Rov_Scam
2mo ago
I'm not sure it changes things that much on that front. The GOP convention was set to begin tomorrow anyway, which would have sucked all the media coverage away from Biden.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
There's no way career politicians with actual experience running campaigns would allow it to go to Don Jr. without a fight. Haley has pledged delegates who would see there chance. Whoever the VP pick was would argue that he gets Trump's delegates. Desantis would see his chance and argue he was more popular than either of them. On the other hand, if the RNC pushes one of the above three it will be harder for the other two to argue against them. There still might be a power struggle, but it wouldn't be as public.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
It depends on how he carries himself afterwards. If he limits public appearances or speaks behind bullet proof glass it doesn't exactly demonstrate strength. If he over politicizes it and tries to blame Biden, it won't sit well with some people.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
The most immediate problem with this is that I imagine most such charges would be barred by the statute of limitations at this point. Trump's situation was unique because the prohibitions on indicting a sitting president meant that the SOL was tolled for 4 years while Trump was in office, so they had extra time.
The more important problem, however, is that it isn't going to work. Bragg can bring as many scalps as he wants, but the scalps that he brings are too inconsequential to convince any Trump defender that he's prosecuting in good faith. No one cares about some campaign staffer they've never heard of getting indicted based on records destruction from 8 years ago. If Bragg announced tomorrow that he was indicting 34 former Clinton campaign workers for these violations it would make a headline somewhere outside of the front page and get mentioned toward the end of the nightly news. Except for conservative outlets, who would view it as a vain attempt at convincing them that the prosecution of Trump was okay. If the judge sentences Trump to jail time then his supporters aren't going to shrug and say "well, he did commit the crime" just because a bunch of staffers are under indictment. Even throwing the book at Hillary herself wouldn't do it for them.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Well, if you check those boxes, there isn't really going to be sufficient unique identifiers to be crosschecked with a database to verify citizenship.
And if you don't check the boxes, there probably aren't going to be, either. Maybe some states have citizenship information in their DL databases. I think Pennsylvania might. But I know that California doesn't, and I imagine other states don't as well. You aren't required to be a US citizen to have a driver's license. Some states require a birth certificate or immigration documents as proof of identity, but that doesn't mean that they note citizenship status in the database. The Social Security Administration, on the other hand, does keep this information. But if you think it's just sitting in a database any random county office can query, think again. I used to have a job at a state agency where we had access to the SSA master database. It's a mainframe that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1980s (though this was in 2011 so it may have been updated since then, but based on printouts I get for my current job I doubt it). Despite its age it's also incredibly secure. I mean secure in the sense that if an authorized user logs in and makes a query he can expect a call from Philadelphia to verify that the office did indeed make the query and had a good reason for it. And, of course, they'd need more than the last four digits for this to work. The ID requirements are meant to verify residence, not citizenship.
What's way more annoying is the drumbeat of people that say this is already illegal and doesn't happen.
If it were really that much of a problem, though, then we should be taking way more proactive measures than the SAVE Act, which basically admits that there isn't an existing problem in the way it is structured. It only applies to new registrations. Why are we waiting for every illegal noncitizen voter to die or move or switch parties before we kick them off the voter rolls? If this is really a problem we should just cancel all existing registrations and make everyone re-register. This would have the added bonus of getting rid of all the dead people who are also supposedly voting. I'm lucky enough to have my birth certificate sitting on my desk in front of me right now (long story), but how many people can really find theirs right now without looking too hard? Maybe most of the people on this board can, but I doubt the average West Virginian can. Of course, for a large part of the native-born population that won't be enough, because if you ever changed your name due to marriage then you're going to need a copy of the marriage certificate, too. And no, I don't mean the souvenir certificate they give you that you may actually have. A real marriage certificate sufficient for Real ID purposes has to be a certified copy from the Register of Wills in the county where the marriage was performed. So God help you if you had a destination wedding or moved a significant distance. And God help you even more if you were married multiple times or were married in a foreign country that isn't Canada.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
My uncle mentioned the fundraising issue yesterday, but upon further research it isn't as big of a sticking point as it may seem. Campaigns are allowed to make unlimited donations to the national committee, so the money won't be wasted. That and that I doubt lack of funds will be a deciding factor in this election.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Well, Texas rep Lloyd Doggett just became the first Democratic politician to call for Biden to step down. Call me crazy, but I honestly have a sneaking suspicion that this was all planned out ahead of time. Biden looked awful during the debate. But at the after party he seemed fine, and he was beck to his old self the next day in North Carolina. I think Biden always intended to be a one-term president but that's not the kind of thing you can pull off these days barring death or permanent disability. He would have had to announce he wasn't seeking the nomination some time around last summer, at which point he would have immediately become a lame duck where he lost whatever pull he had with congress and saw half of his administration overshadowed by the other Democrats jockeying for position. There was also the traditional incumbent's advantage to consider. And there was no guarantee that whoever the Democrats ended up nominating would be better than Biden. He had to run again.
