InvariantCapitalist Ars Centurion
1y
985
Subscriptor

gsgrego said:
People keep praising Elon for stuff.

Name 2 things he has personally done besides fund SpaceX and then hire competent people who don't do what he suggests?

Tom Meuller, the greatest living rocket engine designer, says that Elon led every key engineering decision at SpaceX while he was there, and just tweeted yesterday about the meeting he was in where Elon told the lead engineers that he was going to optimize SuperHeavy by removing the mass of landing legs and catch it with the tower to greatly accelerate launch turnaround times. Their jaws dropped.

Now he probably got the idea from someone else, but the important thing is that he recognized a great idea and made it a priority. Just as he did when he pushed Tom for changes to make Merlin more easily reusable (in 2007!!!), demanded they attempt hypersonic flybacks and landings of F9 boosters when parachutes failed, switched to stainless steel Starship design from carbon fiber ITS design for their next generation launch system.

He's not just a checkbook, he believes fully in first principles thinking and reducing complexity to an almost religious level and clearly signs off on every major engineering decision at all his companies. You can see this across SpaceX and Tesla, for example the Tesla Cybercab without physical controls, back seats or charging connector is so Elon. It remains to be seen how long it will take to actually ship (Elon Time) and whether those compromises will turn out to be brilliant or CyberTruck level mistakes. //

InvariantCapitalist Ars Centurion
1y
985
Subscriptor

fancysunrise said:
It is possible and my position even on Musk is not black and white. But in general, he is not one of those people. And it isn't juwst about his bad behavior. It's because he's a clown.

And yes, I've read Berger's book. Actually just made a comment on that the other day in different discussion... With all due respect to the author, I don't really agree with it from what I can discern from it and other sources and my own connections to SpaceX. To your bullets: He started the company - read:funded - but is not responsible for its engineering. He was introduced to a guy who had ideas and lacked money. Money guy meets (and manipulates, often) idea guy is not exactly a novel trope in fiction or real life.

Basically you toss out any citations that conflict with your previous opinion on musk. Sure he's an internet troll. But there are also a long list of prestigious space engineers from SpaceX to NASA to others including Jim Cantrell, Robert Zubrin, Tom Meuller, and Michael Griffin who say Elon has studied rocket engineering intensely, understands it deeply and signs off or leads all major engineering decisions at SpaceX.

fancysunrise said:
The desire to build a reusable system - including one that looks like the present effort - is not his and not new. The funding push to get it done is, but even that is not exclusive to SpaceX. They're just the best funded. Where he has inserted himself into decision making, it's turned out poorly -- e.g. Berger's own example to somehow illustrate the contrary with guides in the Falcon hull to prevent slosh resulting in RUD. Musk is not a scientist or engineer. He wants attention. If he can get it by pushing for something positive, that's fine. If he has to be destructive to get it, that's also fine, whether with the aerospace industry, his workers, investors, laws and the environment or anyone and anything else. Either way, he's always dishonest. We don't need to look at antics around submarines in southeast Asia or the war in Ukraine or "X" or investment fraud or disowning his own child out of spite or awkward jumping on stage and fawning of fascists to get more money and power or any of the rest of it to comment on his role in the space industry. Same way we aren't forbidden from discussing Von Braun's historic role in space just because he was a fascist (or "merely" complicit, if we are overly generous to some disingenuous apologists, who are very wrong) -- we can talk about his engineering chops and decisions and the consequences for better or worse (and it goes both ways with him as well) before and after the war. But Musk is not like Von Braun, because again, Musk is not the "idea guy". Musk is a rich clown who wants attention, and it shows.

Again just because you hate him for his abundant personal sins doesn't change the facts, Elon is rich because he's an idea guy first and has pursued first principles thinking in everything he's done, and has never shied away from gambling his entire net worth on his ideas. It would be as crazy as claiming Von Braun wasn't a brilliant rocket engineer because of his Nazi and SS memberships.

SpaceX: "Small-but-meaningful updates" can boost speed from about 100Mbps to 1Gbps.

Supported or not, new or old, this is everything you need to know.

Following a major earthquake, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a nuclear accident beginning on 11 March 2011. All three cores largely melted in the first three days.

