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Libya is an impoverished backwater with a population of 7m, a GDP per capita of 9K. To whom were they a threat outside of their region?

Pan Am 103 springs to mind, a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit.

I thought it was now attributed to Iran?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103


He bans journalists?

Biden wins on inflation, real wage growth, illegal immigration, and international military conflict?

SpaceX was able to re-fly a Falcon 9 in 3 weeks, and it was reported[0] that the refurb process only took 9 days. So they're well on their way.

It's also worth noting that Booster (the first stage), Starship (the second stage) and Raptor (the rocket engine) were all designed with the benefit of the above experience and with the goal of same-day reuse in mind. They know where all of the refurb time went and where the bottlenecks are.

I have no doubt that they can reduce the turnaround further, but the goal of same-day re-flight does seem mighty ambitious.

[0] https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-new-booster-turnar...


This problem was solved at least as far back as ancient Rome. The solution was and is the secret ballot. If nobody gets to see your ballot before it goes into the box, and if it can't be tied back to you, nobody can hold you to a vote. Thus, even if someone threatens your life, bribes you, etc, the secret ballot preserves your ability to vote your conscience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot#Ancient


He's up by almost 5 million votes. There are enough votes outstanding to flip the race, but it seems unlikely that they'll break Democrat hard enough to make up the difference.


By the time Primary season kicks off in early 2028, it will have been twenty years since the last time the Democratic Party membership selected a new candidate without direct interference from party bigwigs.

Twenty. Years.


Democrats have more popular positions, but their problem is that nobody likes them. The DNC is part of the problem. They disenfranchise their own base and it looks weak.


The 2020 primary went without large interference. Lo and behold, the democratic candidate won that election. The lesson is clear: to win elections hold actual primaries instead of appointing candidates.


They’ve been incapable of holding actual primaries since at least 2016. They curate, subvert, stifle, and influence who rises up from the primary election. They don’t care at all about democracy or the republic. Any Democrat who is a populist that actually cares about the American people, ex Bernie Sanders, will be shut down in favor of one that can push globalist agendas at the expense of the local population in exchange for looting the national treasury. When Bernie stepped out of line and genuinely wanted to help people, the DNC establishment whipped him back into step and reminded him who’s boss. I’m genuinely surprised this election appeared to ever be close.

America was saved and a better chapter begins. Do you disagree? A plurality of Americans agree with that sentiment as evidenced by the popular vote and the winning of all 7 swing states.


They held a primary in 2020. Kamala, Warren, Beto, Bernie and more all ran with Biden.


That definitely feels like the forgotten primary. My best guess is that its because that primary was book ended by primaries that were heavily influenced and controlled by the DNC.


I mean, primaries usually aren’t generally heavily remembered.



Many believe that the party gave Biden and unfair advantage using their superdelegates. The Republican Party does not have such super delegates, and in fact in 2016 Trump won solely due to his ability to organize and rally a well-working campaign even as party elites were seething at his ascendency and insulting him in public.


DNC was worried that Bernie would be nominated.


Super delegates are undemocratic, and always have been. How does the party of 'democracy' get away with this? The GOP has never used them and always just let its voters vote. When the voters chose Trump despite the leaderships hatred of them, they all stepped aside. Are they perfect... of course not? But compared to the democrats, they've always stood by their voters.


Yep, the DNC has lacked the self-awareness in these past few years to gaze within and cull the cruft that 100% of their voter base hate. Superdelegates need to go. They're this generation's Korematsu (as in they are still active while people would rightfully think they're gone). I feel confident that superdelegates will come back to bite the DNC decades down the line.

In fairness, they actually did change the rules around them after 2016 but stopped short of removing them.


I hope they get rid of them!


Yep, I think that is the ultimate reason. The GOP party ends up listening to their voters and the Democratic party does not


GOP has also been captured by a B-list celebrity whose brand is rich, asshole misogynist.


the way I remember it, it was a competitive primary with Bernie and Warren competing for the lead when suddenly Biden mysterious knocked them all out, as if the party had suddenly overruled the process. Maybe that was an illusion but a lot of people interpreted it this way.


No mystery about it: after South Carolina a bunch realized they couldn't win.


Because everyone besides Bernie dropped out right before Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden, hoping to get appointments in a future Biden Admin. Many, like Buttigeg were well rewarded for this.


