It is complex; in short Franz was the heir to the throne. When he died, to many in Vienna and Austria - so what, he wasn't that well liked, there have been plenty of anarchist or radical assassinations of royalty in the last 30 years. This is just another one.

However, to the actual leadership of the Austrian government, composed primarily of the nobility and headed by Emperor Franz Josef (now in his 80s), this was an intolerable act by Serbian separatists who in a certain way represented a general separatist / nationalist sentiment in the Empire that sought to break away slavic portions of the Empire from the core. They felt the honor of Austria and the Empire required a response, that Serbia was an upstart nation, and firm action was demanded. They issued a list of demands to Serbia and Serbia agreed to all of them but one, but Austria said that wasn't enough, and decided to move to war.

Of course, that could have just been an Austro-Serb conflict. The web of European alliances triggered greater issues. Most significantly, the Russian Empire (which had dreams of dominating the Balkans and conquering Istanbul) and the Prussian Empire (which had dreams of taking Russian territory and fears of being attacked both by Russia and its ally France and being wiped out). The Prussian (German Empire) mobilization plan dealt with this fear by immediately attacking France to beat it first before dealing with a Russia that would mobilize slower.

So when Austria started gearing up for war, Russia started to mobilize to influence Austria to stand down. This led Germany to warn Russia to stop mobilizaing or it risked war (the German plan wouldn't work if they just let large Russia mobilize without action). The Russians didn't fully understand that point, but also it's hard to stop a mobilization once it started (and significant factions in Russia thought they were modernized and ready and glory awaited!) so Russia kept mobilizing (although they tried to do a half mobilization just to focus on the Austrian border to placate Germany), Germany decided it had better mobilzie too which meant war (the mobilization plan involved the invasion of Belgium on day three, basically - the speed into France was the key to the whole thing).

So Germany declared war on Russia and started to invade Belgium, which brought in the UK as well, and then things were off to the races.

See: The Sleepwalkers, How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark and for an older take on it with some lyrical passages (but not as great research): Barbara Tuchman, the Guns of August

the only people doing so were terrible at analyzing the situation or doing so in bad faith.

Often there was a decision against Clinton already and then an attempt to construct a rationale for it after.

The reason for the decision against Clinton had many different potential options depending on the person.

"Politician shades message depending on audience, news at 11"

I'd say that Hillary wasn't even a continuation of Obama, but even a further retro throwback to a continuation of the policies of Bill Clinton and his scandals. The Benghazi circus and then "emails" may have happened while she was part of the Obama administration but the media treated it like the next Clinton scandal.

Biden would have been the better continuation of Obama and Biden won.

It would be much better if Russia lost the ability to launch offensives. Russia can lose 3 to 1 of Ukraine. Russia is ok with a war of attrition.

Was recently in Europe and had an excellent Martini.

Bond went to rather nice places. Try the Four Seasons bar.

Also very true.

The Democratic party was also more conservative at that time (which is why the ACA had so many compromises in it and the stimulus measures were smaller). The party did learn some lessons from 2009-2010, which is why it pushed harder in the 2020-2021 Congress, despite having much thinner majorities.

I still have trouble imagining them more "emboldened" then they were actually during his term or during J6.

Ah, thanks. That helps explain it better.

They don't care to the level of it being a dealbreaker.

But people in general appreciate good aesthetics. If someone has some a well-put together ensemble I will appreciate it more. It's a better visual feast

The Market actually used to provide for many cheap, entry level housing options - slums, tenements, flophouses - but zoning and "urban clearance" demolished them or restricted their construction.

There are various well-meaning reasons for all that, but the end result is a significant constriction of cheap entry level options.

There's a lot of historical illiteracy out there and no conception of how people used to live crammed together in tenements or flophouses (and in many countries still do), of famines and starvation. A bit of "survive" vs "live comfortably" confusion.

That said, I think the real issue OP is getting at is "housing prices" and its due to a lack of building and zoning regulations that prevent or hinder the construction of small and cheap units. Although if those units did exist and OP lived by himself in a small efficiency apartment OP would probably complain about that too.

Napoleon was a singular force. Same with Hitler. Or for that matter, Stalin.

There are major societal forces bubbling under the surface of things, but how that energy gets channeled specifically depends on individual action.

Because the dictatorship is in partnership with the military and ensures that the higher-level military and police members receive all the major privileges in the society. So the security agencies and the military - the two greatest threats to the establishment - are supportive.

It's also an older regime, so there's no "independent" power bases left. So now everyone in the upper circle is all part of the various crimes involved in maintaining power (the gulags, etc), they get most of the funding and perks, and the Kim family is careful to make sure the internal factions are balanced.

So if there was a "revolution" that led to some kind of democracy or something, basically everyone in power would lose out significantly.

And even breathing a word of reform against the wishes of the Kim family means death for you and your whole family.

It may be messy or it may just fall to someone quickly who then consolidates their hold.

The messiest scenario is a prolonged illness where he doesn't release his ostensible hold on power and the competition between factions becomes intense while he is still alive.

The odd thing is that you think the Democratic party should engage in a coordinated effort to subvert the rule of law to ensure that there are no prosecutions of any crimes of Donald Trump. That's an odd stance to take.

Anyway, the prosecutions are happening. Attempting to stop a prosecution after the federal prosecutor (Jack Smith) has already filed charges would be far worse.

Twitter made the choice to ban Trump because of J6.

Also, the FBI provided information to Facebook and Facebook was free to do as it saw fit. Facebook, a private company, chose not to amplify the misinformation.

Most significantly, all those acts took place when Trump was the head of the federal government.

People being repelled by the actions of J6 isn't government censorship.

A more civilized age...

Nah, just flew overseas and back and never had a bathroom line; also there were always multiple options.

That provides a charity that is not supported by reality.

If they thought it wasn't a problem, they would have ignored it or noted it was misguided. A hit dog will holler.

No. They often help ensure that certain non-military political objectives are not achieved, though.

If there is some instance where the FBI shut down a site because it put out a story about some laptop, feel free to let me know. That is censorship.

But i have a suspicion you are talking about the FBI issuing a press release or something like that.

Yes, I'll deny that it happened. The US government did not order social media sites to suppress Republicans, nor did it shut them down or prosecute anyone who refused to abide by such an order. It did not censor.

pretty sure you can sort your own meds, you just can't do it for others commercially

Sounds like someone who never enjoyed an Ass Gigante