No. The guy literally had boxes of classified materials in his house and refused to return them [edit: also lied that he had returned them all] when asked politely.
>>So...was Trump also too far gone? That means he shouldn't be president now.
I dunno, but I don't think it got in the official report like it did for Biden.
And the argument isn't "Biden took the documents home because of Alzheimers". The argument is "Biden took the documents home when in control of his faculties, but his Alzheimers was too far gone for him to be prosecuted."
I'm asking you about Trump. Is he mentally unfit to be president now or was the prosecution actually politically valid?
And I notice you still haven't addressed the differences between the two cases. I've found most people of a certain political persuasion never do because it's too inconvenient for their narrative.
In one case, a guy was asked to return documents the authorities knew he had, he didn't and then had to be served a search warrant to retrieve them.
In the other, a guy found documents himself, told on himself and consented to a voluntary search to look for more.
Mens rea is an important variable to the chances of conviction. Juries can easily be convinced that honest mistakes happen; especially when the person who made the mistake turns themselves in.
>>I'm asking you about Trump. Is he mentally unfit to be president now or was the prosecution actually politically valid?
Those two statements don't follow on from each other. I realise there is this big push to claim Trump has alzheimers now because it was an effective attack on Biden (due to being true) but it's not sticking with Trump. You may not like him, you may disagree with his decisions, but he's still as much Trump as he ever was.
>>In the other, a guy found documents himself, told on himself and consented to a voluntary search to look for more.
Yeah, when the Justice Department says "We'd like to check your house for classified info" saying "Nah, we good" is definitely an option.
> Those two statements don't follow on from each other
Then you can't follow logic, sorry.
He had the documents and refused to return them. That's fact, not commentary. He either did those things with a sound mind or without. That's logic. From these two there are only two possible outcomes. Wilful criminal behavior or unfitness for office today. Unless you believe he was crazy at the time, then became sane.
> Yeah, when the Justice Department says "We'd like to check your house for classified info" saying "Nah, we good" is definitely an option.
Well it was definitely an option one of these two guys used. Because he knew had people like you to call it "politically motivated" regardless of the facts.
>OK, but you know Biden did more or less the same right?
No he did not.
Biden had some leftover documents that he turned over when told to. That is normal. It is quite literally part of secrets management to expect some stuff ends up uncontrolled and have processes and plans to recover it.
Trump had a secret stash of literal nuclear secrets in his meeting place with pretty much anyone willing to pay him, and denied having them, refused to turn them over, and denied everything again when he was finally raided and they found all that shit. People like you still insist somehow that this wasn't absurd on it's face.
Trump is the most sued president because Trump historically gets sued by everyone he talks to because, as he has literally told you to your face, that's his strategy, abuse everything and force it to go through the courts, because then you can bend those rules and slow down problems.
It's literally in the first sentence of the article you posted. "attorneys for Biden discovered classified documents" and contacted the authorities. How does that mean "got caught"? Your own attorneys can't "catch" you.
" Biden's personal attorney said on January 21 that the Justice Department discovered six items containing classification markings during a consensual search of his home the previous day, some of which dated to his tenure in the Senate; investigators also seized some of Biden's handwritten notes from his vice presidency."
"On November 22, 2022, Biden's attorneys discovered the first set of classified documents in a locked closet...they reported them that day".
If you're in possession of a calendar, you will notice that November 22, 2022 is actually before January 2023. You might also note the "consensual search" in your own quote.
So a normal person might conclude that the Justice Department called Biden after he reported on himself, and said "We see you said you had some documents, so maybe you forgot some more? Can we come search with you?" And Biden maybe said "Good idea."
> Democrats [are] condescending, smug assholes...going on and on about how people are misinformed, ignorant voters who vote against their own interests,
Totally. No one likes an asshole. But assholes can be right. What's a kinder label than "misinformed" for someone who rejects the truth because of its source?
There's no truths or untruths here. Just preferences and values. Some people care more about some things than others. People vote based on if their life is getting better or worse and who seems most focused on changing that if it's getting worse.
> There's no truths or untruths here. Just preferences and values. Some people care more about some things than others
This is easily disprovable. People care about gas prices. They were unhappy with gas prices under Biden and said so loudly. They voted for the candidate that increased them even more.
Reason: ignorance and misinformation.
