johnnybangkok

3 hours ago, TopDeadSenter said:

Well this might not please everybody. The last Nobel was given out as some sort of participation prize to Obama, who to be fair to him, seemed puzzled as to why he received it, before invading half the middle east. This time it would be very well deserved. Trump has defeated ISIS, made peace with North Korea, has a firm grip on the tyrants in Iran, generally just done everything he can to ensure world peace. Trump has done more for women and minorities in America than anybody before him. What a great man. Even if the Nobel committee choose some virtue signalling nobody over Trump, at least the history books will hold him in high esteem. 

 Give Trump his Nobel peace prize and start to restore the damaged image of Nobel.

'Trump has defeated ISIS' - single handed I hear!

'Made peace with North Korea' - but shhhh don't tell anyone, it's a secret.

'Has a firm grip on the tyrants in Iran' - by stoking even greater anti-american sentiment and emboldening the hardliners in Iran.

'Generally just done everything he can to ensure world peace'. - see above.

'....done more for women and minorities in America than anybody before him' - that's my favorite. Just ................................priceless.

Having seen many of your posts I think I can safely say your head is so far up Trumps rear end you can probably see where his heart was supposed to be.

10 minutes ago, keemapoot said:

I'm far from a corporate basher, but I like others couldn't help but be astounded at the headlines yesterday: Jeff Bezos and Amazon $11 billion in profits in 2018 and paid zero tax. Oh, wait, Bezos owns the Washington Post, Trump's biggest nemisis. haha.

 

But yeah, easy to keep the easily manipulated poorly educated entertained and diverted with this idea of a magical Disney wall the length and breadth of America. Stunning.

I'm not a corporate basher either. I have a pretty large and successful business that relies on these corporations as clients, so I'm well aware of how intricately linked we all are. However when I see blatant misrepresentation of the facts to appease a mostly 'sound bite' addicted audience it does rile me up.

If Republicans were honest they would just come out and admit they don't give a damn about the working man. But then again there's just not enough millionaires and billionaires in America right now to win the vote, hence the often played xenophobia card.    

13 minutes ago, Thainesss said:

 

You’re confused about what a deflection is. A deflection is what you’re doing by trying to condense the entire border emergency down into “what El Chapo did” so you can hang your straw man on it. 

 

Drugs are smuggled across the border. Fact. 

 

Humans are trafficked across the border. Fact. 

 

Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are apprehended trying to cross the border illegally every year. Fact. 

 

Hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars are spent every year on the emergency at the southern border. Fact. 

 

You can’t polish this turd with childish deflections, straw man arguments, and do-nothing defeatist attitudes. You want to listen to Democrat politicians with an agenda over CBP & Homeland? Go ahead but it speaks to your bias and agenda more than your willingness to solve this problem. 

Here are the reasons why the wall is a bad idea. These are the real facts:-

1. There is already 654 miles of barriers along the southern border covering the most vulnerable areas.

2. No one can actually come up with a true cost of the wall - Estimates range from $12 bn to $70bn. 650 miles of fencing built under George W. cost $7bn - and that was just fencing. Nothing like what Trump is proposing. 

3. Since it's peak in 2000, illegal southern border crossings have steadily declined from 1.6 million to just under 400k.  

4. Most illegal immigration (approx. 700k per year) comes from people overstaying their visa's. These people flew into the country so obviously a wall won't do much but do you hear Trump going on about these people?

4. Every congress person along the southern border (including Republicans) oppose the wall, arguing it will NOT improve security. Republican Will Hurd (Texas 23rd district) went as far as to say '..it's the most expensive and least effective way to do border security'. 

5. A wall will not stop drugs or human trafficking - apart from the fact that most drugs/trafficking come in via the sea, tunnels or private flights, what does come in over the border is smuggled in through legal ports of entry. That's because cartels much prefer to exploit the predictability of checkpoints than to scatter resources across open expanses of river and desert, that have little to no infrastructure. These are not stupid people. They have carefully studied how security operates at each check-point which means they can instantly respond to weakness. Or easier still, just pay out the money to a corrupt officer, willing to turn a blind eye. 

