RIP: Tech Advocate and Obama Advisor Jake Brewer 142
SpaceGhost writes: The BBC reports that Jake Brewer, a 34-year-old senior policy advisor in the White House Chief Technology Office, has died while participating in a charity bike race on Saturday. Some of his work included global policy and external affairs at change.org, the White Houses TechHire initiative, and the administration's efforts to expand broadband connectivity. Brewer's death has triggered emotional tributes from many in the worlds of politics and technology. Brewer was well known for his work on Change.org, and in his role at the White House as an advocate for education, access to technology, and intelligent use of data to make government more effective.
Cause of death (Score:5, Informative)
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Sucks that the man died during a charity event but there's an old adage among cyclists..
Its that triathletes have poor bike handling skills. It's really not a myth. When I'm out on rides I give those guys on their tri bikes wide berth because they really don't behave well for the speeds that they're traveling at. Cycling is sport that demands tremendous technical skill in addition to fitness and the tri guys usually treat the cycling portion of their sport as a necessary evil. (Ever notice how world class c
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Sucks that the man died during a charity event but there's an old adage among cyclists..
Its that triathletes have poor bike handling skills. It's really not a myth. When I'm out on rides I give those guys on their tri bikes wide berth because they really don't behave well for the speeds that they're traveling at. Cycling is sport that demands tremendous technical skill in addition to fitness and the tri guys usually treat the cycling portion of their sport as a necessary evil. (Ever notice how world class cyclists are in their mid-upper 30s and sometimes in to their early 40s? Well past the average male's peak athletic prime?)
So you're saying that the 'bad' cyclists don't make it to their 30s, because they die to stupid errors? And it takes those extra years of riding to get to be world-class? Interesting theory.
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Cycling is sport that demands tremendous technical skill in addition to fitness and the tri guys usually treat the cycling portion of their sport as a necessary evil. (Ever notice how world class cyclists are in their mid-upper 30s and sometimes in to their early 40s? Well past the average male's peak athletic prime?)
I'd say about half the triathletes I know (I'm one of them) are stronger on the bike than the swim (I always assume everyone can run okay). The issue with triathletes is that they often ride their aerobars in places where they should be on the hoods.
I feel bad for the man's family, more than likely he just made a mistake.
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The Washington Post reported Saturday that he was killed in Howard County, Maryland, during a bicycle ride that raised money to fight cancer. Brewer apparently lost control of his bicycle at a sharp curve along the race course, crossed the double yellow line and had a collision with an oncoming vehicle.
I think that the driver of the car must be feeling bad enough without people misrep
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Partisans are so selectively forgetful:
https://swiftjonathan.files.wo... [wordpress.com]
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Unrealistic Expectations (Re:Cause of death) (Score:1, Offtopic)
Maybe your expectations of what prez can accomplish is unrealistic. The middle east has confounded them all, for example. Either a prez should quit meddling over there, or be honest that failure is likely. They don't appear ready for (stable) democracy, which leaves either iron-fisted dictators, or roaming zealotic hordes.
And economic downturns seem to happen roughly every 10 years no matter what's done. Bubbles and the "business cycle" have existed for at least 400 years. It's a bug in capitalism that nob
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Maybe your expectations of what prez can accomplish is unrealistic. The middle east has confounded them all, for example.
You can start with "avoid pre-emptive wars in the middle east." In fact, "avoid pre-emptive wars anywhere." It's not hard to do, yet every president this century has failed. There is certainly such a thing as "unrealistic expectations", but there is also such a thing as incompetent, and we haven't seen competence in a while.
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You can start with "avoid pre-emptive wars in the middle east." In fact, "avoid pre-emptive wars anywhere." It's not hard to do, yet every president this century has failed.
Maybe it's harder than you think.
There is certainly such a thing as "unrealistic expectations", but there is also such a thing as incompetent, and we haven't seen competence in a while.
