Free Republic

Conservative activist and political pundit Gary Bauer believes former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would make a "fantastic" United States senator. A recent Republican survey showed the high-profile former GOP vice-presidential nominee with a two-percent edge (32% to 30%) over Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell for the right to challenge incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Begich next year. Joe Miller, the tea party-backed nominee in 2010, finished a distant third with 14 percent. The poll was commissioned by the Tea Party Leadership Fund, which is hoping to convince Palin to enter the race. Thus far she has not expressed any public interest...

Forget background checks and gun control, divisions within the GOP on immigration, and Republican intransigence on negotiating a budget deal with the president. The current triple play of Benghazi, the IRS and now the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ phone records has the potential to be a political game changer for 2014. It’s hard to overstate the potential significance of the past week. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a dramatic reversal of the nation’s political narrative — from how bad the Republican brand is and how President Barack Obama is going to mobilize public opinion against the...

If you are a Conservative, you may have gotten a few e-mails from a Washington, D.C. based group called the Tea Party Leadership Fund. These letters will be signed by a man named Todd Cefaratti. The letter states they are looking to “Draft Sarah Palin” into making a run at Alaska’s Senate seat in 2014, a seat now held by democrat Mark Begich. This of course has caused quite a stir, and unfortunately many have sent their hard earned money to this crew. Recently, the group commissioned a poll of Alaskans, looking to legitimize their efforts. Harper Polling found these...

A new Harper Polling poll shows a plurality of likely Alaskan Republican voters support their former Governor, Sarah Palin, as a U.S. Senate candidate in the 2014 GOP primary over Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and 2010 Senate candidate Joe Miller. The survey of 379 likely Republican voters found that 32 percent support Palin, whereas 30 percent support Treadwell and 14 percent support Miller. The Harper Polling poll, conducted via telephone on May 6 and May 7 on behalf of the Tea Party Leadership Fund, found that 45 percent of likely GOP voters think Palin would “fight hardest for conservative values,”...

Disgusted and fed up like the rest of us, Sarah Palin rips members of the Republican Party a new one over their support for the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act” a sales tax on internet purchases. More new taxes? How can we be divided on new taxes? In this horribly weak economy with an over-reaching, over-spending, anti-small-business government continually making the wrong decisions, Republicans can’t even stay committed to “No New Taxes”? Please step away from your Washington, DC bubble and get back in touch with the hard working people who sent you there. Read the planks in our party’s platform...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO. It didn’t work. Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote. The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans —...

The Center for American Progress says the Senate’s pending immigration bill will help legalize 32.5 million migrants over the next 10 years. The estimate is only slightly less than the initial 33.5 million estimate prepared by NumbersUSA, which opposes the bill. Both groups produced similar estimates, but couched them very differently, for very different political purposes. The NumbersUSA group said their estimates were cautious, while the Center for American Progress (CAP) group said their April 30 study shows the Senate bill will actually reduce the current inflow of immigrants. Their similar estimates match the May 3 prediction of a 32.7...

There will almost certainly be an aspect of the National Rifle Association's convention — which opens today in Houston — that feels like a victory celebration. By organizing and agitating its members, the organization was able to kill a Senate compromise on background checks, steamrolling over an ineffectual Organizing For Action. But as discussion of reviving that deal heats up, the NRA may finally face a real roadblock: public opinion. Prior to the April 17th vote — which failed to end a Republican-led filibuster on a bipartisan compromise to expand background checks — there were certainly coordinated organizing efforts. Mayors...

Prominent tea party members are preparing for big wins in 2014 due to negative fallout from President Obama’s signature health care reform. Now that Democratic Party leaders, along with White House officials, are predicting some glitches in the law’s implementation, 2014 elections are shaping in conservatives’ favor — and tea partiers are hoping to capitalize, United Press International reported. The GOP is especially eyeing the Senate as a possible gold mine. “Information has already shown itself to be a series of political time bombs,” said Matt Kibbe, the president and chief executive of FreedomWorks, in UPI. “The only way you...

Yesterday, I noted Sen. John McCain’s recent comments, where he lamented: “There are times these days when I feel that I have more in common on foreign policy with President Obama than I do with some in my own party.” Today, my bloggingheads colleague Bill Scher ups the ante, positing the theory that a Rand Paul nomination for president might cause the McCains of the world to jump on the Hillary bandwagon. From his column at The Week, Scher asks: Where might the “new Republican internationalists” go if Paul wins this intra-party battle? Considering that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton...