In 1971, the AEC proposed a radically new regulatory philosophy requiring all nuclear plants be designed to hold all radioactive emissions to levels such that "exposures were as low as practicable". In other words, there is no limit. And the criteria is not whether the benefit of further reduction outweighs the cost. The criteria is: can you afford the reduction?

This was such a departure from standard regulation that, despite their desperation to get plants on line, it did produce push back from industry. But after considerable debate the policy was formally adopted in 1975 with the wording changed slightly to "as low as reasonably achievable" or ALARA.

In practice, As Low As Reasonably Achievable is interpreted by the regulators to mandate any regulation that allows nuclear to remain competitive with alternate sources of power.

On Tuesday, Google announced that it had made a power purchase agreement for electricity generated by a small modular nuclear reactor design that hasn't even received regulatory approval yet. Today, it's Amazon's turn. The company's Amazon Web Services (AWS) group has announced three different investments, including one targeting a different startup that has its own design for small, modular nuclear reactors—one that has not yet received regulatory approval.

Unlike Google's deal, which is a commitment to purchase power should the reactors ever be completed, Amazon will lay out some money upfront as part of the agreements. We'll take a look at the deals and technology that Amazon is backing before analyzing why companies are taking a risk on unproven technologies. //

X-energy's technology is based on small, self-contained fuel pellets called TRISO particles for TRi-structural ISOtropic. These contain both the uranium fuel and a graphite moderator and are surrounded by a ceramic shell. They're structured so that there isn't sufficient uranium present to generate temperatures that can damage the ceramic, ensuring that the nuclear fuel will always remain contained.

The design is meant to run at high temperatures and extract heat from the reactor using helium, which is used to boil water and generate electricity. Each reactor can produce 80 megawatts of electricity, and the reactors are designed to work efficiently as a set of four, creating a 320 MW power plant. As of yet, however, there are no working examples of this reactor, and the design hasn't been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. //

SetsChaos Smack-Fu Master, in training
28d
4
I'm excited at the prospect of having new nuclear energy in the US. There's been a huge NIMBY push since at least TMI that's seen a lot of regression in the field, despite the science clearly showing advantages for nukes as a base load power source. As much as I want LLM and AI to go the way of NFTs, I am happy to see something revive nuclear.

SMRs are a step in the right modernization direction, but it'd be really cool to get some thorium mixed in here, too. //

Unimportant Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
5y
154
I am optimistic about the nuclear renaissance but I am concerned about labor shortages in the supply chain and among operators.

The premier modular reactor operator, the U.S. Navy, faces a critical shortage of skilled shipyard workers. Repair backlogs can run into year. New construction isn't meeting its goals. Subcontractors that make low volumes of critical parts are affected as much if not more.

It didn't use to be this way but capacity was cut back over the years after the Cold War. Shipyards were closed.

There's a public-private nonprofit entity receiving millions to recruit workers:
buildsubmarines.com

Join the Team Building the Next Generation of U.S. Naval Submarines
Take the first step to join our mission of constructing advanced U.S. Naval submarines. Discover numerous career opportunities across various disciplines and make your mark in this new era of manufacturing.

They have a comprehensive job board with jobs across the supply chain. They're advertising nationally.

New reactors will need the same people. //

The State Election Board (SEB) passed a rule last month that sought to ensure the number of physical ballots counted matches the Election Day machine count total at the precinct level. But after Democrats launched a lawfare campaign, a Georgia judge blocked the rule on Tuesday despite acknowledging it would simply provide “confirmation that the machine counts match reality.”

Rule 183-1-12-.12 (a)(5) stated that “three sworn precinct poll officers” shall count by hand the “number of ballots removed from the scanner … until all of the ballots have been counted separately by each of the three poll officers.” If the machine count total does not match the hand count total, “the poll manager shall immediately determine the reason for the inconsistency; correct the inconsistency, if possible; and fully document the inconsistency or problem along with any corrective measures taken.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney himself acknowledged the rule “may be” “smart election policy,” but that “the timing of its passage make[s] implementation now quite wrong.” //

McBurney expressed concern that as of Tuesday, “there are no guidelines or training tools for the implementation of the Hand Count Rule” and no guidance is “forthcoming,” since Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office would be unable to “provide meaningful training” on the rule. Instead of training counties on the rule in the 25 days since it was passed, Raffensperger’s office told counties it would do nothing until the court weighed in, according to a memo obtained by The Federalist. Both Raffensperger’s office as well as the state’s attorney general opposed the rule change. SEB member Janelle King previously told The Federalist she didn’t “understand why there are complaints about the rule change being too close to the election while simultaneously delaying training.”