At this point, the entire Republican apparatus has had a year to prepare a campaign against Joe Biden. The attacks are pretty standard at this point — he's old, he's demented, he caused inflation, he fucked up the Afghanistan pullout, the "Biden Crime Family", etc. What happens if, at the eleventh hour, Joe Biden is no longer the candidate? Suddenly, a year's worth of planning is down the toilet. Now they'll find themselves likely up against some "Generic Democrat" on whom they will have no opposition research, no idea who his base is, no idea what his policy positions are. Meanwhile, the Democrats could have been planning this for months and have ready solutions to all the problems out there. Plus they can run on the idea "that he knew when to step aside", unlike somebody else. This is a person who didn't have to spend primary season pretending to be further left than they really were and didn't have the misfortune of months of oppo research from members of their own party. A candidate who's optimized for winning a general election.
Then there's the matter of the debates. Trump was eager to debate Biden. Maybe a little too eager. He agreed to an unusually early first debate and to a format that stripped him of the ability to interrupt his opponent and to draw on a supportive studio audience. If a new guy comes in soon, there's the possibility that he pushes for two more debates with the same rules. Trump really isn't in a position to refuse given how adamant he's been about debating. If he wants his mike permanently unmuted then he'll get criticized for being afraid to let the public hear what his opponent has to say — "He agreed to the rules for Biden because he thought he could win against Biden; if he wants to change the rules it must because he doesn't think he can win." Maybe give him his audience back as a token of goodwill. Now he's got to go up against someone who's much younger and more adept at pushing his buttons than Sleepy Joe.
The major downside is that the country collectively goes "Who?" and votes for someone they're familiar with. But this is overrated, both because Joe Biden is massively disliked in some circles and because most of the people who will ultimately decide the election aren't really paying attention until after Labor Day. Trump can and should run his "Who is Lou Lipschitz" routine for a couple months, but after that it starts to wear thin and make people think "Is that all you've got?" I don't actually think this is what will happen but I hope it will. It would make this fall much more interesting than another slow descent into a Trump presidency.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
As a lawyer who has to review medical and scientific information regularly despite having absolutely no scientific or technical background, God no.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
No, it doesn't seem like it. There's a mountain biking YouTube channel I watch where the guy is relatively unknown among the general public but who is a celebrity among mountain bikers, and he did a video where he was at a mountain bike festival and had to basically disguise himself while walking down the midway just to have a somewhat typical festival experience. He said it was kind of stressful, and this is just for dealing with normal people who want to say hi and tell him how much they enjoy his work, and maybe get a picture with him. Now imagine that plus it being everywhere you go, every day, and while most people are benign there are a few who absolutely despise you and send hate mail and others who are convinced that you're their one true love and won't stop stalking you. Any sense of a normal life is completely gone. If there's a restaurant you want to try you can't just go there; you have to have your people make sure they can provide special accommodations for you and the handlers that will be necessary to keep the public at bay. Any public place — a bar, a movie theater, a grocery store, whatever — is effectively off-limits.
