren't hesitating to point a finger at who they think is to blame.

"One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition," they write in their new book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks.

Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, join Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep to talk about the book, which comes out this week.

Mann and Ornstein posit that democracy in America is being endangered by extreme politics. From the first day of the Obama administration, Ornstein says, our constitutional system hasn't been allowed to work.

"When we did get action, half the political process viewed it as illegitimate, tried to undermine its implementation and moved to repeal it," Ornstein says.

The authors make no secret of whom they blame for most of the dysfunction in Congress — the Republican Party. And Ornstein says some of his colleagues at AEI, which is known as a conservative-leaning think tank, "are going to be quite uncomfortable" with his position.

"We didn't come to this conclusion lightly," he says. He points out that he and Mann have been highly critical of both parties in previous works. For example, they called the Democrats "arrogant, condescending [and] complacent" after Democrats had been in the majority for 40 consecutive years up to 1994.

You know, maybe we are better than we were in the period leading up to the Civil War, but that left us with a virtual fracture in our society.

"But for Republicans currently inside Congress, you have a new set of litmus tests and a new outlook that leads them in directions where you can't say that there is such a thing as climate change, you take positions on things like immigration that are simply off the rails, and if you compromise, you are basically defiling what the party stands for," Ornstein says.

"We're not exactly neutral or balanced, are we?" says Mann. But a central message of their book, he says, is that norms of nonpartisanship in the media and elsewhere sometimes do "a disservice to the reality."

Thomas Mann has worked as a consultant to IBM and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Enlarge Ralph Alswang /Perseus Books

Thomas Mann has worked as a consultant to IBM and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Thomas Mann has worked as a consultant to IBM and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Ralph Alswang /Perseus Books

Thomas Mann has worked as a consultant to IBM and the Public Broadcasting Service.

"It disarms the electorate in a democracy when you really need an ideological outlier to be reined in by an active, informed public," Mann says.

Mann and Ornstein recognize that many people will likely be skeptical of the argument that things in Congress today are so much worse than they used to be.

Last year, Ornstein wrote a piece for Foreign Policy magazine about the 112th Congress titled "Worst. Congress. Ever." He says a lot of people wrote to him and said, "Oh, come on, what about the period right before the Civil War?"

"And I said, 'I'll grant you that. Do you really want to be compared to the period right before the Civil War?' You know, maybe we are better than we were in the period leading up to the Civil War, but that left us with a virtual fracture in our society. We don't want to see that happen," Ornstein says.

Some might argue, however, that a politics of extremes is necessary at times. Solutions are not necessarily to be found in the middle — sometimes we may have to go to the edges to solve our problems.

Norm Ornstein writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News.
Enlarge Peter Holden /Perseus Books

Norm Ornstein writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News.

Norm Ornstein writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News.

Peter Holden /Perseus Books

Norm Ornstein writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News.

"I think that's a reasonable argument," Mann says. "I don't believe in a golden mean; I don't believe you find policy wisdom between two polar points. I don't dismiss that possibility, but I look at the platform that's so ideologically based, that's so dismissive of facts, of evidence, of science, and it's frankly hard to take seriously."

Ornstein adds: "We're not against conservatives. Some of our heroes are very, very strong conservatives here. We're not against strong liberals, either. ... The problem is not one that is resolved by just turning it over to one side to do simplistic solutions that are based on more wishful thinking than reality. It's finding that hard reality."

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators plan plan marches across the globe tomorrow - @BloombergNews

Enlarge image Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Protesters with the Occupy movement block one of the entrances to the Port of Oakland in California.

Protesters with the Occupy movement block one of the entrances to the Port of Oakland in California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Enlarge image Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1

by John Moore/Getty Images

Protesters march to Wall Street during an ACT-UP and Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York, on April 25, 2012.

Protesters march to Wall Street during an ACT-UP and Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York, on April 25, 2012. Photographer: by John Moore/Getty Images

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe tomorrow calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s 55-story tower.

“We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Pooling Resources

The Occupy movement in New York has relied on demonstrations and marches around the city since Nov. 15, when police ousted hundreds of protesters from their headquarters in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, where they had camped since Sept. 17.

Banks have pooled resources and cooperated to gather intelligence after learning of plans to picket 99 institutions and companies, followed by what organizers have described as an 8 p.m. “radical after-party” in an undetermined Financial District location.

“If the banks anticipate outrage from everyday citizens, it’s revealing of their own guilt,” said Shane Patrick, a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team. “If they hadn’t been participating in maneuvers that sent the economy into the ditch, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

Police Prepared

New York police can handle picketers, according to Paul Browne, the department’s chief spokesman.

“We’re experienced at accommodating lawful protests and responding appropriately to anyone who engages in unlawful activity, and we’re prepared to do both,” he said in an interview.

About 2,100 Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York have been arrested since the demonstrations began, said Bill Dobbs, a member of the group’s media-relations team.

Organizers describe the May Day events as a coming together of the Occupy movement, with activists also calling for more open immigration laws, expanded labor rights and cheaper financing for higher education. Financial institutions remain a primary target of the protests.

“Four years after the financial crisis, not a single of the too-big-to-fail banks is smaller; in fact, they all continue to grow in size and risk,” the group’s press office said in an April 26 e-mail.

Planning Since January

Five banks -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) together held $8.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2011, equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy, compared with 43 percent in 2006, according to central bankers at the Federal Reserve.