Breaking911 @Breaking911
·
POTUS: "She beat Trump so badly in the debate, he's scared to death to beat her again." 🥴

8:32 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

10-uh-see'-n
2 hours ago
"Wise people store up knowledge, But the mouth of the foolish is near destruction." //

A.B.
an hour ago
Listen again.

He said "meet her again," not "beat."

HadEnoughYet? A.B.
41 minutes ago
I thought so too so I listened again several times. He definitely says "beat". //

Atrox
2 hours ago
What scares me is their cheat machine. Everything is STILL in place. What's going to stop them from doing it? They know they're in trouble so I expect a bigger effort. They don't even care if they get caught, WHO is going to stop it? Poll watchers, nope. This whole thing is no different than the last time. Kamala is without doubt the biggest ZERO to EVER run for president and yet it's still "close"? That is not possible and yet it is. She is literally a moron (no offense to morons). The fact that after all her word salads, her fake accents, her "middle class" upbringing (reminds me of Kasich and my Dad was a mailman), it's still close? What do you think their "points" are with the cheat in place? Three, more? Anyone who is watching and buying into sound bites and the lies are morons as well. I don't believe for a nano-second that there is ONE "undecided" voter, other than those who crave attention. I know what SHOULD happen and are we going to have to wait a month for them to keep "finding votes" in desk drawers in abandoned warehouses? Cause if she wins, it is officially over for The United States of America...

The restaurant worker then pointed out that she was, in fact, pulling down the Greek flag. Her response?

What? What is this? Oh, I thought this was Israel. My bad.

When admonished by the restaurant staff that it was not okay for her to behave like that, the Hamas supporter tried to hand back the now-destroyed bunting she had torn down and said she'd have to look it up to make sure it wasn't the Israeli flag. Perhaps something she might have done before making an absolute fool of herself, then, astonishingly, posting the video for all the world to see. //

Rancher's daughter
2 hours ago
It doesn't matter that these were Greek-themed (except to show her complete ignorance and stupidity). It matters that she felt she could tear them down with impunity because she thought they were Israeli flags. Does that happen to Palestinian and Arabic-themed flags and paraphernalia?

When the British government announced last week that it was transferring sovereignty of an island in the Indian Ocean to the country of Mauritius, Gareth immediately realized its online implications: the end of the .io domain suffix. In this piece, he explores how geopolitical changes can unexpectedly disrupt the digital world. His exploration of historical precedents—such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia—offers valuable context for tech founders, users, and observers. //

On October 3, the British government announced that it was giving up sovereignty over a small tropical atoll in the Indian Ocean known as the Chagos Islands. The islands would be handed over to the neighboring island country of Mauritius, about 1,100 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa.

The story did not make the tech press, but perhaps it should have. The decision to transfer the islands to their new owner will result in the loss of one of the tech and gaming industry’s preferred top-level domains: .io. //

Once this treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. Various international bodies will update their records. In particular, the International Standard for Organization (ISO) will remove country code “IO” from its specification. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which creates and delegates top-level domains, uses this specification to determine which top-level country domains should exist. Once IO is removed, the IANA will refuse to allow any new registrations with a .io domain. It will also automatically begin the process of retiring existing ones. (There is no official count of the number of extant .io domains.)

Officially, .io—and countless websites—will disappear. At a time when domains can go for millions of dollars, it’s a shocking reminder that there are forces outside of the internet that still affect our digital lives. //

.io has become popular with startups, particularly those involved in crypto. These are businesses that often identify with one of the original principles of the internet—that cyberspace grants a form of independence to those who use it. Yet it is the long tail of real-world history that might force on them a major change.

The IANA may fudge its own rules and allow .io to continue to exist. Money talks, and there is a lot of it tied up in .io domains. However, the history of the USSR and Yugoslavia still looms large, and the IANA may feel that playing fast and loose with top-level domains will only come back to haunt it.