Outcome: voting against one's own declared interests.
I'm not denying preferences exist. But preferences are shaped by lies. They easily lead to outcomes contrary to those preferences.
What you're saying is just factually incorrect. They had a Biden presidency and a Trump presidency. Prices went up much faster and more painfully under Biden than under Trump.
So they voted for the candidate who had a track record of lower inflation.
Turns out things didn't happen that way but that's a different criticism. You're assuming a forward-looking omniscience of some kind or prediction skill that just doesn't exist.
Wars and pandemics that begin on the other side of the world cause inflation.
When "smug asshole Democrats" explained why this wasn't Biden's fault, given that it happened on the other side of the world, they got called "smug assholes".
Enacting tariffs and waging war also causes inflation. Tariffs were a campaign promise - zero omniscience required.
And gas wasn't this expensive in 2022. So you're wrong about that.
> So they voted for the candidate who had a track record of lower inflation.
So they made the ignorant choice at choosing the candidate who teed up the highly inflationary environment and enacted policies which driectly drove the inflation. Like, the $450B in cash handouts and the near trillion dollars in forgiven PPP loans with zero enforcement. Loans which his family directly abused.
> You're assuming a forward-looking omniscience of some kind or prediction skill that just doesn't exist.
No, I'd expect people to not make stupid choices. Anyone actually paying attention would understand Trump is bad for the economy long term. But here we are.
> Something needs to represent the will of the states as distinct entities
Why? And why is indirect selection of senators better for that? Won't it just hand power to backroom operators at the state level, instead of to the people of the state?
You didn't actually address the comment you replied to. Is heckling a speaker free speech or not? Does it protect the speaker's free speech if the heckler is dragged out? Or does it violate the heckler's rights? Or both?
> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It's a great slogan and a terrific ideal. But actually think it through, in real world situations, and you end up with so many edge cases.
I think I clearly did. When the intent and result is not to critique, condemn, refute, or heckle, or even be heard at all, but to put prior restraint by preventing speech or others, then that's literally the opposite of free speech.
Whether done by the government or by an angry mob is a legal difference, but not a principled or moral difference.
You can't be in favour of free speech and also prior speech restraint, "as long as it's not by the government". And as I've said, to be fair to many of those who do it, they admit that they don't care about free speech. And it's true. Their actions are consistent with their claim.
Both heckler and speaker have free speech rights. The speaker did not come there to prevent the heckler's speech. But if the heckler did come to prevent the rights of the speaker, then they are not merely heckling.
That is a fundamental difference.
Your bullhorn preventing not just the speaker from speaking, but the listeners from being able to reject the speaker's message, is just, well, against freedom of speech and freedom in general.
> But actually think it through, in real world situations, and you end up with so many edge cases.
Am I'm sad that people will give up their values for inconveniences. Then they're not your values, just your hobbies, at best.
You may as well be against torture, "except when it's a bad guy".
Edit: or what do you think of this: You can report this comment to HN, hoping that it gets deleted. Would you claim that this is you exercising free speech, or fighting free speech? I would say it'd clearly be the latter. That is, if you did it not because you found my comment against HN policies, but because you disagree and therefore wish that my argument never be heard by anyone?
> The speaker did not come there to prevent the heckler's speech. But if the heckler did come to prevent the rights of the speaker, then they are not merely heckling.
How do you determine intent? The heckler is entitled to say "I think the speaker is a moron. It's important that the speaker's audience hears that message. And that audience is only present now."
> That is a fundamental difference.
Pretending that you're able to magically differentiate someone's intent is the irritant in this perfect model of reality you've constructed. You can ignore it and remain pure because you don't have to deal with it personally. Those who have to apply free speech principles in practice can't be so pure.
I don't even know if you're a real person or the product of a bot farm. Does the bot farm operator have the right to unfettered free speech too? That's indistinguishable from "more money = more free speech".
What do people mean today? I've always been under the impression that a democratic country follows the majority rule to the greatest extent that's reasonably possible.
I read the article but I'm more mystified than when I read the headline. To recap:
A man is killed in a road-rage incident.
The killer gets the maximum sentence for manslaughter (10.5 years).
The appeals court says the judge was influenced by an AI-generated video of the victim and sends the case back for re-sentencing. Fine, ok.