Occupy Wall Street began planning for May Day in January, meeting in churches and union halls with a decision-making system that avoids a single leader. Instead, participants rely on group “break-out” sessions in which clusters discuss such tasks as crowd-building, logistics and communications.

About 150 attended an April 25 meeting at the Greenwich Village headquarters of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union, making last-minute preparations for how to deploy legal and medical help; site selection for picketing; purchasing, production and distribution of protest signs; and how to talk to reporters.

The meeting convened inside the union hall basement, where attendees arranged chairs in a circle as three facilitators asked each of the assembled to identify themselves by first name and gender -- he, she or they. Most appeared under age 30, though gray-haired baby boomers also participated. One of the older attendees pulled a ski mask over his head to protest the presence of a photographer from Tokyo.

Raging Musicians

Tomorrow, beginning at 8 a.m. in Bryant Park, scheduled events include teach-ins, art performances and a staging area for “direct action and civil disobedience,” such as bank blockades.

Tom Morello of the Grammy Award-winning rock band Rage Against the Machine along with 1,000 other guitar-playing musicians will accompany a march to Union Square at 2 p.m., according to the maydaynyc.org website. That will be followed by a “unity rally” at Union Square at 4 p.m.; a march from there to Wall Street at 5:30 p.m.; and a walk to a staging area for “evening actions,” which organizers at the April 25 meeting said would be the so-called after-party.

Golden Gate Bridge

Occupy-related events are planned in 115 cities throughout the U.S., from college towns such as Amherst, Massachusetts, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia.

In San Francisco, demonstrators intend to hold a rally at the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. local time that “will result in the shutdown,” according to their website.

Across the bay in Oakland, protesters said they intend morning marches on banks and the Chamber of Commerce, followed by an afternoon rally and a march downtown.

“We’re looking forward to vigorously asserting our constitutional right to protest and giving a loud outcry about Wall Street and greed,” Dobbs said. “We’re hoping this will make a splash. We hope it will bring a lot of more people into the Occupy movement.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net; Esmé E. Deprez in New York at edeprez@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

>>>

UK PM David Cameron reiterates that he'll wait for Leveson before deciding whether to order an inquiry over Jeremy Hunt - @BBCNews

>>>

DNA from at least 2 people other than MI6 spy Gareth Williams was found in the flat where he died, inquest hears - @BBCNews

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35 people killed, nearly 200 missing after ferry capsizes in remote northeast India - The Sunday Indian

35 dead, 200 missing in Assam ferry capsize


MONALISA GOGOI | Guwahati, April 30, 2012 19:33

At least 35 people, including women and children, were killed and nearly 200 missing when a ferry packed with 300 passengers capsized in a river in Brahmaputra river on Monday.

According to the sources, the ferry bound from Perabhita ghat of Dhubri to another bank of the Brahmaputra drowned in the middle of the river because of heavy storm.

Sources said that there were more than 300 passengers in the ferry out of which 50 passengers were able to come out of the river.

BSF jawans and police forces have recovered 35 dead bodies till now.

>>>

UK PM David Cameron tells MPs he has 'seen no evidence' Jeremy Hunt broke ministerial code in his contacts with News Corp - @BBCBreaking

>>>

To Predict Dating Success, The Secret's In The Pronouns

People who are interested in and paying close attention to each other begin to speak more alike, a psychologist says.
Enlarge iStockphoto.com

People who are interested in and paying close attention to each other begin to speak more alike, a psychologist says.

People who are interested in and paying close attention to each other begin to speak more alike, a psychologist says.

iStockphoto.com

People who are interested in and paying close attention to each other begin to speak more alike, a psychologist says.

On a recent Friday night, 30 men and 30 women gathered at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Their goal was love, or maybe sex, or maybe some combination of the two. They were there for speed dating.

The women sat at separate numbered tables while the men moved down the line, and for two solid hours they did a rotation, making small talk with people they did not know, one after another, in three-minute increments.

I had gone to record the night, which was put on by a company called Professionals in the City, and what struck me was the noise in the room. The sound of words, of people talking over people talking over people talking. It was a roar.

 

What were these people saying?

And what can we learn from what they are saying?

That is why I called James Pennebaker, a psychologist interested in the secret life of pronouns.

About 20 years ago Pennebaker, who's at the University of Texas at Austin, got interested in looking more closely at the words that we use. Or rather, he got interested in looking more closely at a certain subset of the words that we use: Pennebaker was interested in function words.

For those of you like me — the grammatically challenged — function words are the smallish words that tie our sentences together.

The. This. Though. I. And. An. There. That.

"Function words are essentially the filler words," Pennebaker says. "These are the words that we don't pay attention to, and they're the ones that are so interesting."

According to the way that Pennebaker organizes language, the words that we more often focus on in conversation are content words, words like "school," "family," "live," "friends" — words that conjure a specific image and relay more of the substance of what is being discussed.

"I speak bad Spanish," Pennebaker explains, "and if I'm in a conversation where I'm listening to the other person speak, I am just trying to find out what they are talking about. I am listening to 'what, where, when' — those big content heavy words. All those little words in between, I don't listen to those because they're too complex to listen to."

In fact, says Pennebaker, even in our native language, these function words are basically invisible to us.

"You can't hear them," Pennebaker says. "Humans just aren't able to do it."

But computers can, which is why two decades ago Pennebaker and his graduate students sat down to build themselves a computer program.