Whatever happens, the warning for future tech founders is clear: Be careful when picking your top-level domain. Physical history is never as separate from our digital future as we like to think.

NEWS: The Biden-Harris administration now admits that an Afghan national accused of plotting an election day terror attack did not undergo certain vetting they previously claimed he passed. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was never vetted or approved by the State Department for special immigrant (SIV) status, despite officials from other agencies claiming that he cleared that stringent process. //

The story is deeply troubling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it confirms the worst suspicions of Americans that the Biden-Harris administration is incompetent at best and malicious at worst. They think they can just lie about important security matters like a planned terrorist attack on U.S. soil by a dangerous man they should have never let into the country, then have it all swept under the rug by its media mouthpieces. //

According to Real Clear Investigations, which discovered the change, the new data represents a reversal from a 2.1 percent decrase to a 4.5 percent increase.

When the FBI originally released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, it reported that the nation’s violent crime rate fell by 2.1%. This quickly became, and remains, a Democratic Party talking point to counter Donald Trump’s claims of soaring crime.

But the FBI has quietly revised those numbers, releasing new data that shows violent crime increased in 2022 by 4.5%. The new data includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults.

For context, 2022 would be the second most recent year on record as 2024 data is not compiled yet. But if the FBI's data in that year was so off, why should anyone believe their 2023 data, which claims a three percent decrease in violent crime? Will that data be revised in the coming future as well? I think we can take a pretty guess at that one. //

It also couldn't be ignored that around 40 percent of police departments were no longer even sharing crime data with the FBI. That left the bureau increasingly relying on a questionable system of estimation to produce its published crime rates. //

The next thing someone may be wondering is if these revisions are normal. To put it simply, they aren't. Carl Moody, a professor at William and Mary College, looked into past years and found that no revisions happened between 2004 and 2015 while 2016 to 2020 saw only minute changes of less than one percent. It wasn't until Biden and Harris took office that the FBI started producing these massive revisions for 2021 and 2022 (and no doubt, eventually, 2023).

They stabbed him in the back after it was clear he had no path to victory. He made the Democrat Party look weak, and for a party obsessed with power above all things, Biden's failure during his debate with Trump was an unforgivable sin. He had to go, and he didn't want to. They forced him out anyway, and now the man who dedicated the vast majority of his adult life to the party had to watch as the party pushed him out and abandoned him.

To be fair, he should have seen that coming. The Democrat Party doesn't have friends, just relationships of convenience. If you advance the party, you're the toast of the town. Become a hurdle and you're as good as roadkill.

That said, if Biden really wanted to take the knife out of his back and drive it into the Democrat Party's, particularly Harris's, he really only needs to do one thing.

Just say, on a live camera where everyone can watch it happen in real-time, that Donald Trump is not a threat to Democracy. //

One word about how Trump isn't as bad as all that in, that would send the news cycle into a tailspin. They would have to make commentary about how Biden has actually been mentally unwell. This would, of course, throw into question how long he's been mentally unwell and how long the Democrat Party has known.

For seventeen consecutive days in December 2023, highly sensitive US military bases in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia were the target of a drone swarm of unknown origin, type, or purpose. The official response seems to be one of studied indifference. //

Officials didn’t know if the drone fleet, which numbered as many as a dozen or more over the following nights, belonged to clever hobbyists or hostile forces.

If this story is true, what the military doesn't know about the drones dwarfs what it does know. No estimate is given for the number of drones that appeared over Langley AFB before decamping for a flyover of other installations. That isn't an accident. If the size, altitude, and speed of the drones are known, I'm sure someone at least tried to count them, though, in fairness to the military that Joe Biden has created, they may have been unable to do that. It is difficult to believe that after a couple of weeks of appearing at roughly the same time, no one thought about having a helicopter aloft to follow the drones home. Likewise, a 20-foot object flying at 4,000 feet should show up on one of the dozens of radars managing airspace over Hampton Roads unless it has a stealth design, in which case we can rule out a non-national actor. The idea that a rogue hobbyist dropped a few million to develop a massive drone fleet to fly over US military installations strains credulity. //

Just for context, the Shahed 131/136 drone used by the Russians in Ukraine to attack Ukrainian cities and infrastructure is 11 feet long and has a maximum speed of 115mph. It carried a 110-pound warhead. The drones spotted at Langley are roughly twice as long. Every $350 million F-22 you see parked there could be hit by a rather cheap drone before the airbase had time to decide they were an "imminent threat" and react. //

Dieter Schultz Laocoön of Troy
12 hours ago
Hmm... thanks.

