Political Violence Is Never The Answer September 11, 2025 Full stop. But the news doesn’t stop, especially these days, and it would be a terrible mistake to tune it out, hoping things will somehow right themselves. So while we all condemn Charlie Kirk’s murder — Andrew Yang was among the many who said it very well — it also reminds us, as if we needed any reminding, of what precarious times these are. Thom Hartmann’s post was so powerful yesterday that I can’t simply to link to it, knowing that — with so much competing for your attention — few of you will click through to read it. So here’s a condensed version: When Government Is Afraid of the People, Tyranny Has No Chance And, yet, today increasing numbers of Americans are afraid of their government. > 65 million Hispanic Americans now live in terror of the police, carrying their passports and dreading traffic stops or shopping at Home Depot. > Our news media are terrified of being sued or otherwise harassed by Trump, so much so that two of our three big TV networks have paid him millions in what was essentially protection money. CBS just put a rightwinger with ties to the GOP as their ombudsman, and NBC is on the verge of spinning off MSNBC. > Republicans in the House and Senate are so cowed that they’re desperately engaging in a coverup of his alleged participation with Epstein. > Armed men in civilian clothes with masks on their faces are snatching people off the street and disappearing them. > Government workers live in terror that some old tweet or message board posting might be discovered that will cost them their jobs. > Former government employees and elected officials are wiping out their retirement savings to pay for lawyers because our government has targeted them for Trump’s “retribution.” > People who volunteer to help out with voting operations find themselves doxed and vilified on national rightwing media and have to go into hiding, the peace and normalcy of their lives shattered. > Captains of industry, CEOs of the nation’s largest companies, trek to the White House to bow and scrape. > Cabinet meetings have turned into a bad caricature of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” We watch, yelling at the TV, “Tell him he’s naked!” but to no avail; they can’t stop slobbering over him like terrified victims being held at knifepoint by a serial killer. None of this is normal in a democracy; all of these are signs of a creeping dictatorship taking over our nation. Our Attorney General is apparently leading the Epstein coverup, our Secretary of State cheerleads murdering civilians on the high seas, our Treasury Secretary is reportedly provoking fistfights, our Energy and EPA chiefs deny climate change and push more fossil fuel pollution, FEMA is being gutted, Social Security has been crippled, Medicare is about to start pre-clearance of payments in six states, millions will soon be thrown off Medicaid, aid to student borrowers is gone, and food support to needy Americans is being pulled along with food and medicine for millions around the world. All being done so the morbidly rich (like our billionaire president and the 13 billionaires in his cabinet) could get another $4 trillion tax gift, paid for by the rest of us. Everything Putin wants, he gets. As Trump discards America’s allies, Xi is picking them up Tariffs, which have been the careful, surgical tools of trade policy wielded by Congress since the days of George Washington, are being used as blunt cudgels to beat foreign countries into giving cash, jumbo jets, and Trump Tower opportunities to America’s parasitic ruling family. Even our Supreme Court has fallen to big money corruption. History shows that when fascists haven’t yet entrenched themselves as far as Hitler or Mussolini did (or Putin and Orbán today) it’s still possible for the people to rise up and throw them out. It happened in Ukraine, in South Korea, in Spain and Chile, among others. People stood up in the face of fear of their governments and, instead, peacefully made those governments fear them. And it can happen here, too. So, now it’s our turn. And our obligation. We’re the ones who must save us, who must stand up to these fascists, who must awaken our friends, neighbors, and relatives. Tag, we’re it! Join today’s Indivisible call (3pm Eastern). Support “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner even if you’re not L, G, B, or T and even if you can’t come. An adequately funded opposition party is absolutely necessary for democracy to prevail.