The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program that Pennebaker and his students built in 199 has — like any computer program — an ability to peer into massive data sets and discern patterns that no human could ever hope to match.

And so after Pennebaker and his crew built the program, they used it to ask all kinds of questions that had previously been too complicated or difficult for humans to ask.

Some of those questions included:

  • Could you tell if someone was lying by carefully analyzing the way they used function words?
  • Looking only at a transcript, could you tell from function words whether someone was male or female, rich or poor?
  • What could you tell about relationships by looking at the way two people spoke to each other?

Which brings us back to speed dating.

See, one of the things that Pennebaker did was record and transcribe conversations that took place between people on speed dates. He fed these conversations into his program along with information about how the people themselves were perceiving the dates. What he found surprised him.

"We can predict by analyzing their language, who will go on a date — who will match — at rates better than the people themselves," he says.

Specifically, what Pennabaker found was that when the language style of two people matched, when they used pronouns, prepositions, articles and so forth in similar ways at similar rates, they were much more likely to end up on a date.

"The more similar [they were] across all of these function words, the higher the probability that [they] would go on a date in a speed dating context," Pennebaker says. "And this is even cooler: We can even look at ... a young dating couple... [and] the more similar [they] are ... using this language style matching metric, the more likely [they] will still be dating three months from now."

This is not because similar people are attracted to each other, Pennebaker says; people can be very different. It's that when we are around people that we have a genuine interest in, our language subtly shifts.

"When two people are paying close attention, they use language in the same way," he says. "And it's one of these things that humans do automatically."

They aren't aware of it, but if you look closely at their language, count up their use of "I," and "the," and "and", you can see it. It's right there.

Pennebaker has counted words to better understand lots of things. He's looked at lying, at leadership, at who will recover from trauma.

But some of his most interesting work has to do with power dynamics. He says that by analyzing language you can easily tell who among two people has power in a relationship, and their relative social status.

"It's amazingly simple," Pennebaker says, "Listen to the relative use of the word "I."

What you find is completely different from what most people would think. The person with the higher status uses the word "I" less.

To demonstrate this Pennebaker pointed to some of his own email, a batch written long before he began studying status.

First he shares an email written by one of his undergraduate students, a woman named Pam:

Dear Dr. Pennebaker:

I was part of your Introductory Psychology class last semester. I have enjoyed your lectures and I've learned so much. I received an email from you about doing some research with you. Would there be a time for me to come by and talk about this?

Pam

Now consider Pennebaker's response:

Dear Pam -

This would be great. This week isn't good because of a trip. How about next Tuesday between 9 and 10:30. It will be good to see you.

Jamie Pennebaker

Pam, the lowly undergraduate used "I" many times, while Pennebaker didn't use it at all.

Now consider this email Pennebaker wrote to a famous professor.

Dear Famous Professor:

The reason I'm writing is that I'm helping to put together a conference on [a particular topic]. I have been contacting a large group of people and many have specifically asked if you were attending. I would absolutely love it if you could come... I really hope you can make it.

Jamie Pennebaker

And the return email from famous professor:

Dear Jamie -
Good to hear from you. Congratulations on the conference. The idea of a reunion is a nice one ...and the conference idea will provide us with a semi-formal way of catching up with one another's current research... Isn't there any way to get the university to dig up a few thousand dollars to defray travel expenses for the conference?

With all best regards,

Famous Professor

Pennebaker says that when he encountered these emails he was shocked to find that he himself obeyed this rule. He says he thought of himself as a very egalitarian person, and assumed he would never talk to people differently because of their status.

But in retrospect he says it makes sense. We use "I" more when we talk to someone with power because we're more self-conscious. We are focused on ourselves - how we're coming across - and our language reflects that.

So could we use these insights to change ourselves? Like Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady, could we bend our personalities by bending the words we use? Could we become stronger? More powerful? Healthier?

After 20 years of looking at this stuff, Pennebaker doubts it.

"The words reflect who we are more than drive who we are," he says.

You can't, he believes, change who you are by changing your language; you can only change your language by changing who you are. He says that's what his research indicates.

Pennebaker has collected some of this research in a book called The Secret Life of Pronouns, but says he feels the practice of using computers to count and categorize language is really just a beginning.

It's like we just invented the telescope, he tells me, and there are a million new places to look.

Obama campaign unveils new 2012 slogan

President Obama has a new campaign slogan: "Forward." 

Obama's re-election team unveiled its new motto in a video released Monday morning. The seven-minute video begins by recalling the grim state of the nation's economy when Obama took office, then ticks through what the campaign says are the president's accomplishments, both on the economy and other issues. 

The campaign also uses the video to target congressional Republicans, saying Obama had to overcome GOP obstruction on Capitol Hill in order to pass legislation. 

The video tries to make the case for Obama's re-election by saying there is still more work to do going forward. 

The campaign says the video will be played for supporters attending the president's first re-election rallies Saturday in Ohio and Virginia.

Both Parties Willingly Wear Dunce Caps on Student Debt

“$117 billion”

-- Amount of federally backed student loans obtained last year, part of a total student loan burden of more than $1 trillion.

The current election-year fracas over student loans is a microcosm of Washington dysfunction: Neither side thinks that the current system is working, but neither side is willing to take any political risks in order to fix it.

There are about 21 million post-secondary students in the country, and about a quarter of them receive subsidized government loans. This is a large enough segment of the population to be worth pandering to.