When former President Bill Clinton spoke at Georgetown University on April 30, he told Democrats to keep pushing gun control because it's a winner. This is strange advice coming from a man who watched his party endure a loss of historic proportions in 1994; a loss attributed in large part to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats pushed an "assault weapons" ban onto the American people. Clinton spoke of this loss while at Georgetown, telling the audience, "The fact that we had majority support didn't amount to anything, it's always the intensity of support that you have to...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Boston’s conservative radio host Howie Carr on Wednesday that the political momentum is starting to turn against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. When Carr asked the senator if this process behind the push for this bill is the “same thing as Obamacare” where “we have to pass it so we can read it,” Sessions replied: “Absolutely, it really is.” “That is exactly what it is,” Sessions said. “They’re selling the sizzle. They’re selling the smell. And it’s a shoe leather instead of a steak.” Carr said that though everyone...

Last night in Washington, Joe Biden stated that abused women fear getting "raped again by the system." He also made the push that Washington, D.C. should be its own state, with two U.S. senators. Via the pool report: Piles of Bidens are here. In addition to Kathleen [Biden's daughter], VP Biden's wife Jill, his sons Beau and Hunter, and his granddaughters Maisy and Finnegan are also here. VP Biden began his remarks by praising Kathleen for the passion she brings to the cause. He described his initial push for VAWA in the early 90s, when "nobody thought very much of...

During the 2012 election cycle I occasionally ran stories declaring that various Republicans being touted as White House material “will never be president.” Sarah Palin after her narcissistic Gabby Giffords meltdown; Newt Gingrich early in his race-baiting campaign; Mitt Romney after his British Olympics screw-up. I batted 1.000 for that cycle, but it was easy. In 2016, Republicans won’t be facing a Democratic incumbent, so somebody has a shot. I recently wrote that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will never be president, due to his out-of-control anger issues, but candidly, I think that’s my riskiest one yet. I feel no...

Sarah Palin's supporters are urged to contribute money toward recruiting her to run for the U.S. Senate, the Tea Party Leadership Fund said. "We know that, with Sarah in the Senate, conservatives across America can rest a little easier at night knowing she's at the watch," an email from Todd Cefratti of the Leadership Fund, sent this week to supporters, read in part. She would run against incumbent Mark Begich, D-Alaska, the Los Angeles Times noted....

"Do the words 'Senator Sarah Palin' excite you?" That's the opening line of a recent email by The Tea Party Leadership Fund, which is trying to draft the former Alaska governor and past Fox News commentator to run for the Senate in 2014. The fund argues Palin has a clear path to victory in part due to recent polling showing incumbent Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, with less than 50 percent of the vote. But, it being a draft, the group hasn't talked with Palin about whether or not she's interested. And Palin – whose PAC didn't respond to request...

Despite assurances by the likes of Nate Silver that these are solid polls showing "Overwhelming majorities of 80 to 90 percent of the public say they favor background checks," I have previously noted my skepticism of these claims. To me, it wasn't too surprising that the Senate voted down the gun control bill about 10 days ago. My concern is that people were really just being asked about whether they wanted to keep criminals from getting guns, not about the particular legislation being voted on by the Senate. Well, now there is another poll by the PEW Research Center that...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told a group of patriots at the FreedomWorks Texas Summit that fellow Republican Senators yelled at him and Rand Paul and Mike Lee for threatening to filibuster the Democrats’ gun control legislation. “We’ve had probably five or six lunches with a bunch of Republican senators standing and looking at Rand and Mike and me and yelling at us at the top of their lungs. I mean really upset. And they said, ‘Look, why did you do this? As a result of this I go home and constituents are yelling at me that I gotta stand on...

I would like to start (IMMEDIATELY) the process to dispose of Rhino John McFrain McCain. I need to know the documents necessary to start that process (IMMEDIATELY - not tomorrow but TODAY). I need to know who to start the process with, Documents necessary and anyone who would be able to start a web site just to get signatures and get the ball rolling. JonGaltSr (Freeper since 1995 (or manybe it was 1996). Thanks

Vice President Joe Biden joined Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at a forum hosted by the McCain Institute in Arizona Friday, where the pair discussed the recently defeated gun-control measure. Biden told the crowd that last year’s massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., has changed American attitudes about guns, even though the Senate rejected legislation to expand background checks on gun purchases. “Newtown was, to sort of use that old cliche, the straw that that broke the camel’s back,” Biden said, according to the Arizona Republic. “There was a fundamental change, in my opinion, in public attitudes about guns....