Important Advice For Mamdani And The Sweetest Idea September 10, 2025 Looking for exciting young Democratic talent? James Talarico, 36 — to whom I’ve introduced you before — announces Senate bid (3 minutes). Move over, Cornyn and Paxton! Even younger at 33, Zohran Mamdani strikes me as a talented, thoughtful, idealistic leader who could surprise on the upside. But I sure hope he reads How Zohran Mamdani Could Kill New York’s Schools* by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Chancellor of Education, before he gets too dug in. If he doesn’t take good advice like this — and I think he may — there will be no upside surprise. *Killing, in fact, the excellence of schools like the very one he himself attended. THE SWEETEST IDEA . . . . . . came to mind when I saw this: Jeff Bezos’s Amazon has made my life, and, I assume, the lives of hundreds of millions of others around the world better — or we would not be using it. My main issue with plutocrats is that they should be taxed more heavily. What bothers me most is the bottom right quadrant. Most workers are no longer unionized. They have no bargaining power. It’s Congress that represents their interests — Congress that should “negotiate” a higher federal minimum wage. (State governments can go further, as many have.) I’d be fine with differentiating between high, mid, and low cost-of-living zones — and perhaps building in tweaks for high school kids and tipped workers. But is there any part of the U.S. where $7.25 an hour is adequate? If the obscene growth in income and wealth inequality since 1980 bothers you, check out Patriotic Millionaires at the Honey Festival. They call it “the sweetest idea.”
Scott Bessent And Your Sweatpants September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 Scott Bessent once gave me $100,000 for the DNC. Some of you will recall that I had high hopes when he was named Treasury Secretary. Separately . . . I knew my friend Simon Yates — a master of the financial universe — to be an accomplished skier, an accomplished pianist, and a student of the violin. I did not know until recently what a fine writer he is. Here he imagines Scott Bessent’s January 27 memo to the President. It is very fun reading. And yesterday he asked: Did Scott Bessent use AI to write his WSJ Article? (Meanwhile, Politico reports: ‘I’m Gonna Punch You in Your F–king Face’: Scott Bessent Threatens an Administration Rival.) Even though Scott almost surely didn’t use A.I. to write his article, A.I. truly dazzles — as you well know. My two latest examples — 1. The string in my sweatshirt hood pulled all the way out. I hate when that happens. But this time I asked Copilot how to get it back in — and was instantly shown six ways. I used the “chopstick” method . . . and it worked! 2. I’m headed to Europe soon. I told Copilot: “Many Europeans don’t like us anymore. Please design a T-shirt to convey the notion ‘SORRY, I HATE HIM, TOO’ without using his name or likeness.” Two seconds later: 1. “Not My Circus” Front: A stylized illustration of a chaotic circus tent with smoke, fireworks, and a broken megaphone. Text: “Not My Circus. Not My Clown.” Style: Vintage carnival font, muted colors. Message: A classic idiom that subtly distances you from political chaos. 2. “Stars & Stripes, But Make It Chill” Front: A reimagined American flag where the stars are peace signs and the stripes are rainbow waves. Text: “I brought snacks, not politics.” Style: Retro 70s vibe. Message: You’re here for culture and connection, not confrontation. 3. “Apology Tour 2025” Front: A fake concert tour shirt listing European cities. Back: “Sorry for the noise. I voted for sanity.” Style: Grunge band tee aesthetic. Message: Self-aware, humorous, and instantly relatable. 4. “Make America Think Again” Front: A silhouette of a brain wearing sunglasses. Text: “Make America Think Again” Style: Bold, clean typography. Message: A clever twist that signals your values without naming names. Not bad for two seconds’ “thought.” Use A.I. to design your sign for October 18! Assemble a group of friends to join you! The Founders are counting on us not to let the flame go out. Speaking of which . . . Can you be in New York November 14 for “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner? Or support it even though you’re neither L, G, B, or T and will be thousands of miles away? There’s always an LGBT element to it, for sure. Over these years the dinners have helped, in a tiny way, to elect Democrats who have — against the relentless opposition of most elected Republicans — dramatically improved the lives of millions of Americans (at no cost to our fellow taxpayers) simply by giving us equal rights. But there’s always — and this year, especially — a much broader purpose. Because by helping to elect LGBT-friendly Democrats we help with all the other Democratic issues: affordable healthcare, reproductive rights, voting rights, livable wages, climate, consumer protection and . . . these days . . . science, the rule of law, and democracy itself. I know the Party’s approval rating is 34%. It’s 0% among Trump supporters and only 74%, last I heard, among Democrats. But that’s not because 26% of Democrats approve of Trump or his Congress or his Court; it’s because they’re so rightly and incredibly frustrated by the our powerlessness to do anything! Yes, we impeached him twice — and got a majority of the Senate to convict the second time. But Mitch McConnell assumed the criminal justice system would finish the job without his having to . . . and Joe should surely have stuck to his plan to pass the torch but he didn’t . . . and . . . etc., etc. It is what it is. And an adequately funded DNC — obviously — is not sufficient to fix it.* But an adequately funded DNC is a necessary condition to fix it, because without a well-funded opposition party, providing the basic infrastructure all our Democratic candidates rely on, our cause would be lost. And we just can’t let that happen. So sign up for the dinner . . . or contribute now anyway. I’ll see it the minute you do, to say thanks. *As I wrote yesterday, it’s groups like Indivisible that should be organizing peaceful street protests rather than the DNC; charismatic Democratic governors and presidential hopefuls who should be leading the charge rather than the DNC chair. In China, it’s the Party chair who runs the show. That’s not our system.
