Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, *unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon*. A former US president being convicted of a crime is one.
He’s the first president in history to be convicted of a felony. This particular one is related to election tampering, where he paid off a pornstar that he had sex with while married to not tell the story during the 2016 election season.
Seems like a big deal that many of us here should discuss. Hopefully as adults with the understanding that our country must socially mend ourselves eventually.
> As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call.
IANAL but I've done some jury-duty: As a general rule the judge is responsible for determining things like "which laws are involved here", and when there's a jury the judge creates instructions that cover the rest of it like: "The law says X. The question of Y is not relevant and you should not let it affect your decision. You must convict if ((A and B) or C)."
So in a jury trial the judge might rule "those aren't actually charges you can make", but not so much "that evidence is fake" or "that person is lying" etc.
Being intelligent might correlate with a more liberal outlook, but I know a few highly intelligent people who are big fans of trump.
My father was a nuclear reactor operator and electrician for a big chunk of his 22 years in the Navy (EM-N, E-8, worked mostly on fast attack subs). He was a manager at multiple nuclear powerplants on the East Coast before leaving that industry. He's honestly highly intelligent and curious.
He's definitely a trump fan. He thinks Biden is going to destroy the US. Dude's politics are unhinged.
One of my siblings is disabled, bi, and trans, yet both of my parents supported trump openly in 2016.
Speaking in pure hypotheticals, the most effective form of governance is benevolent dictatorship.
... But in terms of forms that are practically implementable without perfect knowledge and control of the future, there are huge risks involved with altering the amount a person's vote counts based upon some kind of gamable criteria.
The bigger deal to me is that so many Americans (that many that he could win) are still going to vote for Trump! That's so disappointing of the American society.
Strange, I don't recall people questioning the "relevance" of other popular things this week like (A) national housing prices or (B) exoplanets or even (C) whether music makes food taste better... So why would you challenge this, which is an extremely noteworthy legal case with internationally-(in)famous politicians that may affect the future of many readers?
Sure, there's always a priority on tech news here, but that's not the same as banning all the other articles that don't involving a beeping computer or software for a beeping computer.
I see this as plenty notable and relevant to the regular-audience here, I only worry about controlling the inevitable cascade of near-dupe submissions.
This is actually a dupe as seen in another comment, before this I didn't know search existed since my extension for dark mode made it almost completely invisible.
I don’t think this stops him from being President again. Because he will appeal and he already rigged some of the higher courts with Trump-friendly judges
The bigger deal to me is that so many Americans (that many that he could win) are still going to vote for Trump! That's so disappointing of the American society.
I think the most disappointing thing is that the Democrats aren’t running a better candidate. All the betting markets expect Biden to lose, and they have done so for over a year, but the Democrats still have not found a better candidate
From an outside perspective I think Biden is a decent candidate, but I won't argue about if he did more good than bad. People know what to expect and the country is run by the administration as a whole rather than any particular individual.
Although I have to admit that Trump did challenge that in my view as he seemed to push for personal goals a lot more than past few presidents from history.
The issue is the President is also the face of the country, and a lot of voters are tired of having to choose between two geriatric guys from the last generation of politics.
Trump gets a huge boost from voters who are simply exhausted from being told consistently that only those over 70 need apply (especially when so many perceive that it's a generation that is selfishly leaving the world as bad as possible on their way out).
Though Trump is also part of that cohort, he's not considered an insider (counterintuitively; you can't get more inside than "was a President"). So he resonates with people who want an end to business-as-usual.
You're making a category error. Biden is the incumbent. The Party always runs the incumbent. Is that how it should be? We can debate that, but that's how it is.
It's the party that may be making a category error.
There's no law that they must run the incumbent; it's just tradition (and a tradition with some reasonable underpinning... "Why should we listen to you if you don't even back the guy you sold us last time?"). But many voters are exhausted of tradition and fearful of where it may lead.
I think it's important to point out here that it's not like the DNC decides who runs for offices. Biden chose to run for reëlection; no good candidates opposed him. At no point did "the Democrats" make any decision.
Speaking as a non-American, if Trump goes to jail for election-interference, so should Biden for covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story with his extensive drug addict lifestyle and his use as an intermediary for kickbacks to his dad - which was passed off as "russian disinformation".
I mean the funny thing is that the reimbursement to Cohen was done in 2017 - after the election. And the two-year statute of limitations that was deliberately extended AFTER Bragg came to office in 2021 only covers up-to 2017 and not to a period before the election.
So, what-ever way you look at this, the law was deliberately modified to get Trump. And even the extended law could only cover 2017 and not 2015/16. The guilty decision was made by FEELINGS and not law.