Where it gets weird: The video was made by the victim's sister. In the video, the victim says he believes in forgiveness. However, the family demanded the maximum sentence for the killer.
This strikes me as strange. If they wanted the maximum sentence why did they submit a video about forgiveness? Did I miss something?
I don't fully understand the details of the case, but if someone were to kill a family member of mine in a fit of road rage, I would be furious if the sentence was a paltry 10.5 years.
Victims or victims' families pleading for leniency always puzzled me. Where is your iron?
Not so much perplexing if they considered the AI rendition an accurate representation. It's somewhat quite internally consistent in its own illogical way
You mean: the family members personally wanted the maximum sentence, but they wanted the (dead) victim to be able to express that the victim wants leniency?
> This strikes me as strange. If they wanted the maximum sentence why did they submit a video about forgiveness? Did I miss something?
Just normal emotional manipulation.
Present the victim as an angel who was so perfect that they forgave the perpetrator => the perpetrator is an irredeemable villain for harming the angel => maximum penalty
I can't help but smell powerplay here that the killer paid + forced the sister to make that video to help him with the case. It doesn't make any other sense otherwise.
Where I am from, in many famous killing cases where murderers are powerful, they pay off victims families, families announce forgiveness and the culprits go free.
People are obsessed with granting forgiveness. Some people want to purposefully be victims just so they can forgive someone. Forgiving gives the illusion of control and a moral superiority that some people really crave. It is performative forgiveness. Conveniently, it is difficult to question someone's genuine intentions about forgiveness, and some people have discovered you can also not be the actual victim and still forgive someone for a crime against that victim.
In reality, there should be no forgiveness, only punishments doled out according to the severity of the crime, nothing more. Justice without passion.
Or the AI brother didn't agree with his family, including his sister.
It's absurd, but I have no doubt there are plenty of people who would ask an AI to represent a deceased loved one for them and treat that output as accurate. So they asked AI to represent their dead family member and it (being AI) had a forgiving and humane take that likely wasn't accurate and was more a representation of the baked personality of the AI.
The family, presumably, disagreed with their "loved one's" position, but respected their "loved one's" wishes, at least to the point of presenting it lol
Again, it's easy to assume the sister would just engineer a video of her brother saying whatever she would want him to say, but people are dumb enough to believe AI could accurately represent him. If you thought that was the case, then of course you'd present his position as-is. It's the only moral thing to do lol
Tongue-in-cheek, but my Moccamaster which I bought second-hand is still doing great after 15 years. Two deep cleaning sessions in all that time and just running it with vinegar a couple of times a year seems to be all it needs.
The device is dead simple. No advanced electronics. Nothing complex that can break. Just a coffee maker fine-tuned to near perfection.
The only flaw it has is the handle for the pot. I've resorted to replacing the plastic handle with a fancy walnut one I made myself. I needed that because we tilt the pot sideways to fill the reservoir with water (because of the placement on the kitchen counter and the cabinets above), and that plastic handle is not designed for sideways stresses.
You shouldn’t fill the reservoir with the coffee pot, unless you’re really washing the pot super clean after each use. Better get a proper jug for filling the reservoir, so you’re not putting coffee residue and oils back into the clean-water system.
The same as the ecological impact of constructing gas tanks and pipelines. Only using electricity from batteries doesn't have ecological harms, whereas burning gas does.
How so? Both require mining, separating metal from ore and so on. Steelmaking is done in blast furnaces that burn coal. Lithium can be refined by evaporating brine in large open ponds under sunlight.
- Worldwide Li-ion battery production per year: 35GWh
- Worldwide grid capacity: 5000GWs
- Lifetime of a specific cell in a grid scale battery: 20-30 years
- Current known reserves of Lithium worldwide at current usage rates: 80 years
So even if we magically mined all known Li reserves this year, it still would only be about 14% of the grid for 1 hour or about 9 minutes total for the entire grid. You don't actually need to backup the entire grid (only about 20-30% of it), but you need to do it for at least 4 hours. Basically, it isn't even close even if we only used Lithium for this use. You can get more with Na-ion, but if you think NPPs are dangerous (they aren't)...let's just say nobody would ever insure a grid scale Na-ion battery. Just one leak and it goes up with 1000s of tonnes of TNT of explosive force.
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