What if the policies of prior administrations, or even other actors in a position to influence if not write policy, make it one of the less-odious of available options? The best thing would have been not to enable Saddam Hussein or OBL in the first place, but what do you do once you have?
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What if the policies of prior administrations, or even other actors in a position to influence if not write policy, make it one of the less-odious of available options?
In the case of Bush, "Don't start a war in Iraq on false pretenses" would have been a good idea.
After nearly a decade of fighting, somehow Iraq managed to stabilize itself. Obama could have left a small force there, like the Iraqis wanted. Instead he grasped at any excuse he could to leave the place, and now it's a mess again.
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In the case of Bush, "Don't start a war in Iraq on false pretenses" would have been a good idea.
Iraq didn't actually invade Kuwait? Iraq didn't agree to end the push-back against that invasion in a way that required them to meet a list of very specific requirement? Iraq didn't systematically blow off those requirements for years, and continue to slaughter Saddam's opponents, including thousands of people using WMDs? Iraq didn't continue to shoot at allied aircraft enforcing the agreed-to no-fly zones? The UN didn't see, but later be unable to account for the location of tons and tons of VX gas weapon
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Iraq didn't actually invade Kuwait?
I'm sorry, I seem to have confused you. I was talking about Bush Jr.
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Iraq didn't actually invade Kuwait?
I'm sorry, I seem to have confused you. I was talking about Bush Jr.
So was he. He was specifically referring to the sequence of events that up to the Bush Jr. invasion of Iraq. Now, I'm not trying to say one thing or another about his arguments, but they are definitely geared towards justifying Bush Jr invading Iraq after they systematically failed to meet their obligations after the invasion of Kuwait.
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I'm sorry, I seem to have confused you. I was talking about Bush Jr.
Right. Bush Sr. was president when Iraq attempted to take over Kuwait, and Saddam signed the agreements that he failed to uphold throughout Clinton's time in office, and continued to abused up to and until his regime was finally removed. That was two US presidents later, but the same single agreement against which he continued to cheat. He (Saddam) continued to kill people, threaten allied aircraft, import weapons, steal UN funds, and block inspectors right up until the end. That conflict started with his
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Of course you know all of this.
True, true, it's merely words. Bush Jr certainly escalated the war beyond what was necessary, and did what his father wisely avoided. The invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and I doubt you disagree.
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The main Iraqi gov't officials did not want it. For good or bad, the ultimate decision was theirs.
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The main Iraqi gov't officials did not want it. For good or bad, the ultimate decision was theirs.
That is how the Obama administration spun it. You fell for their propaganda, which isn't surprising since you've been defending them this whole thread. You are clearly a fanboy, and that is affecting your thinking, and your information gathering process.
The Obama administration claimed that "the Iraqis wouldn't allow forces to stay without immunity." That is the story that made it through the news, but later investigation revealed it wasn't the case. At one point, the Iraqi administration and the US admi
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Your link is about democracy in Iraq, not about troops staying. Neither of you gave any decent evidence/link of your troop-stay claim.
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What if the policies of prior administrations, or even other actors in a position to influence if not write policy, make it one of the less-odious of available options?
In the case of Bush, "Don't start a war in Iraq on false pretenses" would have been a good idea. After nearly a decade of fighting, somehow Iraq managed to stabilize itself. Obama could have left a small force there, like the Iraqis wanted. Instead he grasped at any excuse he could to leave the place, and now it's a mess again.
A small force would either have been wiped out, so you would have had to top it up until it became a large force. You'd already sacked half the Iraq army, so the nucleus of ISIL was just there waiting to turn into the Daesh we see today.
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A small force would either have been wiped out, so you would have had to top it up until it became a large force.
Seriously? How small a force are you thinking of? I think you are over-estimating Daesh.
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So we take out 5,000 mid-level jerks JUST IN CASE one of them grows to be Hitler-like? Not practical for many reasons. Hindsight is fool's gold.
Correction (Re:Unrealistic Expectations...) (Score:1)
Correction: should be "undue credit" not "undo credit". Writing too much tech doc ingrains certain words.