I've had my own experience of being at the extreme bottom levels of the fame ladder. When I was in high school I was the captain of the academic team and we went on the local CBS affiliate's Saturday morning quiz-bowl show (hosted by a popular news anchor) and won the championship. This meant that I was on TV for several weeks over a period of a few months. At the time I was working as a cashier at a grocery store, and practically every customer recognized me from a local TV show that I was only somewhat aware of before I was on it. It's obviously nowhere near what being even internet famous is like, but people congratulating you and asking the same questions every five minutes does start to wear on you after a while, even though they're good people who just want to express their appreciation that you proved one of the worst schools in the state could hang academically with the best (our road to the championship included defeating a well-known prep school and a suburban public school that is consistently ranked among the best in the state [coincidentally located where I live now]).
If you make a mistake at work you might hear about it from your boss or a coworker but it's no big deal and you move on. If you release a horrible album or act poorly in a movie you have to deal with public criticism. Think of how hard your last breakup was and imagine if people were publicly speculating on what happened and hounding your ex for interviews. Imagine having to screen your own calls. Imagine the insecurity of not knowing if your last date actually liked you or was enthralled by your fame. Imagine dealing with yes-men who tell you you're the best and want a piece of you only to stop returning your calls at the first sign you might not be as profitable as it seemed. Imagine being functionally unable to make new friends who weren't also celebrities. Imagine everyone you ever met suddenly texting you to hang out. Imagine actual friends asking if you can put in word for them with the right people. Awfully stressful is an understatement.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Have any Democrats actually broken ranks? The only suggestion I've seen that Biden should step down is from the media and one article that cited three big donors (speaking anonymously). I haven't heard calls for him to drop out from anyone who matters.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
I never said these encampments were on railways. Railroad companies own a lot of property that's near railways but not on the railways themselves. In fact, the actual rail property is likely to just be an easement and not owned by the rail company itself. I mean, yeah, if you look closely enough you can probably find evidence that they're breaking other laws, in which case you get to arrest them for a summary offense, ticket them, and let them go back to wherever they were camping. You certainly can't remove them from the premises (that for all you know they're allowed to be on) just because they commit some minor infraction. And even if you can, why would you? If they really have nowhere to go then you're just moving them to some other place they can foul up so they can do it again. Police have other things to focus on than playing whack-a-mole with encampments that are out of the way and that no one is complaining about.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Gavin Newsom? How the hell is he a viable candidate, let alone the only viable candidate? What exactly does Gavin Newsom bring to the table? Does he help retain the non-college whites who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020? Does he appeal to black or Hispanic voters? Suburban women? The kids protesting the Israel war? Moderates who don't want either party to go too far? He's a replacement-level California Democrat who some people think is a viable candidate because he goes around telling people he is. His backstory is that he's the son of an appeals court judge and Getty family attorney who was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, got divorced, and started dating a woman half his age. The only reason he's even in the conversation is because the kind of journalists who will vote for any Democrat recognize his name as the Governor of California. To everyone else, he's the kind of effete, sleazy, West Coast liberal who might hit on your wife, if she's hot. Kamala Harris would be a better candidate. The only reason he may be pulling strings behind the scense to make this happen is because he knows he has no chance in hell of ever winning in the primaries.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
The Detroit auto industry is about to get obliterated. They have 120 years of expertise in building internal combustion engines. All those factories, all that human capital, is going to zero within 20 years. The Big 3 lose gobs of money on every EV they sell. On a level playing field they simply can't compete with China. Not when Detroit workers make 5x what Chinese workers do and are far inferior. Even with 100% tariffs, it's not clear how Detroit can win.
I don't buy that this is going to happen any time soon. There's almost zero overlap between the products GM and Ford sell and the products a Chinese company like BYD sells, even accounting for the fact that the Americans are mostly ICE cars. GM and Ford no longer sell regular sedans in the US because all their customers want is large trucks and SUVs. BYD's products aren't merely sedans, but small sedans and hatchbacks. Every time someone sounds the alarm bells about some foreign company that's making cars incredibly cheaply forgets that Americans don't want cheap cars, they want some semblance of luxury. There was a period in the 1980s when Japanese manufacturers made huge inroads into the American market, but there were two factors involved that don't apply here. First, there were oil shocks the likes of which hadn't been seen before, and the Japanese offered fuel-efficient products that the Americans weren't producing. These days, efficiency gains have made it so the marginal advantage of having a more efficient car is lowered, and we're more used to occasional price spikes, so that isn't really in play. Maybe there's a chance for a huge spike that would be a shock, but I wouldn't bet on the Chinese until something like that actually happens. And even then, there are still plenty of efficient Japanese and Korean cars on the market that already have that segment cornered.
