Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Bark louder, little dog.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

This blog will pay for itself.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Everybody saw this coming.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Open Thread: Welfare Ranchers Get No Respect

Open Thread: Welfare Ranchers Get No Respect

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There’s never a FREEDUMB-loving billionaire around when you really need one…

Any of our BundyBund-addicted lawyers (or others) want to weigh in on the chance that Koch beneficiary and “snake oil salesman” Ken Ivory might finally have skirted one government regulation too many here? Who’s got standing to address this?

Reader Interactions

151Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Ken Ivory might finally have skirted one government regulation too many here?

    He is the recipient of an email. What do you think you can get him on?

  6. 6.

    LAO

    I, personally, love the pleading tone Hansen employs. LOL

    ETA: Also I remember, a money beg for legal fees on Bundy’s site. I guess that paying for Larry Klayman, even though the Judge will not let me on the case. double LOL

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: He’s both a state legislator and one of the leaders of the Koch financed American Lands Council. The ALC advocates that the Federal government is not supposed to own the majority of the land it does – not just in the Western states, but everywhere – and pushes for legislation tto empower states to take control of these lands. The end game, of course, as far as the Kochs and the other wealthy backers are concerned, is that the states will have to then sell them off or give them away on sweetheart leases because it is too expensive to maintain them as the Feds do. So he’s caught in a conflict of interest. This absolutely terrible attorney hit him up for money at his elected (day) job to try to get him to act as a conduit for the Kochs to pay for the Bundy’s legal fees. I realize this is Utah, but he’s going to have some issues.

  11. 11.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This absolutely terrible attorney hit him up for money at his elected (day) job to try to get him to act as a conduit for the Kochs to pay for the Bundy’s legal fees.

    This is a level of stupid that I can’t comprehend.

    ETA: not sure how I messed up that quote.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: Its a problem that I’m frankly amazed hasn’t developed previously for the state and local officials involved with these various groups that the Kochs and others fund. Whether its ALEC or ALC or several others, including some ostensible state level think tanks and research institutes. There is a clear conflict of interest between their day jobs and the work they do for and with these outside organizations.

  14. 14.

    raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: He is so happy to be able to swim after the ball. It was his mostest favorite thing and we have really scaled back his land based activity to try to keep him healthy.

  16. 16.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t want to be overly legalistic — but it’s not a problem until a “Bundy” like situation arises — now, you have so-called state legislators (I’m looking at you Michelle Fiore) backing and advocating on behalf of individuals charged with breaking federal law.

  19. 19.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @raven:
    that is a very cool picture! Thanks for sharing. Looks like a movie poster

    My folks dog had puppies that were part terrier, small short haired things. One of them went to a retired couple in Florida and it loved to surf. The tiny thing would swim out so far they thought it was lost & then ride the waves in. One day it came with a jellyfish attached, it was sick for a bit but ready to go back out a few days later. Dogs are funny

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @LAO: Top of my head remembrance from Pro Ethics class and the Ethics exam review (20 years ago): Outside financing is fine. The client and counsel maintain total control of over strategy and tactics.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: At one level you want one’s legislators to do proper constituent service and stick up for their constituents on the principle of innocent till proven guilty. But as we know: 1) this usually is not done as they don’t want to be tainted with even a whiff of something that could negatively impact their reelection and 2) what Fiore and the others from the ALC have been doing isn’t remotely related to point #1.

  24. 24.

    LAO

    @srv: I don’t want to interrupt your Bernie rant but “standing,” within the context Anne Laurie’s post is a legal concept, ie. what ethical or law enforcement body can address the issue raised by this conflict of interest. Not what you suggest.

  25. 25.

    GregB

    I can’t believe that a great Americanpatriot like Cliven Bundy would accept socialist free legal help.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    @raven:

    Koda is the same way! I tell her all the time, “You’re a water dog, fer crissakes, a damn Lab!!! Why do you cringe away from any and all water, including the smallest of rain or snow drops????

  29. 29.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: If someone can actually trace money from ALC to the Bundy insurgency or subsequent legal defense — then it’s probably a whole different ball game.

    Every good defense attorney knows — DON’T LEAVE WRITTEN EVIDENCE behind. So, Hansen, by definition is not a very good defense attorney. Of course, the motion he filed on Friday, also proves that, so I’m not sure what my point is.