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It might be impossible to avoid bank situations that are "too big to fail," but once you see them, once they need government funding, they should be broken up. Obama didn't need to listen to me on this point, h
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Anti-trust should be enforced, which neither party does much of, perhaps because they are being legally bribed via campaign donations to ignore the issue. The big co's have the most bribing funds.
Note that the crash started before O was in office such that anti-trust enforcement was not an option for him at the time. However, the banks are still too big for their britches. The new regulations didn't directly solve this.
They merely put more rules on big banks to reduce the chance of another similar crash. Ho
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They merely put more rules on big banks to reduce the chance of another similar crash.
By promising to bail out banks when they do run into that kind of problem, it encourages similar crashes.
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When the banks are too large, we practically have to bail them out. Banks are key infrastructure. If too many fail, the economic machinery of the country chokes.
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Any bank that is too big to fail is too big to exist.
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That was my original point also: anti-trust enforcement.
Unrealistic promises, too. (Score:2)
Presidential candidates have only themselves to blame, really. For once, I'd love to have a president's campaign promises include only things that a president actually have power to do. Instead, they promise like a monarch and then deliver like a president.
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I have to disagree in general. If the system strongly encourages a certain behavior, then it's unrealistic to put the blame solely on those who follow what the system encourages.
Further, an honest candidate probably won't get elected. The over-promising one will beat them.
We have to fix a bad system if we really want to solve the problem. Repeatedly beating up on prez's won't solve anything, even if some of the blame is theirs.
Politics focuses too much on who to blame over how to fix the system in general.
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I'm not exactly sure what your point is. Note that both parties are guilty of running up debt during good times (for the reasons I already gave).
Giving the known evidence, "half-ass" Keynes still works better than so-called "austerity" during down times. Hoover (1930's), UK, Greece, Kansas, and other tests of austerity suggests it either makes downturns no better or worse. And WWII was the ultimate (unintentional) debt-based stimulus that ended the Great Depression once and for all. (FDR's public works prog
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Hoover doesn't belong on that list, as he sharply increased spending as a result of the economic turmoil. During the campaign Roosevelt actually criticized him for it.
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Only after the unemployment rate went sky high did Hoover experiment with public works programs. He originally hoped things would fix themselves and mostly left things alone at first. True, FDR was a flip-flopper, but that appears to be a good thing in this case. Politics is messy.
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That's more or less my original point. The politics of funding make longer-term saving difficult. My reference to Keynes was merely a hypothetical situation presented as a hypothetical situation to be commented on and critiqued later in the text.
I was trying to illustrate that forces of the general system of government tend to overwhelm the practical power of a given president. If any president resists spending during good-times, it's a happy accident and a rare accident, and they probably won't get suffici
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Mind you, Segway had a glitch [nbcnews.com] that could cause the wheels to reverse direction suddenly.
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Give us a break - he wasn't on Seal Team 6.
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Work with me, okay? Is everything taboo now?
How? (Score:2, Interesting)
Summary reads like natural causes.
TFA reads like:"Obama 'heartbroken' as White House employee killed"
Was he dead before or after the car hit him?
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His fixie bike hit a car in a charity bike race. No, I am not kidding.
The difference between an 'event' and a 'race' (Score:2, Informative)
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You'll find that people often abandon details for the larger picture.
Especially in the case where a 34-year-old guy who died when he was too young to.
Which...that's pretty sad. RIP to that guy, and condolences to the family.
Not that I'm calling you wrong, because you're right: it absolutely sucks to see someone die or get seriously hurt doing the thing that you love doing, and use it to justify their preconceived notions of it so they can try to warn you away.
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To be pedantic: no one is too young to die. You can die at any age.
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But it raises an important point. Per mile travelled, cyclists are far more likely to be injured or die where cars are present than car drivers/passengers, and even where you only look at bike accidents classified as cars not being involved, cyclists are still more likely to die or be injured per mile. People who do "training of their bike handling skills" may be better off than the average cyclist, but - on a per-mile basis - bike travel is more dangerous than car travel.