Ezra Klein Is A Must-Listen: What Should The Democrats DO? September 8, 2025 But first . . . SOME COLD, HARD FACTS ABOUT CALIFORNIA: We have been getting a lot of attention on Fox News lately, but here are some cold, hard FACTS you won’t hear on that network. Middle class families in California pay LESS in taxes than in states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.[*] 50 million of the 52 million jobs created since the Cold War have been created in Democratic administrations. Republican presidents have one thing in common: recession. Life expectancy, infant mortality, deaths of despair, wages and uninsured rates are all worse off in red states. California is the fourth largest economy in the WORLD. We contribute $83 billion TO the federal government while Texas TAKES $71 billion. California is #1 in manufacturing, #1 in farming, #1 in new business starts, #1 in tech and VC investments, #1 in Fortune 500 companies, and the #1 public higher education system in the country. California has some of the strongest gun laws in the country and as a result has a 43% lower gun death rate than the rest of the U.S. according to data from the CDC while President Trump oversaw the largest spike in homicides recorded in U.S. history. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! Gavin Newsom And . . . FAREED ZAKARIA Trump’s Tariffs Are A Gift — Just Not To America . . . [A] toxic combination of tariffs, hostile rhetoric and ideological demands is moving many of the world’s pivotal states away from the United States and toward China. . . . There is no strategic rationale for these policy reversals. Trump is punishing Brazil because that country’s independent courts are holding accountable Trump’s ideological soulmate, Jair Bolsonaro, for his efforts to reject the results of free and fair elections. South Africa faces Trump’s ire because of a land reform law that is an attempt to address some of the vast disparities in landholding and wealth caused by decades of apartheid. These reasons have nothing to do with restoring America’s manufacturing base or reducing trade deficits. The U.S. actually runs a trade surplus with Brazil. Zakaria calls it possibly “the greatest own goal in modern foreign policy.” (An “own goal” is when you accidentally score one for the other team.) And . . . IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE RULE OF LAW Chris Murphy to Kristi Noem — 30 seconds. So so good. (Even better: the full 6 minutes.) And now! One might argue that it’s groups like Indivisible that should be organizing peaceful street protests (October 18!) rather than the DNC; that it’s charismatic Democratic governors and presidential hopefuls who should be leading the charge rather than Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. But like Ezra Klein, all I know for sure is that the situation is urgent. EZRA KLEIN WANTS DEMOCRATS TO HAVE A PLAN! One of the most thoughtful — powerful, important — 20 minutes you’ll ever hear. *The ITEP study shows that Incomes in California’s middle 20% — those earning $39,100 to $62,300 — pay an average of 8.3% in state and local income, property and sales and excise taxes. That gives California the 11th-lowest tax burden in the country for that income bracket.