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @raven:
    I got hit with a small piece of one while swimming & it burned like hell, I don’t know if the fur protected the pup any (I would think a long haired dog would get protection. I can’t imagine running into a bunch of stings

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: Apparently there is now evidence that much of this trolling is actually being done by Trump supporters attempting to stir up trouble between Clinton and Sanders supporters. As is often the case, the two cute by half crowd, left online evidence behind. That said its not my website and I don’t have unlimited use of the ban hammer. I will say that it was refreshing that he or she finally posted a link with the block quote.

  37. 37.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: I read that, thought it was pretty ridiculous — but then I realized since Trump is the ultimate troll, they are merely following the lead of their fearless orange leader.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: The surf fucks her up? I don’t think my Cocker would have charged a standing wave, but he would pick fights with German Shepherds and Dobies.

  41. 41.

    Punchy

    Is Toronto going to blow this? Please dear god win this fuuuucccckkking game!

    ETA: glad to see that standard dribbling rules dont apply to Lebron James.

  43. 43.

    Miss Bianca

    oh, boy. this all promises to become an even more creamy and delicious blend of bugshit than I had even imagined. I’m going to be up in Paonia end of next week so I am definitely stopping by the High Country News offices to pay my respects – and see what they got on all this.

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Punchy: Wasn’t loudmouth Stephen A Smith opining the other night that Toronto wasn’t even going to take one?

  45. 45.

    burnspbesq

    @LAO:

    Rule 1.8(f), Nevada Rules of Professional Conduct:

    A lawyer shall not accept compensation for representing a client from one other than the client unless:
    (1) The client gives informed consent;
    (2) There is no interference with the lawyer’s independence of professional judgment or with the client-lawyer relationship; and
    (3) Information relating to representation of a client is protected as required by Rule 1.6.

    Not a violation yet, but Hansen certainly looks like he’s prepared to walk right down the line.

  48. 48.

    chopper

    @LAO:

    This is a level of stupid that I can’t comprehend.

    ETA: not sure how I messed up that quote.

    god, how do you fuck up a block quote like that? jesus, you people.

  49. 49.

    LAO

    @burnspbesq: I actually think that Hansen doesn’t understand. On Friday, he filed the motion to disqualify the district judge and it is possibly, the most unethical filing I’ve ever read (even worse than that ridiculous civil suit he filed so that he could make the motion to disqualify). I will be shocked, and possible very disappointed, if he isn’t disbarred as a result of his conduct.

  53. 53.

    Punchy

    @Gin & Tonic: Steve Smith is a complete shitbag. Why do all ESPN hosts feel the need to always use his middle initial? Is there another arrogant blowhard Steven Smith to be confused about?

    The mere fact he was so wrong about the Cavs/Raps series is par for the course. He’s wrong about everything.

  54. 54.

    burnspbesq

    Happy Birthday to you,
    Happy Birthday to you,
    Happy Birthday, Dear Fat Man,
    Happy Birthday to you.

    Forty-three years old, and still making major league hitters look stupid.

  55. 55.

    Miss Bianca

    @raven: That is so funny that your water dog hates water – my Siberians have always loved it, even tho’ they’re popularly supposed *not* to, and I always think that they learned it from the Labs that we’ve always been surrounded by!

  57. 57.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, for the most part I’m just goofing for effect. Except for football. That’s *really* not my thing. American Football. Everything else I can at least feign interest in/knowledge about.

  58. 58.

    LAO

    @burnspbesq: I pulled it off PACER — and sent it to Adam. If we are nice, maybe he’ll post it? may be? Exhibit A — which is Cliven’s declaration is so absurdly paranoid that it defies description.

    I’d offer to email it to you today — but it’s on my office computer.

    ETA: I fully understand how crazy this makes me sound.

  62. 62.

    burnspbesq

    In other sports news, the Duke coach with more national championshis than Coach K goes for number seven starting tomorrow.

    Women’s golf school. Everybody else is trying to catch up.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: I have a report to finish drafting. And I have to go to the gym. And walk the dogs. Shower. Brush my teeth. Forge the unborn conscious of my race in the dark smithy of my soul.

    Who let TS Eliot Joyce in here?

  71. 71.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    TS Elliot

    One ‘L’, one ‘T’. Didn’t anyone ever teach you about the different spellings of “El(l)iot(t)” when you were in Scotland?

  72. 72.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: burnspbesq tracked it down and supplied a link. You are officially released from any Bundy type activities tomorrow. But good luck on the forging!

  74. 74.

    Gin & Tonic

    @srv: Is that John Mcafee the guy who had an IT security company and then was involved in some weird, possibly illegal shenanigans somewhere in Central America? Yes, yes he is.

    Here’s some interesting reading.