No sensible person opposes border security or clamping down on illegal immigration. They just oppose the ineffectiveness of this wall and the complete waste of money it will be. There are far better ways to spend this vast amount of money to get much better results. Trump and his people must know this and since he has had 2 years when Republicans controlled both houses and still didn't get it passed, the only conclusion must be this is a political stunt to re-animate his illiberal base who love nothing more than to blame immigrants for all their problems. 

1 hour ago, yogi100 said:

This climate change malarkey is being used as a money making operation by big companies and politicians associated with them.

 

The last British Prime Minister (Call Me Dave) Cameron was all in favour of alternative energy and had jumped determinedly on the global warming band wagon. We eventually discovered why although he kept it quiet right up until the press got wind of the story. Strangely after that happened he kept it even quieter.

 

His father is a very wealthy landowner and owns acres and acres of open land on the East Coast of Britain mainly in Lincolnshire. It often gets very windy by the North Sea which was to prove very convenient for CMD's dad and his chums.

 

Old man Cameron was being paid millions by a wind farm organisation to set up windmills on his land and that's why CMD, his boy was so enthusiastic about promoting alternative energy and 'saving the planet'.

 

Once the press including those 'right wing' Tories at the Daily Mail exposed this nice little earner CMD and his dad had going we never heard another peep from CMD on the clean air subject. Whatever way you want to look at it that was corruption at the highest level in our political system but it soon got brushed under the carpet.

 

Another prominent politician who expressed concern about the same subject was exposed as having family interests in the solar panel industry. Neither was that common knowledge till a journalist found out about it. That was also a prime example of political corruption.

 

Whatever steps we take in the UK will have not effect whatsoever on sea levels, ice caps and rainforests etc while the US, China and India are pumping noxious fumes and gases into the atmosphere as if their very lives depend on it.

 

There are genuine well meaning eco warriors but  a lot of these businessmen and politicians simply regard the issue as a licence to print money. Like the last British Prime Minister did. Accordingly many of us take this global warming business with more than just a spoonful of salt.

Your non sequitur is something truly to behold.

So because David Camerons dad and a few other people benefited from wind and solar power initiatives, climate change/global warming has to be taken with a pinch of salt? (which is the phrase I think you were striving for).

The vast majority of climate change scientists (yes, we know the 97% is disputed but it's still the VAST majority whichever way you hack it) are all in agreement that climate (not the weather as Trump loves to keep quoting) is being adversely effected by mankind's influence. But you would rather believe they are creating an imaginary crisis that is only being exposed by a plucky band of billionaires, crooked politicians and oil companies! 

There's no reasoning with people who think just because they have an opinion on a subject it supersedes the opinion of experts. As the famous quote goes, “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

I'm going to go with Neil on this one.

41 minutes ago, yogi100 said:

The pacific is atop a mass of geological fault lines that cause earthquakes and instances of both land subsidence and heave. Islands in the Pacific have appeared as well as disappeared in our lifetimes and are expected to continue to do so.

What nonsense. None of the islands I have mentioned are subsiding. They are all remaining at the same height. The water around them however is rising, hence why they are unlikely to be around much longer. 

The reason why these Pacific islands are quoted extensively is they are seeing the effects of sea level rises sooner than most because they are low lying islands. However this does not negate the fact that so many other places will eventually see the same problems when the levels rise to effect them. From Florida to South Africa, from the East Coast of America to Australia, from the Mediterranean to Alaska and even Bangkok, EVERYWHERE is predicting a host of problems from rising sea levels. It may not happen for decades but it will happen if the ice sheets and glaciers continue to melt and the oceans keep warming at their current pace.

It's not rocket science, but it is environmental science which I'm going to hazard a guess that you are not qualified in.

Chronology of a Trump Supporter

- Russia didn't interfere in the election.

- OK, they interfered, but there were no contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign.

- OK, there were contacts, but Trump didn't have any deals with Russia.

- OK, Trump had deals with Russia, but it's not like there were meeting with Russian intelligence agents.

- OK, there were meetings with Russian intelligence agencies, but Trump didn't know about them.