The second factor is that, by the 1980s, Japanese manufacturers were making vehicles of much higher quality and reliability than American manufacturers. The Americans are much more competitive on that front now (though still not at the top), and the best I've heard about Chines brands is that they're approaching the American brands in quality, so not exactly a ringing endorsement. Aside from that, you can sell a subcompact for $10,000 but that doesn't mean anyone is going to want to buy it. This is a country where poor people buy SUVs. When I was a kid, it seemed like every working-class dad had a compact "getting around town" car with a standard transmission and no options, but it seems that most of these guys drive decked-out pickup trucks now. I used to have a Saturn. It was a great car, but even in the 2000s, no one wanted a great car as boring as a Saturn. Scion tried the same thing and failed.
The reason Tesla succeeded where EV manufacturers had failed for so many years is that they understood that marketing a vehicle based on efficiency wasn't going to cut it. So they played up the EV's performance advantages and marketed it as a sports car, and then as a luxury car, and now they're slowly making the transition to mass-market vehicles, though they're still a status symbol. The Chinese can't compete in this market because it would mean making an entire line of America-centric products that would be too big a gamble.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
It remains to be seen if backing from Trump is even an asset in 2028. Trump kiss-asses don't have a great track record in elections, and while Abbot is certainly much more savvy than someone like Kris Kobach, if Trump loses this year it remains to be seen if Republicans continue to ride the Trump Train. Actually, if Trump loses this year it remains to be seen whether he can be persuaded to sit out in 2028. Yeah, he'll be 82 but he'll continue to talk about what great shape he's in, and he never gave a fuck about any Republican Party that he wasn't at the center of, so it's not like he'll be persuaded not to run. His own base is so dedicated that he'll suck up a large percentage of primary votes just by being in the race and any contender will need to stand head and shoulders above the crowd to have any kind of chance.
In general, I think it's premature to start talking about who the next big contenders will be. It wasn't that long ago that everyone thought Ron DeSantis was the future of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, he didn't kiss Trump's ring because he thought it would hurt his chances in Florida, ending any chance of being the heir apparent, and then compounded the error by running against Trump directly but refusing to criticize him. I outlined the challenges DeSantis faced here on several occasions and I remember getting heavily downvoted by merely suggesting that he wasn't all he was cracked up to be. Maybe it looks like Abbot is making all the right moves from where we sit now, but in four years those could easily turn out to have been the wrong moves.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Because there is no crime. Pennsylvania trespass laws fall into three categories:
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Criminal Trespass is the most serious (it's a felony) and involves either breaking into an occupied structure or using deception to gain access to an occupied structure.
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Simple Trespass requires proof that the defendant entered the property for the purpose of engaging in damaging acts, like setting fires, threatening the owner, or engaging in vandalism.
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Defiant Trespass is when you either remain on the property after being told to leave or ignore a posted warning, fence, or other clear indicator that you should keep out.