-

Everyone in Washington knows that the status quo on student loans is unsustainable. But the Obama Democrats are staking their 2012 hopes on their ability to arouse resentment against uber-rich businessman Mitt Romney, while Republicans are desperate to deny the Blue Team another weapon in this class war.

As is the case on tax rates, entitlement programs and so many of the predictable crises gathering on the horizon for the country, the seemingly simpler college debt bubble can’t be averted because it is too useful a political weapon.

First, some background.

The Stafford Loan program (named for its patron Sen. Robert Stafford, R-Vt.) has been around since 1965 to provide subsidized student loans to lower-income students.

The loan program became a hot button in the 2006 elections, when Democrats were denouncing Republicans for not doing more to help college students. Part of the problem then was that high interest rates that resulted from the housing bubble were driving up loan prices.

Republicans responded with bipartisan legislation uncoupling Stafford Loans from market rates. Prior to 2006, the Stafford rate was set based on the interest rates the Treasury was paying on T Bills. Both parties took credit that year for cutting the effective student loan rate for needy students from 8.25 percent to 6.8 percent.

But Democrats pressed the issue, saying that if voters would turn out the GOP majority in Congress, the Blue Team would cut interest rates in half from their new lower rate. This was a persuasive pitch not just to students, but also their middle-aged parents who are often the ones who actually end up paying off the loans.

There are about 21 million post-secondary students in the country, and about a quarter of them receive subsidized government loans. This is a large enough segment of the population to be worth pandering to.

After retaking Congress, the Democrats acted swiftly to make good on the promise and voted to cut rates to their current rate of 3.4 percent in 2007. But because the budget estimates for the cost of the loan subsidy were so dire – now $6 billion a year – the Democrats set the legislation to expire after five years.

Just as Republicans had eyed the election calendar with setting the expiry of tax cuts, Democrats figured they could use the political cycle to their benefit. They timed the expiration to make it easier to extend the subsidy and make the subsidies themselves part of a re-election strategy. No one would dare oppose the extension of free money to middle-class families in an election year.

They have so far been proven right. Republicans, feeling very self-conscious about welfare programs these days, surrendered on the subject in advance of what has been a totally predictable line of attack from the Obama campaign on the subject.

The rueful irony for holders of subsidized student loans? If they could go back to the old rules before Congress started monkeying with rates six years ago in a bid to suck up to students and their parents, the current rate would be less than 1 percent.

The Panic of 2008 prompted a flight to government securities, which drove down rates on T-Bills. Since then, the Federal Reserve has printed reams and reams of money to buy up government debt in order to keep interest rates unnaturally low.

Student loan holders would have been among the greatest beneficiaries of this interest rate swoon. But in its pandering, Congress compounded the problem by not only arbitrarily setting rates, but also making them permanent. Under the old rules, rates floated with markets. The new rules would give students certainty, they said.

Here’s another certainty: If you’re paying a student loan at a rate almost 400 percent higher than you would have under the old rules, you have no recourse.

Consider this – if you qualified for a private loan with a floating rate in 2006, you may currently be paying an interest rate of less than half a point. If you didn’t qualify and got “help” from Congress, you are paying 3.4 percent.

There is an even bigger problem. America’s colleges and universities are producing graduates in the same way that a Soviet boot factory produced boots: without regard for demand.

The unemployment rate for the 20 to 24 set is 13 percent, a number hugely reduced by the ever-growing number of people in that age group who are staying in school longer. If there’s no work, and the government is subsidizing loans, why not add a graduate degree?

Stafford is far from the only government subsidy for higher educations. Pell Grants, loan forgiveness programs and other subsidies have allowed higher educational institutions to charges increasingly astronomical rates.

With fewer people actually paying full freight, schools have experienced far less blowback for massive rate hikes. But like medical costs in the era of Medicare and Medicaid, the price of tuition reflects plenty of cost shifting. The rate hikes are needed, in part, to pay to constantly expand the offerings and capacity of the institutions that have to accommodate all these new students. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The resulting bubble of student loan debt has now eclipsed $1 trillion – more than the combined credit card debt of all Americans. Jobs are hard to find and many of the debtor students sought degrees totally unrelated to the demands of the marketplace – private lenders care about the likelihood of your major to produce a salary to repay the loan, government lenders do not.

The government can keep the bubble inflated with tax dollars, but the cost of doing so will grow higher and higher. This $6 billion debate is just a foretaste.

But even dealing with the current issue, the July 1 end of the Democrats’ 2006 campaign promise for a 50 percent rate reduction, has proven beyond the abilities of the political class. Even the simple answer – going back to the system that was in place for 40 years – is an impossibility.

The president sees an opportunity to attack wealthy Romney, whose vast fortune has become an obsession for the embattled president. Just as he did on taxes and entitlements, Obama is unwilling to sacrifice an avenue of political attack in order to solve the problem.

Republicans, meanwhile, have become so phobic about being seen as cruel to the poor that few are willing to wade into such a subject.

The Republican controlled House passed an extension of the 2007 subsidy rate. While they take credit for not adding to the deficit by taking the money from the president’s health law, their version is just one more patch on the ever-inflating student debt balloon.


The Day in Quotes

“Look, Joe Biden's right.  I sit in Detroit this morning David, Usama bin Laden is, indeed, dead.  And GM is not just alive, it's the number one automaker in the world.  I can assure you that, too, wouldn't have been the case had Mitt Romney been President of the United States.”

-- Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs talking to host David Gregory on “Meet the Press.”