I fear we're setting the stage for a Pearl Harbor-type surprise here, where we've opened ourselves up to an attack, widespread or local, that will cost us dearly.

It won't look like what happened in 1941, they'll use different methods, but it'll be about as embarrassing to the country as that was.

Yesterday was Columbus Day, a holiday in honor of an important man who did something important. However, under Joe Biden's misrule, it has been rebranded into a travesty called "Indigenous People's Day." No one is sure what the day is about. Most Americans ignore it while the left enters into a bacchanalia of America-bashing and virtue signaling.

I have a great deal of problems with this new commemorative day because I can't really figure out what we are honoring with that celebration. The contributions made by the aboriginal peoples of North America to American or world culture are exceedingly small. A handful of words — canoe, moccasin, squaw, etc. — have passed into common usage. There are a modest number of burial mounds and some rock glyphs to record their passing. None of the American Indian tribes had developed metallurgy or the wheel. Mathematics and even a rudimentary means of writing were unknown for the most part. Warfare was endemic and brutal, and frequently had the objective of genocide. Slavery was part of the culture of most Indian tribes, as was ritualized torture, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. In short, I find very little admirable about American Indian culture — the documented variety, not the maudlin, Dances With Wolves fake culture the left imagines existed — and can't think of any reason Americans, of all ancestries, have to be sorry that it is a thing of the past. //

Indigenous People's Day is just another assault on America by people who hate the country. Yesterday's statement by Kamala Harris is a prime example of the left and a large number of the America First crowd fetishizing anyone the US has bested economically or militarily.

Yep, Europeans destroyed Stone Age tribal societies mired in superstition and bloodletting and built the greatest nation on Earth. We won, you lost, deal with it.

Historically, and especially from the national identity and unity perspective, Indigenous People's Day makes much less sense than Antebellum South Day. //

3. The American flag is dipped in submission. This is not done.

4. The flag that remains upright is that of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. This is another one of those anomalies that demonstrate just how fake this stuff is. American Indians never had the industry to make flags, and they didn't use flags, so this is just cultural appropriation. The irony of the victory ceremony being conducted in American English, Custer's native tongue, can't be overlooked. //

Ethnic pride is great, but it can't be at the sake of an American identity. If that is where you are headed, trust me when I tell you that you aren't going to like where the path you are following is going to take you. //

Laocoön of Troy idalily
3 hours ago
Winston Churchill: Nations...which go down fighting rise again, and those...that surrender tamely are finished.

Darkest Hour (2017)

MAGA War Room @MAGAIncWarRoom
·
TRUMP: "Do you know what I am doing next week? I AM GOING TO A MCDONALDS TO WORK!" Show more

9:59 PM · Oct 11, 2024 //

Kristen Holmes @KristenhCNN
·
Former President Donald Trump is expected to visit a McDonald’s Sunday in Pennsylvania and “work the fry cooker”, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. This comes up as Trump has repeatedly claimed Vice President Kamala Harris never actually worked at McDonald’s.
5:31 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Monica Crowley @MonicaCrowley
·
President Trump is going to work the fryer at McDonald’s for 10 minutes this weekend, which will be 10 minutes more than Kamala has ever worked there.

The most epic troll of all time 🐐
7:57 PM · Oct 15, 2024

It was in the 2003 race for the job of San Francisco District attorney, which Harris won—by cheating. She had agreed, under penalty of perjury, to spending limits, as had her rivals, but then she simply ignored them. //

Sure, Kamala may have broken a little law here or there, but she’s a progressive Democrat in a one-party state—so what did she do? She simply hired a good attorney:

…thanks to hiring a good lawyer and making the excuse that, oh, the form changed, I didn't really understand the meaning of this, so please lift the cap. She got the San Francisco Ethics Commission—and by the way, many of those people on the ethics Commission owed their positions to Willie Brown.

She got them to look the other way on this gross violation. It's a crime, by the way.

