Dogmatix

And number 2 challenge is Bhumjai Thai.

Money and power. He will demand to keep the Interior ministry and get back the Health ministry and may demand the Transport ministry back too. These are all very lucrative portfolios. Anutin was angry with Srettha for not letting him keep Health and Transport the last time because he (or rather Thaksin) came up with a policy that minister could not get the same ministries again, specifically to thwart Anutin.

So let’s see her cabinet lineup and what’s in her policy statement. if the wallet is binned, there will be a big backlash from people who registered for it and are now concerned about ID theft. Not to mention the poor sods without smart phones who had to borrow from loan sharks to get a smart phone against their handout money to register. Maybe Ung Ing will offer free nights in their Rosewood Hotel or free nose jobs in their Rama 9 hospital in compensation.

The digital wallet may have to be collateral damage because Thaksin can’t take the risk that Ung Ing will get banned due to legal issues to do with the wallet. He was prepared to throw Srettha and Chaikasem under the bus and would probably throw Ung Ing under it too, like he did Yingluck, if that wouldn’t leave him with no PM candidate.

I think it was political pantomime, as everyone in politics knows about her support for 112 reform (and Srettha’s) towards the end of the election campaign when they felt MFP nipping at their heels. Barring Chaikasem was a way to make it clear that Ung Ing is Thaksin’s last bullet and next time it is Anutin’s turn. Anutin has taken control of the senate and has a lot of leverage over Thaksin at the moment. He will drive a hard bargain over portfolios and will probably keep the Interior and take back Health to put an end to Thaksin’s cannabis nonsense. He will have a lot of power and money without the hassle of being a minority party PM. If he had refused to vote for both Chaikasem and Ung Ing, Thaksin might have pressed the suicide switch and got Phumtham, the caretaker PM, to call for general election. Anyway Ung Ing was the PM the coalition leaders reportedly wanted at the outset, believing she would be weaker and more malleable than Srettha. Having said all that, there is nothing to stop other ultra royalists from recirculating Ung Ing’’s clip and pressuring her to resign. Probably Anutin’s next phase will be to shine as a deputy PM to a weak PM, showing his abilities to get goodies for his MPs and prepare to poach Thaksin MPs for the next election.

Here is Ung Ing advocating reform Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the Lese Majeste law last year before the election when MFP appeared to be doing well in the polls with a 112 reform stance. Her ideas are not much different from MFP’s (restrict who can file charges) although she didn’t go into as much detail or put it in writing in the manifesto. Anutin and Pirapan refused vs to vote for Chaikasem on the grounds he had also once proposed reform of 112 when he was PT strategist. This does seem inconsistent of them but perhaps they have not seen this clip yet.

We might be surprised but I wouldn’t give her more than a year. It will probably be quite entertaining at times. She is not very bright like Yingluck but, unlike Yingluck, apparently quite arrogant. Whatever honeymoon period this coalition government may have had under Srettha is long gone.

A real politicical Game of Thrones here. Anutin objected to Chaikasen on the grounds that he once supported the idea of Section 112 reform. But both Ung Ing and Srettha are on video saying they support 112 reform. Close to the 2023 election they realized that MFP was winning at the polls with their pledge to refirm 112 as well as their commitment not to join a coalition with uncle parties. So Srettha and Ung Ing both jumped on the band wagon and said they agreed that 112 reform was necessary and pledged not to join a coalition with. Uncle parties. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of Ung Ing’s support for 112 reform. it is not clear whether this was the result Thaksin really wanted and that Chaikasem was just a smokescreen for Potjaman, who reportedly doesn’t want her daughter to take the heat as PM, or whether Thaksin would have preferred Chaikasem as puppet PM, at least for now. Chaikasem had a serious stroke last April and could probably only work similar hours to Joe Biden with a siesta and afternoon tea break. But Thaksin may have seen Chaikasem as a useful idiot who could take any legal hit for the digital wallet and bring Yingluck home without being accused of nepotism, even if he is too old and infirm to be packed off out of the way on endless road trips like Srettha (and Yingluck before him). Now Thaksin has played his last card in the term of this government and his enemies will work overtime to get Ung Ing out. This will benefit Anutin who raised the objection against Chaikasem and Prawit?will be happy with the downfall of Ung Ing too. Thaksin has to run the risk that Ung Ing will get trapped by the legal issues surrounding the digital wallet and bringing Yingluck home will be harder for a family member to justify. Since Ung Ing lacks basic experience of politics, it will be more obvious that Thaksin is pulling the strings which will enrage his enemies. They already have a sword of Damocles hanging over him with the 112 charge from 2015 which suddenly came out of the woodwork when many, including possibly Thaksin, thought the charge was buried as part of his homecoming arrangements.