  85. 85.

    burnspbesq

    @srv:

    Are there actual Katy Perry fans, or is that concept something that sprang from your overheated imagination?

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @burnspbesq: The tortoises matter, also too.

    I am gone. Good night all. That filing… I can’t even… I’ll just go to bed.

  92. 92.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: See, that’s funny, BECAUSE…

    And note to self?: *Don’t* share any of this stuff with a Libertarian. Because the realization that s/he might actually takes these claims seriously is always a bit disconcerting, and tends to damp one’s enjoyment with disputes.

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @burnspbesq:

    Not a lawyer, don’t know all the ins-and-outs of petitions/complaints of that nature, but holy fuck. Judge “Narravaro”? He can’t even get her name write on page 1? I started to pore over it, and realized that the craziness might make what’s left of my braims a-splode. Three pages was enough.

    Does one get admitted to the NV Bar by winning at slots or something? Or do they give special dispensation to the paranoiacs? Or the ones who got their JD/LLD/whatever from RWNJ Correspondence Course Uvinersity?

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @LAO:

    Go Mets!

    Now if Harvey can be less of an asshole and more of a pitcher, their rotation might end up doing OK. Be interesting to see how well Wheeler does.

  97. 97.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    I thought I saw some shit made out of whole cloth in filings before but that Bundy document…that’s really a whole new level of derpitude that my brain just couldn’t deal with after a few pages. I don’t see cause for disbarment – if poorly-written stupid jackassery were cause it would DQ about 75% of practicing lawyers – but they’re not going to get what they want. The method is obvious, the typical sovcit dance of drowning a court in paper, and I don’t think they’re going to be allowed to do that either. They’re not dealing with some easily cowed circuit judge in backwoods Montana.

    Not a lawyer but a sometime expert witness.

  98. 98.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @srv: OK, dickhead; I’ve read and seen reports on the local news about the Katy Perry purchase before you had any inkling of it. No, she’s not evicting any nun, they moved on long ago. The nuns own the property and the conflict was with the archdioceses who wanted to sell it to Ms. Perry and the nuns who had another buyer.

    ETA: But just like good ol’ Trump, you’re incapable of discerning the truth and just make up shit.

  99. 99.

    oklahomo

    So Harry Reid and his son and the Yellow Peril are going to build a (gasp) solar energy farm and they need Cliven’s ranch as a refugee camp for displaced desert tortoises . . . if this were a novel the suspension of disbelief would be ruined. I’d have loved to see the faces of people reading this when it began working its way through the system.

  100. 100.

    Prescott Cactus

    @srv:

    @Tommy: I would take Katy Perry over Adele every time.

    Mary Anne over Ginger. Practicality of over low cut dresses.

  104. 104.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: Nice shot, I like the intense coloring.

    The Bohdi: Resistance is futile; I surrender to the cute.

  105. 105.

    TriassicSands

    I just want to congratulate Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas for being the only Supreme Court justice unable to recognize blatant prosecutorial racism in a capital case. Well done, Clarence. Once again you prove that you should never have been nominated, much less approved, for a seat on the Court.

  107. 107.

    Coin operated

    For the legal minds in the hive…does the court have to respond to all the allegations in the brief, or is there some way to fast track the paperwork on dismissing this shit?

  108. 108.

    Prescott Cactus

    @srv: 3 spots to watch:

    Water and radiation mix as steam, filling into the air by water dumped out of the reactor, turning to steam

    Initially the ground / foundation (cracked) as water flooded the containment vessel and cooled water and a mist, spread and dried locally or spread internationally into ocean . MORE water was used to cool dry / overheated fuel rod storage area, much trying, but to no avail. When and if until any rods rods were were covered – post explosions, we would be lucky

    The water being pumped into main containment in usually good, but not a “uncontrolled reaction with major feed water system broken,. SuperFund site for 40 years

  110. 110.

    daves09

    @SFAW: The Hansens are Nevada’s premier wingnut family. They started out with the AIP in ’68 and have grown steadily more weird.
    The matriarch of the family, Janine, is an official for the Eagle Forum and spends most of her time testifying before various gov’t.bodies, opposing just about everything.
    Various family members have run for just about every NV. office and one, Ira, got elected by pretending to be a Repub. He keeps a Confederate flag in his office to help him concentrate his thinking.
    Read some of Hansen’s Bundy document and I gotta say it’s like the quintessence of the family whacknuttery.

  111. 111.

    Frankensteinbeck

    This Bundy Motion to Disqualify really IS comedy gold. I think it’s when you get to the tortoises that it becomes hilarious even to the completely uneducated layman. I love Sovereign Citizen legal gibberish so much. Keep it coming, Bundys!