The Democrats even tried to drop the primary here in New York by striking Bernie and everyone from the ballot because they had decided Biden was going to get the nomination.


It’s not so crazy, Biden was more appealing to moderates.


Biden won pretty handedly because moderates didn't like that Bernie calls himself a socialist. If you're chronically online it might seem like Bernie was leading the pack but I've had many conversations with the older voting population that echo the sentiment that he was never their guy.


This conspiracy from Bernie bros is so deeply stupid.

The democratic coalition depends on black voters, and they decisively chose Joe Biden in South Carolina, sending a clear signal about who would have the strength to beat Trump (and in the end they were right).

It was not a party conspiracy.


[flagged]


Democracy dies when voters elect a candidate who tried to overthrow the democratic system before, and promises to do it again.


At least those folks went after the government instead of smashing the windows of every business in my city. But that event, despite being in the “worst global pandemic of 100 years” somehow got a free pass. It was labeled as “the summer of love”.

This country was founded by government distrust and rebellion. It was not founded on bashing your neighbors windows.

Those people who stormed the capitol put the fear of god into a bunch of politicians. Good for them.

…the people who set fire to neighborhood buildings… not so sure about that one.


Exactly.


Based on voting patterns, I think to many americans today, the main claim of the J6ers (that there were some fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election) is looking more likely, not less. If anything were to come out, the J6ers would become freedom fighters, just as they are apparently in the hearts of many Americans. Like it or not, perception is how you win an election.

On the other hand, the democrats have tried politically-inspired prosecutions, selecting a nominee while ignoring the party writ large.

Anyway, the simple truth is that Americans worried about democracy went to trump by large margins. Consider that


Democracy always dies by democracy though. Thats the fundamental flaw.


Does this not get exhausting?


[flagged]


In 2016, prospective candidates were told by the party to sit this one out. It was Hillary's turn and if you run in the primary, you will not have a future in the DNC. This is why we only got Bernie (who isnt even a democrat) and a hand full of no name DNC candidates to vote for. She was chosen, and no big names ran against her.


Where is the evidence for this? Obama was also not a big name candidate in 2008. It's harder to be a bigger name than someone who was both a first lady and a senator.


Wikileaks released DNC's internal emails, where they made plans to sabotage Bernie.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sa...

Bernie supporters filed a lawsuit against the DNC for disenfranchising them. The DNC argued they operate as a private corporation and are free to pick whomever they want "over cigars in a back room".

> “There’s no right to not have your candidate disadvantaged or have another candidate advantaged. There’s no contractual obligation here . . . it’s not a situation where a promise has been made that is an enforceable promise,” Spiva said.

> The DNC is advancing the argument that any claims to be neutral and fair to all candidates were nothing but “political promises” and are unenforceable by law.

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/13/the-dncs-elephant-in-the-ro...


None of this is evidence for GGP's claims.

It is also not evidence for any interference above 2008. Workers for the DNC had their own preferences for party candidate. This was the case in 2008 as well, but without the emails, it's hard to construct a conspiracy theory. There was no evidence of "sabotage" in the emails.

> The DNC is advancing the argument that any claims to be neutral and fair to all candidates were nothing but “political promises” and are unenforceable by law.

This is a legal argument for throwing out a case (which was thrown out). It is not an admission of being unfair.


one partisan event I found in a quick web search (can't vouch for anything):

from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2143741/fact-che...

    On Thursday, Brazile released a excerpt from her new book on Politico’s website. The excerpt explained how the Hillary Victory Fund, Hillary for America, and the Democratic National Committee signed a Joint Fund-Raising Agreement, which gave a significant advantage to Clinton’s campaign.

    “Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Brazile wrote. “Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”

     “The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical,” Brazile notes. “This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.”


_fs didn't say she wasn't a big name, only that "no big names ran against her."


No big names ran against her in 2008. No big names ran against Obama in 2012. No big names ran against Biden. Big name is a relative term.


Yes, the Democrats have a history of fighting against competitive primaries. 2016 wasn't the first time, but it was the first time some of mechanisms they use to suppress other candidates were exposed in their own words.


You keep saying that without providing any evidence. Once more, where is the evidence that the DNC ever told anybody that they wouldn't have a future in the DNC if they ran in a primary?