She could have been prosecuted for a misdemeanor had she been properly held accountable for this significant campaign finance violation, and anybody else would have, but the Ethics Commission simply lifted the cap, which is not in the Statute, so instead of disqualifying her, which would have been the normal punishment, and prosecuting her, she simply got away with it.

So in her first race for elected office, she ignored the campaign finance limits, she used corrupt patronage from her former lover to raise the money necessary to do the glossy ads. I've got several examples here. She did more mailers than all of the other candidates. She had independent expenditures on her behalf, and she simply was able to outspend and blow through these limits. //

“It’s pretty incredible that the birth of this meteoric career comes out of multiple campaign violations,” she concluded. //

Cynical Optimist
10 hours ago
That interview with Tucker was arguably the most fascinating interview I've ever seen, but that probably is because I'm from the Bay Area and have been politically active for a long time, it brought back a lot of memories and flashbacks to San Francisco politics.

One of the things that Harmeet touched on briefly and that I've been interested in is the fact that Kamala Harris used to be a good public speaker, she was glib and knowledgeable, and could speak extemporaneously. But the fact that she now cannot speak publicly and appears to be genuinely dimwitted at times has been puzzling to me,

Harmeet's conclusion was that she has Imposter Syndrome, that she knows she doesn't belong and that she's in over her head. The problem with that argument is that she has been hand-selected for everything she's ever achieved and has been in over her head the entire time.

Louis Rukeyser's Ghost Cynical Optimist
10 hours ago
I've know serious people who were functioning drunks who degenerated into morons like this. Long term hard boozing screws a person up.

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
Kamala — who has been in office for the past four years — says "it's time to turn the page."

WE AGREE!

7:53 PM · Oct 14, 2024 //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
Kamala once again claims President Trump "would weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies."

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE'S DOING.

8:09 PM · Oct 14, 2024 //

Sean Parnell @SeanParnellUSA
·
Bob Casey not being in the critical swing county of Erie with Kamala is proof that she’s toxic in Pennsylvania & that they’re both in serious trouble here.

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
Kamala, in Erie, says Democrat Sen. Bob Casey isn't in attendance because he's "out doing what he needs to do to get re-elected."

(It's really because vulnerable Democrats don't want to be seen anywhere near her)
Embedded video
9:09 PM · Oct 14, 2024

The property management firm managing several buildings in Aurora, Colorado, that have been taken over by members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, is speaking out. The company has taken to X to provide a full description of how the buildings were invaded and taken over by the illegal alien gangsters, how the tenants fled, how people were threatened and assaulted, and how the local government reacted.

Cbz Management @CbzManagement
·
Gangs have taken control of several of our properties in Aurora, Colorado.

In an attempt to discredit this fact for political purposes and avoid governmental accountability, some have spread false information about our situation. Let’s set the record straight...🧵

3:32 PM · Oct 11, 2024 //

But in this case, the decision was made in January 2021, when Joe Biden signed executive orders largely undoing Donald Trump's border policies and effectively throwing the border open. There was illegal immigration before that, but the Harris/Biden administration's policies have allowed it to explode.

This mess in Aurora, Colorado, is just one of the outcomes of that catastrophically bad decision. And the root cause can be laid squarely at the feet of Joe Biden and Kamala "Border Czar" Harris.

It seems intentionally cruel that, in a time when we can easily track mail packages, the federal prison system often fails to provide location information for its inmates. We live in a technologically advanced society where you can receive notifications about how many stops away your Amazon delivery is, yet your family member can disappear for over a month with no available information. This disparity demonstrates an ethical failure within the justice system.

If there is a silver lining to the January 6 prosecutions, it’s that we have learned a lot about the DOJ and the federal prison system. I’m not suggesting high-end luxury conditions for federal inmates—just basic information about their location at any given time. We must also ensure that seemingly endless transport, or "diesel therapy," isn’t used as a punitive measure, as psychologically torturing inmates is cruel and unusual. The impact of these policies extends beyond the inmates themselves, causing significant distress for their families, who deserve clarity.

Curiously, many supporters of criminal justice reform on the left seem hesitant to discuss these problems, even as we've gained insight into the system through the experiences of the Biden administration's numerous political prisoners.