After Al Gore lost the electoral college in 2000 in a way that first revealed the contours of the red-blue divide, the Democratic Party made a strategic decision to abandon gun control as a central plank of its agenda. The Newtown massacre has scrambled that calculation. It forced President Obama to push for a gun-control law he didn’t plan, and the failure of that law has provoked a furious liberal backlash against the consensus that Democrats have to leave guns alone. John Oliver’s Daily Show segment captures the incredulity many liberals are feeling: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Oliver’s contrast is to the courage...

Sen. John McCain on Friday pleaded with business leaders to rally behind the immigration reform bill that he negotiated as part of the Senate’s Gang of Eight. Speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's immigration reform summit, McCain (R-Ariz.) said the bill needs the full-throated support of industry to make it to President Obama’s desk. “We need your help. We need you to inform the people you represent. We need their active support, not just passive,” McCain said. “We need all of you, we need all of the people you represent to be actively engaged in the community.” Business groups...

Republicans in the Senate and House are expected to introduce a joint bill Friday that would limit the amount of ammunition that federal agencies are allowed to buy and stockpile over the next six months, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The bill, titled the Ammunition Management for More Accountability or “AMMO” Act, is being proposed after several lawmakers have voiced concerns about some federal agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, seemingly stockpiling large quantities of ammo. “DHS, for instance, has placed two-years worth of ammunition, or nearly 247 million rounds, in its inventory,” the Free Beacon notes. In a...

The biggest question mark over Ron Paul has always been his affinity for unsavory wack jobs on the fringes of American politics, but these days he’s turning that question mark into an exclamation point. The Daily Beast reports that the ex-Texas Congressman is creating the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, a think tank concerned with what Paul considers important foreign policy and civil liberty issues. It appears that the institute’s board contains some truly bizarre characters: Putin shills, Serb genocide apologists, 9/11 truthers, and pro-Confederate loons. Here’s a summary of one of the members, John Laughland: A prominent...

There are times when the words "never" and "always" are the only ones that work. In my case, "never" is becoming the word I must use to describe how I feel about certain candidates for high office. For example, I voted four times for a Bush and once for a McCain — something I will never do again. In 1988, it was Bush the elder over Michael Dukakis. In 1992, I resisted the temptation to punish President "Read-My-Lips" by casting my ballot for Ross Perot, knowing that a vote for the pintsized Texas screwball would simply be handing the presidency...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday equated the Tea Party to a non-violent “anarchist” group because, in his mind, Tea Partiers don’t believe in any form of government. He was speaking about the sequester and other financial issues on the Senate floor. “We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years,” Reid said. “When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent. But they were anarchists because they did not...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had a warm meeting with Obama for America Organizing for Action volunteers in Arizona, as the senator and the members of President Obama’s former campaign apparatus thanked each other for their alliance in support of Obama’s desired gun legislation. “The speakers commended Senator McCain for showing leadership on this issue, and made it clear that we’re still hopeful that, with his help and support, we will get a bipartisan law to protect our country and our local community,” OFA’s Erin Kelly wrote in a blog post today. “We were shocked and excited to see Senator McCain...

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the well-funded group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is seriously considering a months-long television, radio and direct-mail campaign against Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, one of four Democrats who opposed expanding a background check for guns. The goal: Make an example of him. Senior members of Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns met at length Sunday to debate potential responses to the failure of President Obama’s gun regulation package, including a watered-down background check provision that fell five votes short. In addition to Pryor, three Democratic senators abandoned Obama: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska...

Did the senators who voted against a proposal last week to expand background checks on gun buyers take an electoral risk? At first glance, it would seem that they did. Background checks are broadly popular with the public. Overwhelming majorities of 80 to 90 percent of the public say they favor background checks when guns are purchased at gun shows, at gun shops or online. Support for background checks drops when guns are bought through informal channels, or gifts from family members — but the amendment that the Senate voted upon last week, sponsored by the Joe Manchin III, Democrat...

Liberals and civil libertarians shouldn’t yet be saying that there’s utterly no way that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be declared an “enemy combatant.” The post-9/11 law, whatever one’s opinion of it, does say that an American citizen affiliated with al Qaeda, the Taliban, “or associated forces” engaged in hostility with the United States can be declared an enemy combatant. It doesn’t seem like he’s that, but who knows, he may shock everyone when he comes to by saying that he and his brother were precisely that. But it isn’t liberals who are jumping the gun here. As usual, conservatives are rushing...