I live in a place where the city ke
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Re:The difference between an 'event' and a 'race' (Score:5, Informative)
A person who gets half their calories from a meat like beef increases their caloric load by biking wherever they go instead of driving; they'd be better for the environment driving a large SUV without any passengers.
So much fail here.
Let's see. A 190 lb. person riding a bicycle at 15 mph uses about 58 calories per mile. [livestrong.com]. Gasoline contains about 31,000 calories per gallon. [wikipedia.org]. Suppose the large SUV gets 20 mpg. That's 1550 calories per mile, or more than 26 times as much.
See also here [ucsd.edu].
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Because, all energy sources are equally efficient, right? Because I didn't just write "Which is very inefficient in terms of energy in (oil, natural gas, etc) per unit energy of muscle power released from burning said food", right? 58 calories of beef per mile is about 600 grams of CO2 per mile. Which is a terrible rate of CO2 emissions per mile.
See this post [slashdot.org] for a breakdown. Yes, there's a lot of fail, but it's in your post.
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I live in a place where the city keeps trying all sorts of ridiculous ways to force people out of cars and onto bikes, such as spending small fortunes to shrink down roads and doing nothing particular with the space on the sides, putting up all sorts of obstacles in the road (such as constant turn lanes, alternating between left and right) to turn 3-4 lane roads into effective 2-lane roads, building new buildings without any parking, tearing down existing parking, etc. And among their reasons for trying to force people off of cars is "safety for cyclists". But even if they succeed at making their goal of forcing a dozen or two percent of the population to switch from cars to bikes, they're only going to increase the total number of transport deaths.
I think I know the Silicon Valley city of which you speak, if you are referring to the recent changes in the road where I live. Especially if said road has a hill that is over 10% grade in spots.
See this link on bike statistics [grist.org], based on what it says it looks like the risk may be doubled (if 2% of the deaths are accounted for by 1% of the trips), but those could be misleading. I'm guessing the better metric is time on the bike, not miles traveled.
As others have noted, a person burns about 3000 joules extr
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Never said cyclists don't use less energy. They use less energy, but they use it terribly inefficiently. And no, nobody burns "excess calories that they would have already eaten". The reason you get hungry after exercise is because you're burning calories. If you start burning an excess of calories and never eat more to compensate, you will starve to death. There's a small amount of exception to that rule, in as you lose weight, your baseline metabolism drops. But it doesn't drop anywhere near the amount th
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Never said cyclists don't use less energy. They use less energy, but they use it terribly inefficiently. And no, nobody burns "excess calories that they would have already eaten". The reason you get hungry after exercise is because you're burning calories. If you start burning an excess of calories and never eat more to compensate, you will starve to death.
If you ride your bike an hour, you'll burn about 500 calories. If you drink two beers worth drinking, you'll consume 500 calories. The average person has a pretty large variance in caloric intake and an hour exercise isn't going to change the food distribution of the world. So it's not a stretch to say that extra food consumption from cycling isn't going to affect the environment at all, when comparing to moving a 1000 kg car with the 90 kg person inside it going the exact same distance with the goal of
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*Which is accounted for in the above.
Food is an incredibly inefficient source of energy. A kilogram of beef, for example, causes the emission of a couple dozen kilograms [nih.gov] of CO2 and contains 2140 kcal [weightloss...rces.co.uk]. A typical man cycling will burn on the order of 60 calories per mile [caloriesburnedhq.com] at 14mph, or 840 calories per hour. Driving should be about 100 (comparing to other activities), so 740 excess kcal, aka 346 grams of beef, aka about 8 kilograms of CO2 for 14 miles, aka about 600 grams per mile. A prius emits 135 grams per m
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Your analysis is missing a very fundamental point. The only calories that it makes sense to count are the extra calories that someone consumes as a direct result of cycling. There's no guarantee that it will be 100% of the calories used, and it could easily be zero. An obvious case -- if you bike to work instead of going to the gym, you could save a car trip with no net increase in calorie intake.