“The president's getting some very bad advice from his campaign team, because he's diminishing the presidency by picking fake fights, going after straw men every day.”

-- House Speaker John Boehner on “State of the Union.”

"This is crazy -- he's got an opponent who basically wants to do what they did before, on steroids, which will get you the same consequences you got before, on steroids.”

-- Former President Bill Clinton at a Virginia fundraiser for President Obama attacking presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

“128”

-- The number of fundraisers held by President Obama for his re-election campaign since taking office. His predecessor held a total of 57 for his 2004 re-election campaign.

“$226 million.”

-- Outlay for the current fiscal year for “community transformation grants,” which provide free money to groups working to improve the health habits of Americans. It is the largest single expenditure for the “prevention fund” included in President Obama’s 2010 health law, a fund now targeted by House Republicans to fund an extension of student loan subsidies for lower-income students.


Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News, and his POWER PLAY column appears Monday-Friday on FoxNews.com.

Rights group: US, China ironing out American asylum deal for Chinese dissident

U.S. and Chinese officials are ironing out a deal to secure American asylum for a blind Chinese legal activist who fled house arrest, with an agreement likely before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives this week, a U.S. rights campaigner said Monday.

Bob Fu of the Texas-based rights group ChinaAid said that China and the U.S. want to reach agreement on the fate of Chen Guangcheng before the annual high-level talks with Clinton and other U.S. officials begin in Beijing on Thursday.

"The Chinese top leaders are deliberating a decision to be made very soon, maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours," Fu said, citing a source close to the U.S. and Chinese governments. Both sides are "eager to solve this issue," said Fu, a former teacher at a Communist Party academy in Beijing whose advocacy group focuses on the rights of Christians in China and who maintains a network of contacts in the country.

"It really depends on China's willingness to facilitate Chen's exit," Fu said.

Chen, a well-known dissident who angered authorities in rural China by exposing forced abortions, made a surprise escape from house arrest a week ago into what activists say is the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing, posing a delicate diplomatic crisis for both governments.

The U.S. Embassy declined comment Monday either on Chen's situation or talks involving Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Both want the annual talks, known as the strategic and economic dialogue, to provide ballast to a relationship that is often rocky and to provide ways of working out disputes on trade, Taiwan, Syria, Iran and North Korea.

In a video made after Chen escaped from his village and released last Friday, the activist made no mention of wanting to go abroad. Instead he beseeched Premier Wen Jiabao to investigate the beatings, harassment and other mistreatment he, his wife and daughter suffered at the hands of local officials during 20 months of house arrest.

If Chen were willing to leave China, Washington could ill afford to turn him away. Clinton and other senior officials have repeatedly raised his case in meetings with Chinese officials. President Barack Obama is already under fire from Republicans over a case in which an aide to a senior Chinese leader entered the U.S. Consulate in Chendgu but then left, turning himself over to Chinese investigators.

The European Union has also repeatedly raised Chen's case and its office in Beijing issued a statement Monday calling for China to extend legal protections to him, his family and supporters.

"We call on the Chinese authorities to exercise utmost restraint in dealing with the matter, including avoiding harassment of his family members or any person associated with him," the statement said.

For Beijing, the issue is sensitive because Chen enjoys broad sympathy among the Chinese public for persevering in his activism despite being blind and despite repeated reprisals from local officials. And though Beijing dislikes bargaining with Washington over human rights, allowing Chen to go abroad would remove an irritant in relations with Washington. It would also prevent him from becoming a bargaining chip in an already bumpy transition of power under way from President Hu Jintao's administration to a younger group of leaders.

Fu, who has been a point of contact for people helping Chen, said he offered to help the dissident leave China through "a sort of underground railroad" shortly after he made a daring nighttime escape from his heavily guarded farmhouse on April 22. Fu had made such arrangements previously, helping the wife and two young children of another dissident lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, flee to the U.S. after they'd exited China overland from Beijing to Thailand.

But Fu said that Chen refused the offer and chose instead to go to Beijing. Despite Chen's initial resistance to exile, Fu said that might now be the only option.

"My sense is that at the end of the day, after China is willing to facilitate it in a face-saving way with the U.S., he and his family may have to choose to travel to the U.S. in whatever way that China agrees," he said.

Chen is widely admired by rights activists in China who last year publicized his case among ordinary Chinese and encouraged them to go to Dongshigu village and break the security cordon. Even Hollywood actor Christian Bale tried to visit, but was roughed up by locals paid to keep outsiders away.

A self-taught lawyer blinded by fever in infancy, Chen served four years in prison on what activists say were trumped-up charges after exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in his and surrounding villages. Since his release in September 2010, local officials confined him to his home. Amnesty International and other human rights groups say he was abused over the last 18 months.

Overselling bin Laden's death?

President Barack Obama addresses troops at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on May 6, 2011, days after the Osama bin Laden raid.
President Barack Obama addresses troops at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on May 6, 2011, days after the Osama bin Laden raid.
  • Is President Obama's team exploiting Osama bin Laden's death for political purposes?
  • David Gergen says the answer is yes, but other presidents have done similar things
  • He says the real question is whether the world is safer after bin Laden is gone
  • Gergen: Other militant Islamists are active; Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is worrisome

Editor's note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. He is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Follow him on Twitter.

Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) -- An aggressive public relations offensive by the White House, celebrating the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, is kicking up a hot political fuss. But are we arguing over the wrong question?

