No one here is debating that there is some hidden upside to theocracy. They’re bad, we get it.

His point though, is that much like the Miami Cubans, the Iranian exiles that fled after the overthrow of the Shah, tend to be part of the old ruling class that had been disempowered. At least, the most vocal ones.

Also, just like Batista, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was enabled and backed by Western powers, before revolutionaries overthrew him and ended his dynasty.

Sure, they had a system of relatively successive monarchies, but that isn’t the same as having a single running system of government. And it certainly not somehow more legitimate than theocracy, if your own benchmark is democratic rule - which you just said was the determining factor of a government’s legitimacy.

Also, not for nothing, but the last monarchical dynasty was literally installed by the British, and propped up by Western powers until the people, or at least, a fanatically religious subset of the people, overthrew them.

Again, it’s not like I’m a fan of theocracies, but saying that their current government is illegitimate is absurd, whether viewed in the context of international relations, or internal support and control.

He failed to legitimize the government that has been ruling the country since 1979…?

Presumably this website feels the Pahlavi dynasty, which was installed and backed by foreign powers and also lasted about 50 years, was the last legitimate government.

You don’t have to support theocracy to recognize the absurdity of claiming that a government that’s been in charge for 50 years, and is recognized around the world, is somehow illegitimate.

Losing one artist isn’t the implication…it’s losing all your independent venues because they won’t financially survive being blacklisted by every artist that hopes to tour anywhere else because LN is a monopoly…

So goodbye independent venues and hello to exponentially higher prices, because that’s what monopolies do…

Just duct tape some EREC (explosive reactive egg cartons) on that bitch and you’ll be good to go.

Correct, they rigged it: past tense.

I don’t mean by literally stuffing ballots, but via mostly boring administrative and bureaucratic maneuvering. Although, some state Democratic parties did actually cancel their Presidential primaries entirely, which frankly should be illegal.

Nothing I’m saying is breaking news. This was covered at the time, and has seen a small resurgence in coverage since the debate.

I think The Lever actually just republished the reporting they ran at the time.

Trump isn’t some mythical Boogeyman who only Biden can beat. That’s not my gut feeling, that’s what the recent electoral results and polling data shows us.

But putting that aside, that doesn’t mean the DNC should be rigging primaries because they think they know best. That’s how Trump won in 2016, and why we just witnessed Biden sun downing on a debate stage.

That’s what primaries are for.

Unfortunately, Biden and the DNC didn’t feel that aspect of party democracy was convenient for them this year, so…well, here we are.

Intentionally misleading headline, but not technically incorrect.

These are designed to carry troops through an irradiated battle space and keep them safe from the fallout. At least while they’re inside and the filtration systems are functioning properly.

That doesn’t mean they were magically enhanced to be impervious to antimaterial weapons, or other types of kinetic damage that happen in combat.

You should really read up on how they operate.

Here’s just one hypothetical based off available reporting, court cases, and leaked documents:

Artist A has a history of performing at independent Portland venues but also tours the country and therefore has to use LN venues and TM services.

When LN opens their Portland location, Artist A will have to either start using the LN venue, or find that the rest of their tour has suddenly run into financial issues with LN pricing and rebate schemes.

So Artist A switches to Portland LN venue, and magically those issues start to go away.

And that’s just the artist side, LN pulls variations of this monopoly abuse with local venues who refuse to Ticket Master, or sign with LN.

I’m not even doing their criminal behavior justice and the real examples are significantly worse then what I quickly typed out. This will only harm artists, local venues, and Portland, if allowed.

Unions should always back the due process rights of their members…

Of all the things to shit on Police Unions for, this one actually requires a conviction to be valid.

Until then, it is every union’s moral and ethic obligation to support their members as they go through the legal process.

Just because something is legally defined, doesn’t mean the law will be equally applied and it’s not a conspiracy theory to point out the German government’s long history of unequal application of draconian laws that are used to target specific demographic groups.

The groups they choose to target may change as time moves on, but the tactic remains.

Prior to his FAA appointment, Whitaker was a long time airline industry lawyer and executive.

Don’t confuse the job description on the FAA website, with the actual role he’s been appointed to fill.

It’s a country that heavily relies on the revenues generated by its state-run oil company.

If you’re Boeing, or even just a rogue Boeing executive/team, the best way to make sure you fail at this would be to leave an obvious trail of bodies.

These ambiguous deaths are plausibly unrelated enough to justify no one looking too closely, but are clear enough for their intended audience.

Hell, even if Boeing just got insanely “lucky” and these two deaths are as they appear, it’s still going to have a massive chilling effect on anyone else who might have been considering coming forward.

It’s the chain of events that could be suspicious, or totally random.

A person has trouble breathing, which could have been induced, or just bad luck, then goes to hospital and dies of MRSA - which also could have been induced, or just bad luck.

The most logical explanation is that bad things happen to people all the time and it’s usually not murder.

However, because of the widespread press coverage of the previous “suicide”, it makes sense that if additional whistleblowers were being killed, that the methods would grow increasingly complex and obfuscated.

Remember, these were all long time employees. Boeing is going to have all sorts of information on them, including their medical history and that’s not even factoring in the resources they have available.

It’s not hard to imagine that they would know how to create a situation where a person gets hospitalized, without causing suspicion, and have the resources to finish them off inside that hospital with something like a rapid MRSA infection.

Or maybe all this means is that corporations really are people and Boeing is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Now, God is an enacting revenge on the people who have testified against his favorite son, and our Savior: Jesus Boeing Christ.

The Democrats abandoned the Unions long before Union members largerly abandoned the Democrats.

You’re not wrong, but the appointment of Lina Khan to head the FTC is easily one of the only good things Biden has done while in office.

So, at least she’ll go down kicking and screaming before they finally snuff her out, metaphorically speaking.

Well…those were mugshots taken after their arrests on murder charges… wouldn’t it be even more disturbing if they were smiling and cheerful?

Anti-steroid propaganda was probably the only effective messaging from the war on drugs, but like all drugs, it’s relative, and not that simple.

Not to go on too long of a tangent here, but the complete restriction of these classes of drugs actually can cause a lot of unnecessary harm to athletes. For example, in helping athletes heal and recover from injuries, or surgeries.

Recovery time is really important in pro-sports where the ability to earn money is limited to a relatively short window e.g. professional fighting. Often time fighters will return before they’re fully healed, because they need to earn a living. In many of those cases, steroids could have significantly shortened their recovery time and reduced the risk of further injury.

I’m not here pretending that steroid use can’t also cause undo harm to athletes, just that it’s not as black and white as many people believe.

Edit: to be clear, steroids are some of the most complicated drugs to use correctly in order minimize long-term health effects, such as destroying your endocrine system. Professional or amateur, they should only be used under the close supervision of a specialized doctor.