The battle within the Republican Party over the so-called Gang of Eight’s 844-page immigration bill has often been contentious, but in recent days it has escalated. Despite his plea for cooler heads to prevail in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing last, Alex Conant, press secretary for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, likened the current plight of illegal immigrants to that of slaves in 19th century America. Conant made his remarks in a Twitter argument with the Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll, who accused the Florida Republican of “selling lies.” Conant replied by asking Carroll for suggestions. After Carroll suggested...

Via Michael Goldfarb, a complement to Erick Erickson’s post today at Red State about Republican aides turning desperate, shrill, and repulsive as the Gang of Eight bill runs into stumbling blocks. Quote: MORNING MINDMELD, from GOP Senate aide whose boss favors immigration reform: “The … analysis that the Boston attacks are a setback for immigration reform appears wrongheaded, as we learn more about the story. The fault here wasn’t our immigration system, since the suspects immigrated legally a decade ago as kids and apparently were radicalized here. If anything, the fault lies with our society and domestic intelligence services. Given...

I want my money back. Last October, I gave $2,500 to support Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign to become North Dakota’s junior senator. A few weeks later, she won a surprise victory. I have had a long career in government and politics, but I don’t donate heavily to political campaigns. When I contribute, it’s because I know the candidate well or am really impressed with the person. Heidi Heitkamp was one of the latter: She struck me as strong-willed, principled and an independent thinker. But this week, Heitkamp betrayed those hopes. She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more...

The Boston Marathon tragedy is a reason for Congress to move faster – not slower – to overhaul the nation's immigration system, according to two co-authors of a Senate reform package. Some conservatives on Capitol Hill have suggested Monday's deadly bombings – allegedly orchestrated by a pair of young immigrants from Russia's volatile Caucasus region – should cause lawmakers to move more deliberately in their approach to immigration reform this year. But Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) – chief architects of a sweeping bipartisan immigration proposal unveiled last week – argued Sunday that their bill will help...

As some Newtown families, props being used by the very gun grabbers who have set up the kinds of gun-free shooting galleries in which their children were slain, held hands and prayed for more than 60 votes (having been flown in at taxpayer expense to lobby our representatives to take away our natural rights), it occurred to me that, with 16 Republicans voting that a debate on amending an unalienable right is perfectly in keeping with the Constitution, the Republican party then and there died. Went t*ts up. Ceased to be. If John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Lamar Alexander...

She told us so? The debacle on background checks fully exposed the president’s flawed leadership, which his Democratic rival warned voters about back in 2008. If you ever need a refresher course in just how disconnected Barack Obama is from America’s mainstream culture of guns, consider this scathing indictment: “You know, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of constitutional right ... I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in this country ‘cling to guns’ ... People of all walks of life hunt—and they enjoy doing so because it’s an important part of their life,...

Is there nobody who can tell Ted Cruz to shut up? The young senator from Texas has been on the job for about 100 days, but he has already turned the Senate’s ancient seniority system upside down and is dominating his senior Republican colleagues. He’s speaking for them on immigration, guns and any other topic that tickles his fancy; Republican leaders are seething at being outshone yet are terrified of challenging him. Consider his news conference this week to promote the Republican alternative to gun control. With Cruz on the stage in the Senate TV studio: the bill’s primary author,...

Either Sen. Marco Rubio failed to stay awake in his civil procedure class at the University of Miami Law School, or Sen. Chuck Schumer’s lawyers pulled a fast one on him. How else to explain the Florida Republican’s "MYTH VS. FACT" press release purporting to show that his “Border Security, Economic Opportunity & Immigration Modernization Act” does not enable liberal activist groups to nullify the security measures in the bill by tying them up in court. Rubio writes: While it is true that any legislation passed by Congress is subject to potential review by the Supreme Court (see: ObamaCare), it...

Former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and ex-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge believes the Obama White House can draw some useful lessons from Wednesday's defeat of a bill extending background checks on most firearms purchases. Ridge took a few minutes to chat Thursday about the lessons of Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey's rising national profile and where gun-control advocates go next after Wednesday's vote. Here's the transcript of the interview: Q: In the hours after the Boston Marathon attacks, there was a rush to judgment, both in the press and in social media, about the identity of the alleged...

Uhm… nailed it? (VIDEO-AT-LINK) I guess I appreciate the honesty of the Republican caucus. They’ve just made it clear that they are just kind of gun-control Darwinists at this point. They just think that we should give a whole bunch of guns to the good guys and to the bad guys and let them shoot it out, and hope that the good guys win. That’s their agenda, and a lot of that was made plain today. Well, that was a feisty enough bit of demagoguery to rival some of President Obama‘s preferred tactics. I’m pretty sure that the the good...