With their eyes clearly locked on the November elections, President Barack Obama and his team are going all out to dramatize his decision-making and success in taking out America's most wanted.

What they're doing: Opening up the White House situation room for a presidential interview with NBC, running a television ad by former President Bill Clinton, feeding stories to authors and journalists, encouraging surrogate attacks on Mitt Romney's courage, even a catchy campaign slogan from Joe Biden -- "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

David Gergen

In mock innocence, the White House says they are only responding to news media requests. Yeah, sure.

Is this White House exploitation for political purposes indecorous and unbecoming, as Republicans claim? Of course it is.

Bin Laden death enters U.S. politics
Osama bin Laden dead: One year ago

President George H.W. Bush set the standard for exemplary conduct when he refused to dance on the Soviet grave after its empire collapsed and directed credit toward the U.S. military when they chased Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

But more often than not, a president looking toward re-election has gone too far the other way, milking foreign adventures for votes and Republicans have been as guilty as Democrats.

One of my vivid memories from early White House days was the way we choreographed Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972, and especially his triumphant return, so that his helicopter from Andrews Air Force Base landed on the Capitol lawn and he then strode into the House chamber to report to a joint session of Congress. It was boffo television, and he won re-election in a landslide not long after.

Or think of that "Top Gun" performance by President George W. Bush in 2003 as he landed on an aircraft carrier, stepped out in a flight jacket, and spoke to a prime time audience about Iraq -- with that "Mission Accomplished" banner just behind him. Even in my wildest dreams in the White House, I never dreamed of using an aircraft carrier as a prop. Not long after, Bush, too, won re-election. (It was not lost on the son that dad's approach hadn't won over voters for re-election.)

So even though Obama's critics have a valid point about his current PR offensive, they shouldn't beat him up. The public is a good judge of when a president and his team overplay their hands.

Indeed, it would be far better for Republicans to acknowledge that the president, his advisers and especially the CIA and the Navy SEALs handled bin Laden superbly. Because they did. This was a moment that richly deserves public praise.

If they would acknowledge that achievement, his critics would then have the credibility to raise the more important and serious question: whether the killing of bin Laden and the gradual crushing of al Qaeda as a serious threat to the U.S. has been as transformative as the White House would lead us to believe.

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No one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is hanging up "Mission Accomplished" banners, but with elections a half year away, the White House wants us to know that we have a warrior commander in chief at the helm nailing our enemies.

Unfortunately, it isn't that simple.

Serious observers are arguing that in the aftermath of bin Laden's death, the world may actually have become more dangerous. In Sunday's Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius persuasively makes the case that we got our man but, as bin Laden hoped, other militant Islamists are now gaining political strength in key countries such as Egypt and Syria.

In an excellent essay in Time on bin Laden's elimination, Kennedy School scholar Graham Allison argues that as we now focus on Iran producing its first bomb in the coming 12 months, an increasingly unreliable Pakistan could produce 12 in the same time span.

"So as we applaud extraordinary performance in this operation," concludes Allison, "we are left contemplating a discovery that means we are likely to soon face even more daunting challenges in the days and months ahead."

In a political campaign filled with too many diversions, these are the challenges we should be arguing about on the bin Laden anniversary.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen.

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Secret Service, hire more women

Members of the Secret Service await the arrival of President Barack Obama at the Detroit airport.
Members of the Secret Service await the arrival of President Barack Obama at the Detroit airport.
  • Elaine Kamarck: Allegations of debauchery in Secret Service have serious implications
  • She says terrorists could easily know if that's the case and exploit agents' vulnerabilities
  • She says changing culture by adding more women could help
  • Kamarck: Presence of women in powerful jobs has pushed back at macho misbehavior

Editor's note: Elaine Kamarck is a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has worked in five Democratic presidential campaigns and in the Clinton/Gore White House and is the author of "Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates have Shaped the Modern Nominating System".

(CNN) -- Is the Colombia prostitution scandal rocking the Secret Service an isolated incident? Or is it evidence of a debauched organizational culture that permeates the entire agency when its agents are out of the country and don't think anyone is watching?

This is the question that has been on everyone's mind as word leaked out last week about a similar incident involving the Secret Service and some military personnel in El Salvador before President Barack Obama's trip there in March.

On Thursday, an unnamed source told the Washington Post that such behavior was part of the Secret Service culture.

The implications are serious indeed. Paying prostitutes for sex is, of course, sordid, immoral and pretty embarrassing in and of itself. However, if in fact the men in the agency charged with protecting the president and other important government officials when they are abroad have a history of cavorting with prostitutes -- in a culture that says it's OK -- the problem goes way beyond embarrassment.

The Secret Service agent from room 707
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Kimmel skewers Secret Service at roast

This whole business may be news to the American public, but if it is really part of the culture it isn't news to those who wish us harm. In the decade since the September 11 attacks, we have come to understand that the shady world of terror is inextricably bound up with the shady world of illegal activity. How many "prostitutes" are also foreign agents or terrorist operatives? How many others are simply willing to make money, first by selling themselves and then by selling whatever they find in the bedrooms of American government personnel to someone who is up to no good?

This is not a problem that can be solved by the passage of new laws or by moving the boxes around on an organization chart. Even the swift action taken to remove the offenders from their jobs, and to revoke the security clearances of others will not offer much of a deterrent once memories of the scandal fade and some new outrage surfaces to dominate the news.