The Rose Garden Club — And More September 6, 2025September 6, 2025 AN “ANTI-DISINFORMATION ACTIVIST” That’s how Jim Stewartson ID’s himself, so naturally he had me at “hello.” Last month he posted: The Rupture Has Arrived: 7 Signs We Are No Longer a Democracy There is very little reason to believe America is still a constitutional republic. The U.S. government is no longer following the oath every federal employee takes—to support and defend the Constitution. It is a rogue state operating as a proxy for a malignant narcissist in collapse. . . . Here are seven examples from the last 48 hours or so . . . Yesterday he posted: In the last 24 hours, Trump’s regime has lost all semblance of a constitutional government. The Trump regime has crossed the final threshold: it now openly declares itself above the law—domestically and internationally. . . . And his heir apparent renounced the Geneva Conventions. Last night, Donald Trump debuted his new “Rose Garden Club” at the White House for his most loyal sycophants and gave an unhinged speech that provided no illusions about Trump’s determination to create a full personalist dictatorship. . . . Followed by: The 35% Answer: What to do when a Third of Your Country Lives in an Alternate Timeline Democracy only works if we can agree on what happened. Not what it means, just what actually happened. We can debate whether a war was justified. We can’t debate whether it occurred. That basic requirement is now broken. . . . Through a combination of social media algorithms, deliberate propaganda, and partisan news ecosystems, roughly a third of the country has moved to a different dimension. . . . The comfortable liberal assumption is that this is an information problem. If we just fact-check harder, teach media literacy, or find the right messenger, people will come around to reality. This is delusional. . . . I don’t know where you’re going to find time to read all this — unlike me, you have lives — but it’s there if you want it. IS MUSK WORTH ANOTHER TRILLION? Yes, reports FORTUNE, you read that correctly: Tesla pay committee pitches $1 trillion pact to keep Elon Musk as CEO for long term. Or maybe it’s just a publicity stunt to hype the value of his stock? Either way, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld thinks it’s ridiculous. CHINA, INDIA, AND A.I. Tom Friedman: It takes a lot, I must say, for the United States to actually drive India into the arms of China. The level of stupidity that you need in terms of American policymaking to do that is as big as all outdoors, because I have 2,000 years of history that says Chinese and Indians do not play well. So the fact that the leader of India — Prime Minister Modi — would go to China to sit down with the leader of China and basically hold hands together with Putin — the leader of Russia — bespeaks a complete failure of American diplomacy. That’s something that would’ve been unimaginable, frankly, a year ago. . . . Are India and China going to militarily align against the United States? That’s inconceivable to me since they basically have a smoldering war between them on their own border. So a lot of this is spectacle, but it’s the kind of thing that leaves America more isolated and less effective on the world stage because we lose our leverage on China and Russia when we lose an ally like India. . . . [T]here’s two things in the world happening faster than you think: one is climate change and the second is artificial intelligence — heading toward some level of autonomous polymathic, artificial intelligence, sometimes called superintelligence. When will we get there? This year, next year, five years — I’m not sure. But I would say the consensus within the A.I. community is that we’re going to get there. And that is going to change everything about everything. . . . SIGN UP! October 18 — No Kings #2 There were 5 million of us at the first one. At this next one, there will be more. Start making your sign and recruiting friends. Saving democracy can be fun.
Lotta Stuff — No Kings #2 September 5, 2025September 5, 2025 Job growth down, prices up (bought coffee beans lately? up 59% from a year ago?), stagflation looms. But at least he ended the wars in Ukraine and Gaza — on Day One, no less — and shortly thereafter pardoned the violent January 6th attackers who aimed to kill the Vice President . . . and is now giving kids a better chance of developing measles immunity the old-fashioned way, by contracting it. Jonathan Alter argues that Trump is more a mob boss than a dictator. But why not both? And a murderer, to boot: When the Court Says Trump Is Above the Law, Who Protects the Eleven Dead on That Boat? If Hartmann’s account is accurate, it was “a small vessel that couldn’t possibly travel as far as America.” So why did we kill those Venezuelans? Isn’t murder something Americans mostly oppose? He’s so strong! So macho! (A man’s man! Grab ’em by the pussy!) And so . . . Trump to rebrand Defense Department as War Department To which news VoteVets reacted: Let us remind you, though at this point you already know. Donald Trump never served. Never wore the