Watching President Obama’s fury after Congress failed to pass any gun-control legislation was a sign of his political helplessness. Despite aggressively pushing for expanded background checks, despite enlisting the victims of recent gun violence to lobby their representatives, despite getting one of the more conservative senators to support a watered-down background-check measure, he fell five votes short of getting anything passed in the Senate, including losing four members from his own party. If this doesn’t demonstrate the limitations of the president’s political muscle and the influence of his newly minted Organizing for Action lobbying group, I don’t know what does....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) mocked Second Amendment rights activists while announcing his support for a ban on assault weapons and limits to high-capacity magazine clips on the Senate floor today. REID: In the 1920s, organized crime was committing murders with machine guns. So Congress dramatically limited the sale and transfer of machine guns. As a result, machine guns all but disappeared from the streets. We can and should take the same common-sense approach to safeguard Americans from modern weapons of war. That is why I will vote for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban – because we must strike...

The Senate’s effective rejection of President Barack Obama’s post-Newtown gun control bill robs the Democratic Party of an important tool for trying to regain a majority in the House in November 2014. “Are they serious?” a visibly angry Obama demanded of opponents of the Toomey/Manchin Senate bill. In a late-afternoon announcement outside the White House, the president added that if Congress continues not to pass a gun control bill, “the answer will have to come from the voters.” But without a Senate bill, there’s little chance that vulnerable GOP House members in suburban swing-districts will face the unpleasant choice of...

President Barack Obama called Sen. Marco Rubio a “positive force” in the immigration debate and is “reasonably confident” that an immigration deal will be reached, he said in a wide-ranging exclusive interview with NBC’s “Today” show. “I think that he has been a very positive force,” he said of Rubio (R-Fla.), who is a member of the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform team. Speaking with Savannah Guthrie from the White House, Obama continued, “As have all the senators who’ve been involved. … And my hope is not only that we … end up with an immigration bill that shows that we’re...

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., produced a press release today claiming that his new “Border Security, Economic Opportunity & Immigration Modernization Act” creates “six security trigger steps that must be met before any currently illegal immigrant is given access to a green card.” And it is true. His bill does create six such triggers. But it also creates a huge loophole that makes them entirely irrelevant. From the bill: (B) EXCEPTION.—The Secretary shall permit registered provisional immigrants to apply for an adjustment to lawful permanent resident status if — (i)(I) litigation or a force majeure has prevented one or more of...

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is holding up a vote in the U.S. Senate on a resolution honoring Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom who died last week after suffering a stroke, multiple sources tell The Daily Caller. While the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring Thatcher last week, Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, objects to some of the language proposed by Republicans in the Senate’s version, sources said. A copy of the proposed resolution, which would be offered by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, honors “the life, legacy, and example...

Even TPM seems incredulous. The left’s supposed to wait until after Republicans help pass amnesty to start shrieking that they’re Latino-hating racists who’ll never change. Enter American Bridge, a prominent Democratic super PAC devoted to tracking Republican candidates and gathering opposition research. The group is out with a dossier Monday entitled “Barriers to Reform: The anti-immigrant and extremist money blocking progress in the Senate.” The report singles out a handful of Republican senators for what it describes as “disturbing” anti-immigration rhetoric and notes donations they’ve received from individuals and foundations who have also funded border hawk groups like FAIR and...

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Monday vowed to oppose any candidate that supports a bipartisan bill on background checks. “Please see the link below for why the latest gun control bill should be filibustered and defeated,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post. “I can not and will not support politicians who support any more limits on our Second Amendment rights.” The link takes readers to a fact sheet that appears to have been put together by Palin’s political action committee, SarahPAC, called “Why the Schumer-Toomey-Manchin Gun Registry Bill Should Be Filibustered and Defeated.” Among the claims on...

In the immediate aftermath of the multiple explosions that rocked the Copley Square area of Boston during this afternoon’s marathon, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof took to Twitter to say that the tragic events are a “reminder” of how Senate Republicans blocked the appointment of a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). “[E]xplosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment,” he tweeted with a link to a Washington Post article on the Senate GOP’s threats to put a hold on President Obama‘s nomination for a...

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) told host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that supporters of new gun control legislation do not yet have the votes to pass it, despite defeating a Republican-led filibuster attempt last week. Durbin is the Senate Majority Whip, responsible for counting his party's votes on key legislative proposals. The specific bill facing the Senate is the Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks, which would expand such requirements to gun shows, among other provisions. Currently, private sales between individuals at gun shows do not require background checks--just as private sales anywhere do not require them. The following is...