Ordinarily, changing an organization's culture is pretty hard work. But when the culture in need of change is a macho culture where good old-fashioned debauchery and "boys being boys" is OK as long as no one gets caught -- the solution is pretty straightforward: Hire more women. Isn't it funny how having to work alongside a woman who, for instance, knows your wife -- seems to inhibit old fashioned male fun?

We've seen this before. Tales from the 1960 presidential campaign plane can be summarized by the motto: "Wheels up, rings off!" (As in wedding rings.) From the candidate on down, the inhabitants of the hard-drinking, virtually all-male world of politicians, and the reporters who wrote about them, covered for each other and kept things private for years.

Today's campaign plane has been cleaned up a lot -- from the candidates to the reporters -- and the most important reason is that there are now a fair number of women on the plane, as both advisers with real power and reporters with real power. Can you imagine the kind of debauchery that was standard operating procedure 50 years ago being tolerated by Beth Meyers, the influential, longtime aide to Mitt Romney who has the important job of heading his vice presidential search?

Years ago the only women around were young women with no power. They were often the victims of a bad culture. Today there are middle-aged women with real power. They are not victims of the all male culture -- they change it.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook/CNNOpinion

I know this has happened in politics, I saw it myself coming into the business at the end of the old era. And I suspect it has happened in other professions, as well. Do advertising executives still woo clients with multiple martinis and high-class call girls, a la "Mad Men"? Maybe. But I suspect the presence of lot of powerful women in that business has reduced the overall level of debauchery.

If there does turn out to be a culture of debauchery in the Secret Service, it will not come as a surprise. After all, the "protection professions," if you will -- Secret Service, police, military -- are among the last professions to be overwhelmingly male. And yet, as we've seen in the military, when technology takes over from muscle, women start to do the same things as men. In the workplace they begin to go where only men used to go.
And outside of the workplace? Well, it's hard to imagine an organization where the women head out to a brothel together.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Elaine Kamarck.

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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says now is not time to strike Iran - @BloombergNews

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said now isn’t a good time to strike Iran and that quiet diplomacy may be effective, adding to domestic criticism of the way the government is handling the Iranian threat.

“There is enough time to try different avenues of pressure to change the balance of power with Iran without the need for a direct military confrontation with Iran and now is not the right time,” Olmert said at a conference hosted by The Jerusalem Post in New York late yesterday. His comments were published today in the English-language newspaper.

Olmert’s comments followed those of Yuval Diskin, former chief of Israel’s Shin-Bet internal security service, who said on April 27 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have exaggerated Israel’s ability to halt Iran’s nuclear program using military means. Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said in an interview published on April 25 that he didn’t believe that Iran would build an atomic bomb.

Netanyahu has expressed skepticism that international sanctions will stop Iran from enriching uranium. He has warned that the Islamic Republic’s leaders want to build nuclear weapons and has said that Israel has taken no option off the table in dealing with Iran. President Barack Obama has said diplomacy must be given more time to work before any military options are exercised.

“I’m not certain that when we speak loudly it is more helpful than when we speak privately and quietly with the leadership of those countries,” Olmert said.

Iran says its nuclear program is to produce electricity and is only for peaceful purposes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

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Ohio officials will allow return of 5 surviving exotic animals to suicidal owner's widow - @AP

Ohio officials are clearing the way for the return of five surviving exotic animals to a woman whose husband released dozens of wild creatures last fall, then committed suicide.

The Ohio Agriculture Department announced the decision Monday at an agency hearing in which the state was to defend its authority to quarantine the animals on suspicion of infectious diseases.

A spokeswoman for the agency said the state had exhausted its authority in the case and that the state's agriculture director would lift the quarantine order that was placed on the animals in October. Medical results released last week showed all five animals are free of the dangerously contagious or infectious diseases for which they were tested.

That means the animals can be returned to Marian Thompson of Zanesville, though it's unclear when that might happen. Logistics for retrieving the animals will have to be worked out between Thompson and the Columbus zoo, which has been holding the five creatures, said agriculture spokesman Erica Pitchford.

Marian Thompson is the widow of Terry Thompson, who released 56 animals — including black bears, mountain lions and Bengal tigers — from his eastern Ohio farm Oct. 18 before he committed suicide. Authorities killed 48 of the animals as a public safety measure. Three leopards, two primates and a bear survived and have been held at the Columbus zoo since then. One leopard had to be euthanized in January.

Marian Thompson's attorney, Robert McClelland, said his client has adequate cages for the surviving animals, according to a letter obtained last week by The Associated Press through a public records request. The state's agriculture director told McClelland earlier this month that the Agriculture Department required proof of the arrangements Thompson has made for the animals' confinement and care.

State officials issued a quarantine order because they said they were concerned about reports that the animals lived in unsanitary conditions where they could be exposed to disease. The order prevented the Columbus zoo from releasing the animals until it's clear they're free of dangerous diseases.

Terry Thompson's suicide, the animals' release and their killings led lawmakers to re-examine the state's restrictions on exotic pets, which are considered some of the nation's weakest. The state Senate recently passed a bill that would ban new ownership of monkeys, lions and other exotic animals. It now goes to the House for consideration.

Gov. John Kasich, the Columbus zoo, and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation support the measure, which would ban new ownership of dangerous exotic animals but allow current owners to keep their animals by obtaining a new state-issued permit by 2014 and meeting other strict conditions. Facilities accredited by some national zoo groups would be exempt from the bill, along with sanctuaries and research institutions.