But she was very divisive on the R side. Democrats need someone who is popular enough with their core base to win primaries, but also likable enough to the other side to get some crossover votes.


When in doubt, always blame the Russians.


They released the emails that this conspiracy theory is based on.


But the DNC wrote them. Don't blame the messenger.


Did we get verification the emails were unaltered? To make an analogy the initial email release was smoke, it demands investigation, smoke often means fire after all, but not always.


Had a single email been altered, you can be sure that the DNC would have been shouting it from the rooftops. Being able to label the emails as 'altered' would have made for fantastic water-muddying, which is a classic defensive tactic in such a situation. Any political operative would be expected to do the same. The fact that you are (as I am) unaware of any such claim, in an episode which was at the top of the news cycle for months, would seem to be a pretty clear indicator that the emails were legit.


> Had a single email been altered, you can be sure that the DNC would have been shouting it from the rooftops.

Easy to imagine they would not in some cases. Often people do not comment on on going investigations. Or in international espionage I know it is common to hide what you know and what you do not know to keep your competitors/enemies in the dark to give your self an advantage. So the USA spy organizations may not want the DNC to show its hand.

I can not make the assumption that you are putting forth at least.


Neither of those concerns are relevant.

The DNC could have simply published one of their original emails for people to compare, without interfering in any investigation or revealing any spy techniques.


> The DNC could have simply published one of their original emails for people to compare, without interfering in any investigation or revealing any spy techniques.

Ok the DNC goes to their hard drive and opens up the email. It does not match what was in the leak. Is the email on the DNC's hard drive altered or not? After all if the email was accessed/leaked could it have been altered as well? With a simple security setup, yes it can.

Operational security is often about not tipping your hand to your adversary about what you know and what you do not know. Showing the original email in your scenario also tips your hand for what you think you know.


There was nothing incriminating in the emails. Some staffers preferred one candidate. This was spun into a fixing conspiracy theory. If you think this wasn't true in 2008 or that some RNC staffers don't prefer one candidate, you might be interested in a bridge I have for sale.


Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid admitted: “Bernie really had a movement out there, and it wasn’t right to treat him that way. I knew — everybody knew — that this was not a fair deal. So I’m sorry she had to resign, but it was the right thing to do. She just should’ve done it sooner.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harry-reid-bernie-sanders-dnc...


Which is it? Did she schedule the debates on the weekend so nobody would watch, or did she ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light for many voters? It can't be both. The reality is that none of her actions caused Clinton to get more than 3 million more votes than Sanders.


Yes it can be both. Schedule the debates on the weekend so "nobody" would watch (thus people who didn't know about him wouldn't learn about him), and ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light (targeting people who already knew about him and did watch because they wanted to learn more).

She did more too, like convincing much of the media not to talk him. It was quite obvious when so many shows covered the polls, including people polling in single digits, but didn't mention Sanders.

> The reality is that none of her actions caused Clinton to get more than 3 million more votes than Sanders.

There's no way to know how many votes he would have gotten in a fair contest.


> She did more too, like convincing much of the media not to talk him.

Where is the evidence for this?

> Yes it can be both. Schedule the debates on the weekend so "nobody" would watch (thus people who didn't know about him wouldn't learn about him), and ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light (targeting people who already knew about him and did watch because they wanted to learn more).

Most of the debates were on weekdays, including 80% of the debates between only Clinton and Sanders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden...

None of the questions she proposed asking Sanders about his religion were ever asked.

> There's no way to know how many votes he would have gotten in a fair contest.

Exactly the number of votes that he got.


MSFT is up more today than it was during Steve Ballmer's 14 year tenure. It's up 1%.


Microsoft has grown by leaps and bounds under Satya. The stock is up >1300%, which amounts to having added ~260B in market cap per year over ~11 years. Their previous CEO (Ballmer) was at the helm for 14 years, during which time the stock was down ~20%, amounting to an average annual loss of ~10B per year in market cap.

CEOs aren't fungible.


I once saw a picture of a cool Bronze sword on the internet and decided to make a wooden copy of it. I knew the length, which I used to determine its proportions. I was VERY confused about the grip, which was much too small for my average-sized hand. Yet when I triple-checked my measurements, they were correct! I ultimately abandoned the project, wondering whether I had lost my marbles.

Very glad to have this mystery solved at last!


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