uniform. Matter of fact, he did everything he could to avoid serving. Dodged the draft multiple times, a real Fortunate Son. Even called dodging STDs in the 80s his personal Vietnam. That matters today, and here’s why: World War Two was the deadliest war in human history. Nearly 100 million people were killed, civilian and military. War is hell, and after World War Two people started to recognize that war should only be waged as a last resort. American leaders, both civilian and military, named the Department of War the Department of Defense because they recognized the truth — war is hell. Defense, not war, should be our priority. But Trump’s an idiot, a coward with soft hands and a silver spoon. Only somebody who dodged the draft five times and let somebody else go in his place would want to command the Department of War. It might sound insignificant with everything else happening, but this kind of thing is still important. It’s about how this nation perceives itself and is perceived by the world. Project strength, prioritize peace, and resort to war when you have no other option. As long as we have breath in our lungs, VoteVets is going to fight this. Changing the name of the Department of Defense requires an act of Congress, and we’ll fight like hell to make sure that act never passes. If you can, make a donation and so we can gear up our team and stop this. No Department of War. BACK TO BUSINESS Sick Profits: How Healthcare Companies Have Gotten Richer From The Trump Tax Cuts While Submitting Their Customers And Patients To Higher Costs And Substandard Care CNF One of those stocks many of us bought with money we could truly afford to lose announced terrible First Half of 2025 Unaudited Financial Results. The only bright side is that it has done a 1-for-10 reverse split. Ordinarily, that makes no logical difference — instead of 10 dimes, we have one dollar — but with CNF, the 2-cent-a-share annual custodial fee we’ve been charged — which seemed fairly trivial when the stock was $3 or $4 and I hoped it would quintuple — has become crazy high, percentage-wise, as the stock did the opposite and fell ever lower. I’m holding my shares (bought a few more yesterday at 25 cents, which is now a tenth as many at $2.50) in hopes of a recovery. But only with money I can truly afford to lose — because, so far, and on paper, boy have I ever! HYMC This crazy speculation, by contrast, is doing better. It’s rallied nicely of late, perhaps in part because some people see gold going even higher — JP Morgan: Gold could surge as high as $4,250 next year amid uncertainty over Fed — and perhaps in part because investors are heartened by recent news and what the company sees as its significant potential. I’m not selling. SIGN UP! There were 5 million of us at the first one. October 18 there should be more: October 18 — No Kings #2 Start making your sign and recruiting friends to join you. Saving democracy can be fun. Have a great weekend!
This Is Fascism; It’s A Wonderful Time To Be A Criminal September 4, 2025September 3, 2025 Two quietly powerful minutes from the Indivisible chapter in Sequim, WA. Watch. BONUS It’s a wonderful time to be a criminal (4 minutes). NOTE: For those of you spreading DIS-disinformation, maybe post that clip like this: “Hey, can you send me Obama pardon examples to counter this bulls**t?” Framing it that way might get it watched. > Join today’s Indivisible call — 3pm Eastern. > Start recruiting friends, and making signs, to join October 18 — No Kings Day #2. > Support the opposition. (No, it’s not everything we want and certainly not sufficient. But a well-funded opposition party is an absolutely necessary condition to our saving democracy.)
Putin Is Winning – Part 44 September 2, 2025September 2, 2025 Or however many times I’ve had to announce that sad fact. (It’s actually more than 44 times, dating back to 2017, if you count posts like this one from August 2016 where that exact phrase is not used but the point is much the same.) Yesterday was another big win for Putin, as he and Modi held hands and huddled with Xi. I posted this a couple of weeks ago . . . Fareed Zakariah: Alienating India is Trump’s greatest foreign policy mistake thus far. . . . and had been planning to post this from the Economist today . . . For America to alienate India is a colossal mistake. . . . but yesterday’s news beat me to it. We are driving our long-time ally and hoped-for China-counterbalance into the arms of Russia. With an economy smaller than that of Texas — but nukes and ruthless determination — Putin, the judo master, is winning. So just to recap: > The self-proclaimed “king of debt” took six businesses into bankruptcy and is now bankrupting the United States, needlessly adding trillions to our debt by extending tax cuts to the top 1% and corporations who don’t need them. “I’m great with debt,” he says. “Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.” Failing to keep your promises to creditors may be a smart thing in business, but in the world of government bonds it’s called “default,” even the hint of which has weakened faith in the dollar. As has his