Exactly. Srettha was too weak to stand up to Thaksin and refuse to appoint Pichet. Now both Thaksin and Srettha suffer the consequences. Make your own bed and lie in it.

In the UK party leaders tend to voted in by a party members who are usually only a fraction of the party voters. Liz Truss was elected party leader and PM by less than 200,000 Tory Party members.

The Thai commerce ministry is complaining that Chinese-made domestic products are flooding Thai markets at a huge discount compared with Thai-made items. This is complete BS designed to whip up nationalistic political support and to benefit Thai importers. Thailand doesn't manufacture these low end items and is totally dependent on Chinese imports. They want to stop Thais from being able to order them from China directly and force them to buy from a rent collecting Thai chinese middleman with a 30% mark up instead. The result will be inflationary for ordinary Thai consumers.

It's very old fashioned thinking to give Gardasil to girls only. Girls get HPV from boys usually and men get cancer of the penis, throat and anus from HPV. But at least they are trying to vaccinate more people. If anyone wants to get the Gardasil 9 strain vaccine, it is available at the Travel Clinic at Victory Monument for less than private hospitals charge and there is no age limit. https://www.thaitravelclinic.com/cost.html

Gardasil 9 available at the Travel Clinic at Victory Monument with no age limit. The US CDC says it is only for those aged up to but there is no such restriction in Thailand, although the big private hospitals also say up to 45. The CDC's thinking is that is a waste of resourced to give it to oldies who have probably already been exposed to HPV already and older people might not live long enough to develop cancer anyway, since it develops very slowly. But with the 9 strain version, there is more chance to protect yourself against a strain you haven't already had. https://www.thaitravelclinic.com/cost.html

Reportedly the ruling said that the party posed a threat to the constitutional monarchy and national security by campaigning for the amendment of Section 112 of the Criminal Code. I may be naive but isn't drafting new bills and amending existing legislation actually supposed to be the role of political parties in parliament? There has never been anything in the constitution that says only certain clauses in statutory laws may be amended, while it is illegal to even propose amending others. Seems all very odd but ten I am not a legal expert.

It is a Tory law from Teresa May which should be scrapped completely or reduced to the level of the miserly state pension for a married person which the government obviously believes is perfectly adequate for a couple to live on. My nephew was unable to bring his Filipina wife to the UK due to this law after becoming unemployed overseas and unable to find a new job abroad.

The last para suddenly switched to talking about Settha’s case which the old charlatan Wissanu reportedly claimed would not attract any international interest (if he is binned by the constitutional court). It would of course be poetic justice, if a PM who was propelled to power as the nominee of a convicted criminal when the people voted for someone else were to be sacked by the court, but I think it would generate at least a smidgeon on international interest.

The bit of sheep’s intestine the haggis comes wrapped in makes an excellent, low cost re-usable traditional style condom.

See a doctor (urologist) for chrissakes. Liquid nitrogen removes them fast in the doctor’s office with minimal pain to genitals and wallet. Over the counter wart removers available in Thailand are of limited effectiveness and should never be applied to genital areas anyway.

T’would be a double jeopardy.

Definitely scared of debating with Harris. She will rip him to shreds.

The USA is a major participant in the war as the supplier of most of the Israelis’ munitions and the American hostages are also dual Israeli citizens and some are probably IDF reservists too. Thailand is in no way involved in the conflict and Hamas should have released the Thais long ago.

Complete BS.

It's probably illegal because you have produced an extract of more than 0.2% THC but I read somewhere a while back that police had been instructed not to prosecute for any cannabis offences in the current legal environment. I have never heard of dispensaries or individuals being prosecuted for that since June 2022. Those selling edibles might be low hanging fruit for the cops, if they were to prosecute. However, they would probably try to argue they had not produced extracts, as they just decarbed weed without using chemicals. Oil would be harder to defend.

Srettha is going to compete with Singapore and HK as a financial hub. It is so laughable it’s sad. Foreigners cannot set up asset management businesses and cannot be CEO’s of asset management companies. I doubt Srettha is even aware of this. He is just letting more hot air out of the balloon.

A few years ago they wanted to stop people making repeated trips on tourist or transit visas, whom they claimed were probably working illegally. Now they can't get enough of them and will even let them work without WP.