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UN chief Ban Ki-moon urges further lifting of sanctions on Myanmar, increased aid - @AP

The Associated Press YANGON, Myanmar

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the international community on Monday to lift its sanctions on Myanmar to support democratic reforms and to substantially increase aid for the country's development.

Mr. Ban said in a speech to parliament that the world should match the ambitions of the country's people for democracy and change.

More related to this story

But he also urged Myanmar to deal with “difficult issues” including the resettlement of displaced communities, security guarantees for ethnic and political groups and the release of all political prisoners.

Mr. Ban has said he is visiting Myanmar now because there is “an unprecedented opportunity” to help democratic change at this “critical moment.”

It is his third visit to Myanmar as secretary-general, but his first since a 2010 general election helped install a nominally civilian government, the country's first since a military coup in 1962.

The visit is the latest in a series by foreign dignitaries since President Thein Sein's reform campaign gathered steam by winning the endorsement of the leader of Myanmar's democracy movement, former political detainee Aung San Suu Kyi. The election that brought Thein Sein to power left the military in firm control but signalled a desire for political reconciliation.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are also visiting Myanmar this week. Since January, the country has hosted British Prime Minister David Cameron and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Canada.

The visits have heralded an easing of sanctions imposed by their governments because of the previous military junta's repressive policies.

In Mr. Ban's speech to the lawmakers, believed to be the first by a foreigner in the country's parliament, he said Myanmar's recent dramatic changes have inspired the world. “And we know that your ambitions for the future reach higher still,” he said.

Mr. Ban said the international community should “go even further in lifting, suspending or easing trade restrictions and other sanctions” and recognize that Myanmar needs a substantial increase in development aid and foreign investment.

“The best way for the international community to support reform is to invest in it,” he said.

Mr. Ban noted ongoing military operations against the Kachin ethnic minority in northern Myanmar, a situation that has led Western nations to maintain an arms embargo against Myanmar despite the lifting of other restrictions. Calling the fighting inconsistent with the conclusion of cease-fires with other ethnic minorities, he said, “The Kachin people should no longer be denied the opportunity that a cease-fire and a political agreement can bring for peace and development.”

He urged the government to continue to allow humanitarian supplies to reach the Kachin area.

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US stocks open slightly lower after a report shows Spain's economy is in recession; Dow falls 11 points

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US, Chinese officials ironing out asylum deal for Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, US rights campaigner says - @AP

U.S. and Chinese officials are ironing out a deal to secure American asylum for a blind Chinese legal activist who fled house arrest, with an agreement likely before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives this week, a U.S. rights campaigner said Monday.

Bob Fu of the Texas-based rights group ChinaAid said that China and the U.S. want to reach agreement on the fate of Chen Guangcheng before the annual high-level talks with Clinton and other U.S. officials begin in Beijing on Thursday.

"The Chinese top leaders are deliberating a decision to be made very soon, maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours," Fu said, citing a source close to the U.S. and Chinese governments. Both sides are "eager to solve this issue," said Fu, a former teacher at a Communist Party academy in Beijing whose advocacy group focuses on the rights of Christians in China and who maintains a network of contacts in the country.

"It really depends on China's willingness to facilitate Chen's exit," Fu said.

Chen, a well-known dissident who angered authorities in rural China by exposing forced abortions, made a surprise escape from house arrest a week ago into what activists say is the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing, posing a delicate diplomatic crisis for both governments.

Chen Guangcheng

AP

FILE- This file image made from video posted... View Full Caption
FILE- This file image made from video posted to YouTube April 27, 2012 by by overseas Chinese news site Boxun.com, shows blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell arrived early Sunday, April 29 in Beijing on a hastily arranged trip as problems from the escape of a blind legal activist to possible new arms sales to Taiwan threaten to derail fragile U.S.-China co-operation. His trip comes after activist Chen Guangcheng escaped from house arrest in his rural village (AP Photo/Boxun.com, File) Close

The U.S. Embassy declined comment Monday either on Chen's situation or talks involving Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Both want the annual talks, known as the strategic and economic dialogue, to provide ballast to a relationship that is often rocky and to provide ways of working out disputes on trade, Taiwan, Syria, Iran and North Korea.

In a video made after Chen escaped from his village and released last Friday, the activist made no mention of wanting to go abroad. Instead he beseeched Premier Wen Jiabao to investigate the beatings, harassment and other mistreatment he, his wife and daughter suffered at the hands of local officials during 20 months of house arrest.

If Chen were willing to leave China, Washington could ill afford to turn him away. Clinton and other senior officials have repeatedly raised his case in meetings with Chinese officials. President Barack Obama is already under fire from Republicans over a case in which an aide to a senior Chinese leader entered the U.S. Consulate in Chendgu but then left, turning himself over to Chinese investigators.

The European Union has also repeatedly raised Chen's case and its office in Beijing issued a statement Monday calling for China to extend legal protections to him, his family and supporters.

"We call on the Chinese authorities to exercise utmost restraint in dealing with the matter, including avoiding harassment of his family members or any person associated with him," the statement said.

For Beijing, the issue is sensitive because Chen enjoys broad sympathy among the Chinese public for persevering in his activism despite being blind and despite repeated reprisals from local officials. And though Beijing dislikes bargaining with Washington over human rights, allowing Chen to go abroad would remove an irritant in relations with Washington. It would also prevent him from becoming a bargaining chip in an already bumpy transition of power under way from President Hu Jintao's administration to a younger group of leaders.

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