- OK, Trump knew, but nothing came of them, so there was no collusion.

- OK, some people in his campaign colluded, but Trump specifically didn't collude.

This brings us up to present day....... and in the future

- Ok, Trump colluded, but, but, but Hillary!

16 minutes ago, yogi100 said:

The late 1940s, 50s, 60s and early 70s until the effects of mass immigration began to take effect. And for many decades earlier obviously before the Blitz.

 

I live there and we could go about our business unmolested in those years and could even leave our street doors open. Old folk could go shopping in safety. Stabbings were virtually unheard of, Acid attacks did not take place and neither did moped crime.

 

Until the later 60s the term mugging did not exist in the UK. Any murder made front page news now we have more murders than New York and barely get a mention. We actually have more fatal knife attacks than New York, Detroit and Chicago combined.

 

I detect a degree of doubt in your post. If I am correct say why, what do you know that I as a Londoner am unaware of.

What absolute nonsense. If you are going to argue anything to support your racism then at least get your facts straight.

Although violent crime in London (as a percentage of the population ) was at it's highest for a decade in 2018, it had been steadily falling from it's peak in the 80's to an all time low in 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London). 

You also don't have more murders in London than New York; this has been debunked as fake news perpetuated by the likes of Katie Hopkins and other erstwhile right wing nutters. For two months in 2018 murders in London outpaced New York but this was only for 2 months in 2018. In the whole of 2017 there were 116 murders in London which was fewer than half New York’s total of 290.  In 2016 there were 334 murders in New York compared to 102 in London. In 2015 New York had 352 murders compared to London's 109. I could go on but I think you get the point (by the way a 5 minute Google search gets you all these stats but then that would not be adding to your echo chamber would it).

Perhaps things were seemingly better in the 50's but then you had plenty of other things to worry about such as wide spread poverty, infant mortality and what was then unpreventable diseases to contend with. This idea that everything was sooooo much better back in the good ol' days is just a myth perpetuated by the baby boomer generation to blame everyone else but themselves for their now sad and pathetic lives.

Footnote: - the word 'mugging' has been around since the 1840's (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mugging)

Also - I lived in London for 25 years, in places such as Croydon, East Ham, Brixton, and Whitechapel so don't try and tell me I 'don't know what I'm talking about' when it comes to living with the effects of immigration in London. You're just trying desperately to prove what can clearly be seen as racist views.  

Getting ones head removed from ones butt is delicate surgery. 

56 minutes ago, Becker said:

Did he promise to drain the swamp or fill it? Maybe one of the man-child base supporters can help me out here.

Oh I'm sure they'll be along soon enough, defending the indefensible and changing the narrative to suit their cognitive dissonance. 

One of Trumps main campaign pitches was his 'drain the swamp' promise and all he has done is almost exactly the opposite. From placing Scott Pruitt as Head of the Environmental Agency to now this obviously 'energy friendly' idiot to Secretary of the Interior, it has got to be obvious that Trump has only one thing in mind and that's to wring as much out of America as is humanly possible and to hell with the consequences. 

Apart from all the other nonsense this man gets up to (an every growing list), surely the damage he is doing to Americas environment will be the most worrying legacy Americans will have to live with for generations to come.   

"Does anybody really think I won’t build the WALL? Done more in first two years than any President!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday evening.

It's this kind of nonsense rhetoric that prevents a conciliatory approach to Trump. Bragging, half-truths and downright lies just don't play well with seasoned politicians and create a brinkmanship that is unnecessary and goes directly against any chance he has of getting his own way. Apart from giving tax breaks to the rich and large corporations and sticking (controversial) right wing judges on the Supreme court, the man has literally done nothing or to be more conciliatory in my statement; certainly not enough to grant him the right to say he's done more in his first 2 years than any other president.     

1 hour ago, Redline said:

When the EU and USA boycott Cambodian products, the people will hang him in the street.

 

The United States remains Cambodia’s largest trading partner and export market.

 

According to the European Commission, the EU ranked as the second biggest trade partner of Cambodia in 2017

What's the bet that Trump 'admires his strong leadership style' and will invite him for a few meetings at the White house?