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And most people don't go to gyms, so this is an irrelevant point.
Adding exercise where there was none is adding caloric consumption where there was none.
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And most people don't go to gyms, so this is an irrelevant point.
People who are not active are going to be very unlikely to start biking rather than driving.
You're the one who was whining about people making assumptions without appropriate data. Unless you have data to demonstrate that most of the calories consumed by people switching to biking are going to be added consumption, you can't pretend that it's an irrelevant point.
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There is no qualification required to join the USCF other than paying the registration fee. Anyone can do so and race in category five races. Some of those, you can just enroll with the USCF for the day. The training you speak of only happens once the cyclist joins a team or they choose to do some self-directed training.
Even with team training, it's still not a particularly safe sport. One only has to watch a grand tour and note how many cyclists get taken out per stage by some accident or another. But
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I think we're mostly saying the same thing? The AC I replied to seem to be saying the opposite, that racers are highly trained and would be less likely to be harmed because of that. Commuting, recreational riding, and competition are all different and not all that comparable to each other. Racing is a higher risk since it involves a bit of risk taking to win, and you're pushing everything to the limit. The other two may not be as safe as travel by motor vehicle, but they're not dangerous. Of course a v
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I think we're mostly saying the same thing?
Sure. Being in disagreement with someone is not a requisite for posting a comment.
I sometimes find it disturbing how many people will avoid any number of things because there's any kind of risk to their safety in engaging in it. Honestly, if people avoided all risk, however small, nobody would ever do anything other than sit quietly in a room with no sharp angles on anything, surrounded by nothing but soft pillows, scared to death of every little noise. You can get killed crossing the street, for cryin' ou
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Yea. I'm cynical, but.. it is easier to sit on the couch and come up with reasons not to do any physical activity. It's too bad too, because the select few that manage to get past that end up having a great time. It's one of those chicken and egg things.
I did have a pretty spectacular crash years ago that almost ended me, but I was back riding in less than two weeks. Wasn't easy, but like you said.. there are things you have to get past in order to a live a life that was worth living. If you give up al
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government more effective (Score:1)
>> intelligent use of data to make government more effective
Well, that didn't work. How about just trying to make it more efficient?
young death rare in our society (Score:3)
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you've led a sheltered life.
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Man up and buy a cheap car already. Your loved ones will thank you.
So will Jeremy Clarkson
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He was taking part in a charity bike race. Clue's in the name, mate.
we the assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
young guy dies, which is tragic at the least. and most comments are smart ass or asshat...
fuck this place has really gone to shits
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Don't let the car hit you on the way out.
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fuck this place has really gone to shits
You must be new here. Gallows humor has always been de rigueur on Slashdot.
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Even if they didn't, it would be a scam because they don't have to respond in any meaningful way.
Half of the responses have boiled down to "lol nope".
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Having opinions and the spine and balls to express them does not make one a murder suspect.
So why hasn't he issued a public statement denying the accusation then?
Also, where's his hairpiece's birth certificate (long form)? I'm pretty sure it's alien.
Re:Nerd + Exercise = Bad Ending (Score:4, Informative)
We are meant to bask in the glow of fluorescent lighting in cubicles or basements. The sunlight weakens us and makes us vulnerable. Add exercise to the mix and you are flirting with disaster.
Of course in this case you're completely inaccurate, FTA:
He was described by the New York Times as "a competitive triathlete who rode on Saturday in honour of a friend who had been stricken with cancer".
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he was not a nerd.
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Thats really all the skills you need when you are paid by the taxpayer. They are always "engaging", "pushing" or "seeking". Unfortunately actual "doing" is not required.
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Sorry, Ms. Jenner is a Republican.
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He was getting in the way and had to be dealt with. He was also an advocate for pardoning Snowden. He had to go.
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What if the AC just wants to put them all in single line?
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