This case will be easily thrown out on appeal. Hell, the most amusing thing about this show trial was the Judge forcing the defense to go before the prosecution for the closing arguments! Even the judge's daughter - Loren Merchan- is a fund-raiser for the Democrat party - who raised $93+ million while the trial was going on.
Since HN is generally left-leaning and anti-Trump, my comment will be extensively voted down but it doesn't change the simple observable facts of jaw-dropping, overwhelming bias in this trial.
The U.S. is unfortunately well on its way to being a standard Banana Republic. The worst part of this is that the world will now see this as standard operating tactics to adopt. Hey, if America does this in politics, we should do it too!
> It can't stop him from running because prison doesn't disqualify a presidential candidate.
I'm unfortunately reminded once again that committing certain felonies (or failing to pay legal debts) can permanently disqualify people from voting [1][2].
50 comments
[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadSeems like a big deal that many of us here should discuss. Hopefully as adults with the understanding that our country must socially mend ourselves eventually.
As far as I understand it's a jury trial which means it wasn't up to the judge to make the call.
IANAL but I've done some jury-duty: As a general rule the judge is responsible for determining things like "which laws are involved here", and when there's a jury the judge creates instructions that cover the rest of it like: "The law says X. The question of Y is not relevant and you should not let it affect your decision. You must convict if ((A and B) or C)."
So in a jury trial the judge might rule "those aren't actually charges you can make", but not so much "that evidence is fake" or "that person is lying" etc.
My father was a nuclear reactor operator and electrician for a big chunk of his 22 years in the Navy (EM-N, E-8, worked mostly on fast attack subs). He was a manager at multiple nuclear powerplants on the East Coast before leaving that industry. He's honestly highly intelligent and curious.
He's definitely a trump fan. He thinks Biden is going to destroy the US. Dude's politics are unhinged.
One of my siblings is disabled, bi, and trans, yet both of my parents supported trump openly in 2016.
C'est la vie. It goes to show you never can tell.
But i must say, when I hear the reasons why people vote the way they do, my estimation of their intelligence drops significantly.
... But in terms of forms that are practically implementable without perfect knowledge and control of the future, there are huge risks involved with altering the amount a person's vote counts based upon some kind of gamable criteria.
You just claimed a bunch of stuff without any evidence, so I’m not sure what your comment is worth.
Sure, there's always a priority on tech news here, but that's not the same as banning all the other articles that don't involving a beeping computer or software for a beeping computer.
I see this as plenty notable and relevant to the regular-audience here, I only worry about controlling the inevitable cascade of near-dupe submissions.
I do. Just a few hours ago, the Supreme Court NRA first amendment decision got nuked from HN.
Although I have to admit that Trump did challenge that in my view as he seemed to push for personal goals a lot more than past few presidents from history.
Trump gets a huge boost from voters who are simply exhausted from being told consistently that only those over 70 need apply (especially when so many perceive that it's a generation that is selfishly leaving the world as bad as possible on their way out).
Though Trump is also part of that cohort, he's not considered an insider (counterintuitively; you can't get more inside than "was a President"). So he resonates with people who want an end to business-as-usual.
There's no law that they must run the incumbent; it's just tradition (and a tradition with some reasonable underpinning... "Why should we listen to you if you don't even back the guy you sold us last time?"). But many voters are exhausted of tradition and fearful of where it may lead.
I mean the funny thing is that the reimbursement to Cohen was done in 2017 - after the election. And the two-year statute of limitations that was deliberately extended AFTER Bragg came to office in 2021 only covers up-to 2017 and not to a period before the election.
So, what-ever way you look at this, the law was deliberately modified to get Trump. And even the extended law could only cover 2017 and not 2015/16. The guilty decision was made by FEELINGS and not law.
This case will be easily thrown out on appeal. Hell, the most amusing thing about this show trial was the Judge forcing the defense to go before the prosecution for the closing arguments! Even the judge's daughter - Loren Merchan- is a fund-raiser for the Democrat party - who raised $93+ million while the trial was going on.
Since HN is generally left-leaning and anti-Trump, my comment will be extensively voted down but it doesn't change the simple observable facts of jaw-dropping, overwhelming bias in this trial.
The U.S. is unfortunately well on its way to being a standard Banana Republic. The worst part of this is that the world will now see this as standard operating tactics to adopt. Hey, if America does this in politics, we should do it too!
IIRC, Eugene V. Debs ran from prison in 1920, and he got something like 5% of the vote... As a third party candidate. He was with the socialists.
I'm unfortunately reminded once again that committing certain felonies (or failing to pay legal debts) can permanently disqualify people from voting [1][2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...
The new math.
And then also, I'd already seen it when I saw this discussion.
I would assume so.
Reddit apparently launched some new "achievements" thing today. I've been assuming it's related to that being rolled out.
New features typically involve some new bugs.
I can comment, but can't see my "comments" section.
More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40529062