meddling with the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump could well destroy the incredible advantage we get from the dollar being the world’s reserve currency. A win for Putin. > He has taken an economy that was the envy of the world (its all too real affordability crisis notwithstanding) and poised it for the very real possibility of stagflation . . . all the while working to increase the already massive inequality typical of authoritarian regimes where a favored few enjoy incredible luxury while the masses struggle. A win for Putin. > He has alienated our traditional democratic allies and embraced — even written “love letters” to — our traditional (autocratic) adversaries . . . tossing aside the good will and “soft power” we had spent less than 1% of our GDP to accumulate around the world, ceding much of it to China and Russia. A win for Putin. > He has assaulted civility, shattered norms, and weakened institutions throughout government, academia, our health care system, and the press. A win for Putin. > He has polarized the nation more bitterly than at any time since the Civil War . . . with considerable help from Russian bots and psy-ops. A win for Putin. > He has made a mockery of the Statue of Liberty and destabilized the labor market by killing last year’s tough but humane bipartisan immigration reform in favor of unidentified masked agents terrorizing decent people and, in some cases, depriving them of their Constitutional rights. A win for Putin. > He has dialed back our support for Ukraine. A huge win for Putin. Most of us grew up believing that the bad guy — be he a dictator or a bully — shouldn’t win. And yet, with the acquiescence of the Republican House and Senate, he (meaning either Putin or Trump, take your pick) clearly is. Join Indivisible. Check out Braver Angels. Support the opposition. (No, it’s not everything we want and certainly not sufficient. But a well-funded opposition party is an absolutely necessary condition to our saving democracy — don’t you think?)
The Healthiest President In The History Of The World September 1, 2025September 2, 2025 FOX NEWS / SPONGE BOB 15 Seconds. JOIN ICE! Unmissable career advice (80 seconds). THE HEALTHIEST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD Or possibly not. BUT I’D BET SHE DOESN’T MUCH MIND Liz Cheney falsely linked to letter urging Democrats to fight Trump’s ‘authoritarian machine’ THE APPLE DOESNT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE Errol Musk on his son Elon Join Indivisible. Check out Braver Angels. Support the opposition. (No, it’s not everything we want and certainly not sufficient. But a well-funded opposition party is an absolutely necessary condition to our saving democracy — don’t you think?) Have a great week.
The Year Is 2051 . . . September 1, 2025 Dark, but interesting (3 minutes). We all have to work to find common ground. A house divided cannot stand. Time . . . and . . . again, when ordinary citizens come together to talk things through, they leave not agreeing on everything but with good feeling toward each other. So, yes: Join Indivisible, but perhaps join Braver Angels, too. Either way, we owe it to our Founding Fathers and all those who’ve fought and died for the Constitution to step into the breach and do something. Senator Cory Booker expressed it this way yesterday: In 2012, while Hurricane Sandy was decimating New Jersey, I spent an evening driving around looking for people who needed help. In the dark of night, I saw a light swinging back and forth on top of a hill. As I got closer, I saw an elderly man holding it in front of fallen trees. I yelled, “Why are you out here?” He looked at me like I was the stupidest man in America. He pointed at the shattered wood and twisted wires, and said, “It’s dangerous – I’m standing out here to make sure no one comes along and gets hurt.” At that moment, I had just spoken to President Obama about Newark’s devastation. I had been on the phone with the Governor. But I’ve never forgotten that the most profound response I saw in the worst storm to hit my city in a century was not from someone with a title – but from a man holding up a light in a savage storm so others wouldn’t get hurt. We are in a moral moment. What we need now are people willing to stand in this storm. Will you stand up and demand justice? Will you say “not on my watch” while this administration tears down Medicaid or hurts our children? Cory Yes, it was a fundraising pitch. And yes, there’s way too much money in politics (thanks largely to the Republican Supreme Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions). But we are at a moral moment. Putin shouldn’t be murdering Ukrainians and the U.S. shouldn’t have rolled out the red carpet for him. We shouldn’t be slashing aid to the needy while extending tax cuts to billionaires and adding trillions to our Debt. Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country. We have a republic — “if we can keep it.” Have I mentioned Indivisible? Capitalism is terrific — but relies almost entirely on employees to do the actual work. Have a beautiful Labor Day.