    @divF:
    Portait of the Artist As a Young Man may be the worst book in English literature history. There are a lot of books that are merely bad. Some are hilariously bad. But James Joyce actually managed to write a book about an adolescent frequenting prostitutes that is… dull. Not offensive, titillating, shocking, sad, angering, creepy, thoughtful, sophomoric, just… dull. Monotonously, mind-meltingly dull.

    Yes, Joyce, I’m aware that was deliberate. You wrote a book about ennui that makes people feel ennui. Here is the problem: If you write an experimental book and it’s not fun to read, THE EXPERIMENT FAILED AND YOU GET NO POINTS.

  113. 113.

    TriassicSands

    @efgoldman:

    Thomas never ceases to amaze. While I routinely argue that Alito is the worst current justice, I do so because I consider Thomas a special case — he can’t be assessed using normal metrics. Alito is appalling, but Thomas is just plain weird. Even the deplorable Scalia considered Thomas to be nuts.

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    @srv: Did I give you the impression at one point that I am a Katy Perry fan? That wold be weird, as I find a couple of her songs okay and the rest….ehhhhh.

  117. 117.

    AlanM

    @efgoldman: Long time lurker … but had to say… about six months ago I went to do a little shopping at my local AEON mall here in Funabashi, just outside Tokyo, and Keiko Masuda, one half of Pink Lady was doing a little show promoting a solo effort to a 50-ish crowd (size, not age, though the crowd couldn’t really be described as young). I remembered the name and asked my wife who reminisced about how popular they were when she was in High School here. I didn’t realise they were ever a thing in the US, though…

  118. 118.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Frankensteinbeck: Not Joyce, but when we were reading Madame Bovary for high school English class, the teacher lecturing told us how wonderful it is because of the way Flaubert makes the reader feel what the characters are. To which I replied, loud enough for the class to hear, “Yeah. We’re as bored as she is.”

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    Even not being a lawyer I still think that’s the stupidest legal document I’ve ever read. A lawyer might consider it funny but it’s so moronic that even a non lawyer can see that it wouldn’t meet the minimum requirement to receive an F if written on the first day of law school.
    The shame is that @Omnes Omnibus: is probably right, he should be disbarred but probably won’t be.

  120. 120.

    trollhattan

    So I cycled past the home of our former state treasurer and Democratic Party chair this afternoon and there were beaucoup cars and people there, even a few bored cops keeping an eye on things from the street. Oooh, fundraiser probably, I wonder for who? Maybe Kamala Harris, but impossible to tell.

    At dinner a couple hours later the spouse tells me our friend and her daughter were there and got to meet the Big Dog himself! There are pics. I’ll never think of the neighborhood quite the same. Never met a president, nor even see one.

  122. 122.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ruckus: I’d have to look it up, but my roommate from college sent me a US district court opinion that entirely in rhyme when he was a 1L.

  124. 124.

    Divf

    @Frankensteinbeck: My reading Portrait is more personal than literary. My high school education was from Jesuits, and I resonate with many aspects of Joyce’s experience of that. Similarly with the Irish catholic pieties of his family.

    Just to be clear, I did not frequent prostitutes in high school – I pretty much stuck with sins of the intellect.

  126. 126.

    trollhattan

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    Must have been a small comfort that even though still breathing, he couldn’t do any more damage. HST’s obit remains one of his finest rants.

  127. 127.

    PurpleGirl

    @Origuy: I started Madame Bovary but after 2 or 3 chapters I couldn’t go on. Never finished it and never tried again. {shrugs}

    @AlanM: I don’t remember them as a big act, but I do remember the TV show they had.

  128. 128.

    burnspbesq

    Pity the poor AUSA who has to draft the government’s response to that mess.

  129. 129.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @trollhattan: I saw Reagan in the Fall of ’80. He spoke to high school students in my area. Fuck him, his horse, and the equine supply chain.

    @burnspbesq: Writing ” I can’t even…” and “What the shit?, while understandable, just won’t work.

  132. 132.

    SFAW

    @TriassicSands:

    Well done, Clarence. Once again you prove that you should never have been nominated, much less approved, for a seat on the Court.

    But, but, but …. someone here — don’t recall which commenter — told me (around the time that Fat Nino croaked, and I referred to Thomas as “Sockpuppet”) — that Thomas’s decisions are well thought out, are better (from a legal standpoint) than those of Justice X or Y or Z, and so on. Since I am merely a caveman a lowly engineer, and don’t understand all your science and pettifogging, I took that as Gospel. Or not. Who the hell can remember?