In other words, the act of simply remaining on public property without permission isn't actually a chargeable offense in Pennsylvania. Even if it were, they'd still have to prove that the defendants lacked permission to occupy the premises, and it's going to be hard to get a property owner in court to testify if they can't even be bothered to make a phone call about a homeless encampment on their land. Add to this the fact that it's not the job of police to know exactly who owns what property, e.g. everyone in Pittsburgh is familiar with the PPG Building but PPG never actually owned it. The current owner is HRLP Fourth Avenue LLC, a company that I can't find any information about meaning it's probably a subsidiary of another company that I'm not searching through incorporation records to find out. The police are only tracking this information down and getting the okay if the encampment is big enough to make the news or get a lot of complaints. They aren't doing this every time two guys are sleeping under an overpass.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
They might think that the agency was correct? The recent assault on the Chevron doctrine has to be one of the oddest crusades in recent judicial history. I understand that a lot of conservatives are critical of the administrative state, but it's not like overturning Chevron really changes anything. I understand the justices had their own reasons for overturning it, but let's face it, they're all just a bunch of eggheads that make rulings based on principle. The reason Chevron became a doctrine in the first place was because it involved highly technical questions that courts were reluctant to wade into. The original case involved whether Chevron had to apply for a permit or not. While people are generally concerned about environmental issues, they're concerned about the kind of issues that actually affect the environment, not about the details of EPA permitting requirements. The present case involved whether certain fishing vessels were required to pay for observers while in international waters. Again, a purely technical question that the Supreme Court kicked back to the lower courts to answer. The end result of this isn't necessarily that the lower courts strike down the regulation at issue; they can always find that it was consistent with the intent of congress. In any event, whether vessels in restricted fisheries have to pay for observers required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act or whether the North Atlantic Fisheries Service has to pay for them isn't likely to be a topic of discussion here when the lower courts make their determination. If the courts rule that the NAFS has to pay then I doubt many will consider it a crushing blow to the administrative state.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
The courts don't need any kind of deference doctrine to uphold the agency policy; they can always just find the agency's rationale persuasive enough to issue an opinion in accordance with it. All the various deference doctrines do is allow the courts to dodge the substance of the complaint. On the other hand, if the court wants to offer a differing interpretation, they're free to do so. This case may ultimately prove to by a pyrrhic victory for the petitioners, since all the court really did was kick it back to the First and DC Circuits rather than decide the issue themselves. I doubt many courts really want to get into the weeds over these kinds of questions.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Part of the problem with the law was that, as enforced, it did indeed criminalize the status of homelessness. As Sotomayor pointed out during oral argument, a stargazer who happened to fall asleep on a blanket wouldn't be arrested, nor would a baby in a stroller, etc. The entire point of the city's enforcement was to Ban the Bums. I can sympathize with them. When I worked on the North Side I'd often see obviously homeless people sleeping on park benches near the riverfront in midday, and it greatly irritated me. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to make sleeping in a park an actual crime, because I'm admittedly not that concerned about a guy who simply wants to take a snooze in fresh air on his lunch break. This is akin to the problem I have with so-called "hostile architecture"; I have no problem with municipalities that want to discourage bums from sleeping in certain areas, but the solutions just make those areas a little more unpleasant for everybody (with the possible exception of running lawn sprinklers at night, which actually makes the most sense if you're going to use them, though I live in an area where they're not necessary and I think that areas where they are shouldn't worry about having lawns to begin with, but that's another argument entirely).
So, even if I wouldn't necessarily have voted to strike down this particular law (I haven't read the opinion so I don't know the legal niceties), I understand the urge. That being said, there's no reason why Grant's Pass couldn't have accepted their defeat and moved on; they may have won a minor victory, but I doubt this much litigation was necessary. In recent years, Pittsburgh has a problem with homeless people camping along the bike trails near the river. Most of the areas with homeless encampments here are areas that are sort of in a legal limbo as to who has enforcement rights, the sort of interstitial places that aren't economically valuable but nonetheless privately owned. If the city wants to clear them out they can't do so without a complaint from the owner, and the owner may be CSX, or US Steel, or some other company that has more important things to worry about. Or in areas that are technically city-owned but are burdened by easements from PennDot, or land owned by some independent municipal authority that doesn't use it so they're not even sure if they own it. No one is going to go to the recorder's office to untangle this mess unless the situation gets so bad as to generate the requisite complaints.
