I don't know. Is it really not important that a single guy, the richest in the world and heavily dependend on government subsides, able to access personal data of every single government employee ? (And send them pretty childish emails over the weekend !)

Given the fact that people with very questionable backgrounds "work" on this data, it all looks like a massive potential for data leaks. It happens in plain sight, and apparently not many people object. Or more accurately, as on this website, they are silenced.

The argument about politics here is that it is more important than most tech discussions, so could easily crowd out the tech and 'interesting' (but perhaps kind of obscure) articles.

For instance a discussion about Ukraine... what happens there is life-or-death for thousands of people.

It's tough to look away from it right now though. At nearly 50, I still think tech is fun and interesting, but I'm getting to an age where I want to leave a better world for my kids and it looks like what they'll actually get is perhaps much worse than what I grew up with.

Not thousands of people. Millions of people. At least.

In theory, yes. In practice I rarely see more than one topic on the front page a day. It's still about popularity among the audience, and of course HN's own algorithms (and dang) tend to do a good job of avoiding multiple like-minded topics being scattered out like Reddit does.

There is a huge amount of relentless work from 'dang' and others moderating the site. That's a big reason you don't see that stuff.

I don't know, but this temporary restraining order doesn't tell you anything new about the question.

Except it does. A TRO means the judge believes it likely that your case has merit and will win and that there is irreparable public harm without a TRO.

It's the opinion of a single judge, before a trial has occurred. It has some meaning, but just last week a different judge said the opposite in a related case (as the article notes), so clearly, opinions will vary.

Must we have blaring headlines and political flamefests every time a judge issues an intermediate ruling related to DOGE?

Yes. Because of the second part of what is required for a TRO. Irreparable public harm.

It should be news worthy

"Irreparable harm"...IF AND ONLY IF the case is decided in favor of the plaintiffs, and there is determined to be harm from the behavior. Neither of which has actually occurred yet.

All the judge has done is to decree that:

a) her opinion is that the plaintiffs are "likely to" prevail, and

b) you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, so it makes sense to pause the behavior in question while trial is pending.

You're getting worked up over theoretical outcomes. TROs happen all the time, even in cases where the eventual outcome is in favor of the defendants.

>Must we have blaring headlines and political flamefests every time a judge issues an intermediate ruling related to DOGE?

I believe that's how case ruling posts commonly work on HN (plenty of "the case may proceed" with tech company news), so I don't see why not. The whole process of law is slow so it's nigh impossible for it to flood HN.

A temporary restraining order is an extraordinary measure, never granted as a right. To grant one, the plaintiff needs to succeed on all four factors: irreparable harm, likelihood of success on the merits, balance of equities, and public interest.(Yes, I've read enough TRO-related stuff that I can recite the verbiage from memory.)

Winning a TRO essentially requires that the judge agree you're going to win your case eventually and that you can't even wait until a preliminary injunction hearing to get some relief. On the flip side, losing a TRO doesn't mean all that much.

> Nothing of substance has occurred here; a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order

A TRO is something of a substance, both literally in itself and its immediate effect, and also as an indicator on the merits since a TRO requires a finding of probability of success on the merits.

> Nothing of substance has occurred here; a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order

Maybe nothing of substance to you.

But it's certainly something of substance to US citizens. Which are, I argue, a majority of HN users given YCombinator's location.

>Nothing of substance has occurred here; a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order for a couple of weeks until the case can move forward.

Given the hesitancy a few weeks ago, I'd say this is important news to know of.

But sure, politics is popular flame war just like a topic about X vs Y or any AI news.