    But now you’re trying to tell me that may not be the case. Someone better mansplain it to me.

  133. 133.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: I actually kind of liked that book. I think that of all the books I read in high school English class, the one I despised the most was Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native. The florid, purple prose style, the way the entire first chapter is a description of a moor and the entire second chapter is about a character or two finally showing up in said moor–everything about it seemed calculated to annoy me.

    At one point a character says “Oh, Eustacia, you have held my heart in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!” I had to read it several times to convince myself the line was really there and wasn’t parody.

  135. 135.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin: Sorry…I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on this one. If you hear Alan Rickman read it, then it’s glorious. But then, Alan Rickman’s voice was glorious in and of itself.

  137. 137.

    J R in WV

    @srv:

    If the nuns themselves claim that they have sold their land to a restaurant magnate, how is another buyer of the land guilty of putting nuns off their land? Isn’t it sold to someone no matter who actually sold it? No matter who actually bought it? I imagine that the nuns themselves didn’t ever hold title to the land, as they normally take a vow of poverty, don’t they? So some church organization probably held title to the convent and allowed the poor nuns to live there? And if that church organization wants the nuns to move to another church property, isn’t that up to the superiors of the nun’s order to decide? Don’t nuns (and monks and brothers, priests, etc) swear obedience to the church Fathers?

    So many questions about RC church practice… but sounds like the convent is sold to someone, and the nuns have to move, regardless of who sold to whom.

  138. 138.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    I really think there’s something wrong with him – besides being a RWNJ, I mean.

    @efgoldman: He hates blacks. Really, truly does, and for him that’s gotta involve some mental gymnastics that would render most people catatonic.

  139. 139.

    J R in WV

    And if Harry Reid and family wanted to steal the Bundy “ranch” for a Chinese Solar power plant, would they really care about saving the poor tortises enough to round them up and move them onto the Bundy ranch… to the Bundy Desert Tortoise Rescue Ranch?

    I can see it now, a TV show, based upon the heartfelt rescue work done by the famous Tortoise Wranglers of the Old West, Git Along, Thar, Little Tortoise Starring Clint Eastwood as Ronald Reagan, Tortoise Rescuer and Environmentalist and Green Activist Extraordinaire !!

    Ho, there!!! Git ’em up there, little tortie!! Move ’em on out!! Move them little torties on down th’ trail to the Bundy Desert Tortoise Rescue Ranch !!!

    I can see it now, the chuck wagon, the remuda of spare horses, the lariats spinning in the air as the Tortoise Boys crack whips and rustle those endangered tortoises on down the trail to the Bundy Desert Tortoise Rescue Ranch ~!!

  143. 143.

    Barry

    @LAO: “I will be shocked, and possible very disappointed, if he isn’t disbarred as a result of his conduct.”

    He’s a right-winger. IOKIYAAR.

  144. 144.

    Luthe

    @Matt McIrvin: You have not read Hardy’s worst until you have read Jude the Obscure. Nothing but Biblical allusions and misery (for both character and reader) as far as the eye can see.

  145. 145.

    Matt McIrvin

    @AlanM: In the US, they’re mostly known for co-hosting a terrible Sid and Marty Krofft prime-time variety show in 1980 (with comedian Jeff Altman; the show is often referred to as “Pink Lady and Jeff” but the title was just “Pink Lady”).

    It’s a famous flop, through no fault of Pink Lady really; some of their musical numbers were actually high points of the show, but they didn’t speak English at all and were reading their lines entirely phonetically, and the show tried to lampshade it by making jokes about their culture shock. Really cringeworthy.

  147. 147.

    Bill

    @burnspbesq: That’s not the worst filing I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some pro-se filings that make this look sane. (Although I’ve seen some much better than this too.)

    It may be the worst I’ve ever seen from a member of the bar though.

  149. 149.

    Ken

    @efgoldman: Can the judge order the lawyer to read his filing in court? I mean read out loud, every word and footnote.

    Never mind, that would be a stupid waste of time. Can the judge order the lawyer to copy out the filing one hundred times, in longhand? That’s more suited to the grade-school level of argument anyway.

  150. 150.

    Ken

    @J R in WV: Most religious organizations of any size in the US are incorporated, and the corporation owns the land, buildings, and other assets. This can be a great shock to a congregation that thinks they can split off from their denomination and keep the building…

  151. 151.

    dollared

    Shouldn’t the title of this thread been: “Welfare ranchers make better lovers?”

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