One place you don't see homeless, though, is Point State Park. It's hours are from sunrise until 11:00 pm, after which time you risk getting kicked out. That being said, I don't know how strictly this is enforced; there are certainly other park regulations that aren't enforced, like the prohibition on wading in the fountain (which children are doing almost continually during the summer months), but no park ranger is going to say on the record that they only enforce closing time against suspected bums. Saying that it closes at 11 except with special permission is easily justifiable on other policy grounds, and it doesn't require ridiculous statements like saying you'd arrest babies in strollers just to be consistent. Most anti-camping rules aren't written with homeless people in mind. Most state parks aren't in areas with any risk of bums congregating, but they still limit camping to designated sites because they're popular places and they want to limit the environmental damage it would cause if they allowed people to camp anywhere they chose. State forests are less restrictive, in that they generally allow primitive camping anywhere, but they still impose limits, like staying 500 feet from a road crossing or water source, limiting the duration of stay, requiring special permission for large groups, and requiring the destruction of fire rings upon exit. Again, the goal is to allow people to camp, but make it so backpackers aren't contaminating water sources and leaving fire scars every 50 feet. State Game Lands are even more restrictive, prohibiting camping almost entirely, but they're designed for hunting and wildlife management, not general recreation.
If Grant's Pass wanted to Ban the Bums, they could have looked at any number of other options that would have achieved the goal without raising any constitutional questions. First, the ban on "sleeping apparatus" or whatever it was should have been more narrowly tailored. I don't know what the climate is like there, but prohibiting tents, boxes, tarps, and other temporary shelters would have at least gotten rid of anyone who didn't want to sleep outside. Setting park hours would have helped, though it's understandable that they'd want the parks to be open overnight. Enforcing the alcohol rules would have probably eliminated at least half of the campers. They could have prohibited open flames outside of grills, and then limited the hours of grill use. Or they could have just removed the people without arresting them, which is what happens in most cases of minor violations where the cop isn't just being a dick. Had they done any of this after losing in District Court they could have saved the money they spent on challenging the law and used it to restore the areas that had been damaged, rather than let the problem get worse over the next 6 years.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
or where enforcement is just a 'you must be this unscruffy'
I'm working on a comment above that touches on this, but part of the appellant's argument was that enforcement was limited to homeless people and not regular people who happened to not be in strict compliance with the law. Hence Sotomayor's example of a guy who goes stargazing on a blanket and accidentally falls asleep. The Chief of Police admitted on the record that the law was only enforced against homeless people, and said such people wouldn't be arrested. That's where the whole "criminalizing status" argument came in, because it was a law that, as enforced, had the effect of making homelessness illegal in the city.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
I only listened to the debate for about ten minutes while I was in the car, and that was well over an hour into the debate, so I can't comment on most of it. But from what I did hear, while Biden definitely lacked energy, the actual substance of his responses was much better than Trump's. Trump repeatedly ducked questions, while Biden actually answered them. Not that Biden's performance was that great, but if you were to go off of the transcripts only it seemed about even. Of course, when I got back in the car well after the debate ended and had to listen to the NPR rundown they were sticking a fork in Biden, mainly based on the same things everyone here is criticizing him for, and it reminded me why I hate debates. It's all spectacle. Even when speaking strictly on matters of substance, I want a president who can make reasoned decisions after consultation with experts, not someone who can come up with answers on the fly. Like, yeah, there is some of that in the presidency, but very little, and almost all of it involves foreign policy emergencies where he'll at least get to consult with his advisers. But even that doesn't matter, because the superficial aspects are all anyone seems to care about.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
Because you're still going to be pissed about whatever you lost either way. The amount of money you might win due to a Biden victory probably isn't going to be life changing, and if it is, then you're going to be rooting for Biden anyway and not caring too much about the politics. It's like betting against your favorite sports team.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
And you're assuming there aren't? The studies I've seen of circumcized vs. uncircumcised show a 10x increased risk among infants, 6x among children, and 4x among adults. I don't know what your definition of massive is, but these aren't numbers that can be waved off.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
The question about any surgery is whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If the worst thing about circumcision is that it violates some inalienable right to a foreskin then the argument against it falls flat. By that measure, tonsilectomies are also inhumane in that they aren't strictly medically necessary in most cases. My problem isn't so much with people who choose to forego the procedure but those who act like it's causing some great harm and should be prohibited in all but the most dire cases.
As someone who lives in Western PA, I have never heard anyone around here mention his name. Trump supporters may like him, but, at this point, he looks just like a Trump clone to anyone who's not a Trump supporter. There's no latent admiration for Vance here or anything.
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