Walker88

As Bill Maher quipped last night, "Gaetz resigned in order to spend more time with your children."

Like some of the other posters, I have a lot of experience with the country. Burmese is one of the languages I speak, as well as read and write. I had funded the building of a few rural schools years ago with my earnings from my Wall Street days, and I did a few other things such as try to enhance medical care, which has always been abysmal. Back then it was SLORC/SPDC in charge, but a few of the generals were not only aware of what I was doing, they also gave me a 'pass' and stood ready to assist me if any lower level mil types tried to extract 'tributes' from me. Some of those generals had the foresight, or maybe naive hope, that their own days were numbered and that democracy was inevitable. A few of them eventually ran afoul of their fascist colleagues and were jailed, so my 'get out of jail free' card evaporated, and I had to be more cautious. For a while I had free rein of the entire country, even areas where foreigners were not permitted to go. I used to have to take a few soldiers as 'security', as I was told some areas were full of 'dacoits' or bandits. I never had any problem, and though in some places I was a fascination (owing to my height and blue eyes), I was never in any danger. I was there for some of the country's previous major events, such as the 2007 Saffron Revolution and the 2008 devastation by the cyclone Nargis, that killed 180,000, mostly in the lower Ayewaddy Delta areas. I remember during the Saffron Revolution, folks gunned down in front of my hotel, where there were only two guests, the other being Magnum photographer James Natchwey. As the OP may know, even when the military decided to take their ill-gotten gains and step down, they wrote a new Constitution that had a provision where the Tatmadaw could retake power "at any time for any reason". That was supposedly the justification used in the coup from a few years ago. Like in Thailand, the powers that be had also stacked the deck in the nascent Parliament, with most members being appointed by the army rather than facing a popular vote. Those things set the stage for what has happened, as many mid-level military officers, seeing the wealth accumulated by previous leaders like Than Shwe and Maung Aye, had been waiting their chance to move up the ranks and steal from the national trough. The short period of democracy derailed their plans, but not their ambitions, and it was just a few short years before they made their move. Junta rule is different this time, because the people have chosen to rise up, especially in the ethnic majority areas such as Kachin State, Karen State and a few others. Absent junta support from China, Russia and Singapore, plus natural gas sales to Thailand, the junta might already have fallen. As is, it controls just the major urban areas and their surroundings. The Burmese people are astonishingly brave. One can only hope this junta has an expiration date, and the lovely people of the country will once again get to enjoy freedom and some degree of prosperity. I suspect its future is something like the nations of the former Yugoslavia or maybe as associated as the UAE, where individual ethnic areas have a good deal of autonomy, but maybe there is a common central government.

Oh my! That's a new level of idolatry and sycophancy! He's at best the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or tough as nails of solder. He's a whinging petulant child crybaby, a pathological liar, and has on his resume everything from a convicted bank and insurance fraudster, convicted charity fraudster, civilly convicted sexual offender, a guy convicted of defamation, and a guy who has spent his life stiffing everyone from small subcontractors to city governments who had to pay to handle his security and clean up after the goobers who attend his rallies. Pray tell when was this golden time when America was greater than today? Is it just the 'woke' thing that has a hair across your arse, because if one measures greatness in economic growth and employment, especially relative to other major industrialized nations, these are the good old days right now. Or maybe the stock market since 2020. Or US Growth being three times the average of the G7. If that had happened under 45, he would crow longer than a horny rooster, since back during Term 1.0 he never stopped saying 'best ever', when his growth wasn't even in the top 70% BEFORE Covid made it even worse. Sorry if you missed the Biden Boom, but some of us have never done better. It isn't just Elon and Jeff and Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman who have seen their fortunes soar since 2020. As for 'warrior'...or is that WARRIOR?....I'm going to guess you have never been in battle nor gone into harm's way for the US. Bone spurs? Anyway, if that bloated butterball is a WARRIOR, we might as well surrender, because we'd fall to a girls' high school football team. He is a coward. I have no doubt he will preside over the collapse of the US. A Recession in the next 2 years is a certainty, & he has no clue how to handle it, much less get the 'price of bacon' down. I also place the odds of secession by States like CA, OR & WA, plus NY, NJ, western PA and all of New England, at about 30% and drifting higher by the day. If my views seem over the top, go back ten years and imagine a Game Show host as POTUS who chooses incompetents and miscreants like Gaetz for AG, a TV Talking head for SecDef, a champion of Putin and Assad as DNI, and a guy who schlepps deep water toilets for well-hung men and sells time shares in a time travel machine as NATO Ambassador. Ten years ago such talk would have even been dismissed by The Onion as too weird. As Lewis Carroll said, "It gets curiouser and curiouser". Bark now if it makes you feel good, but in two years you will pine for the golden days of Joe Biden.

I see analogous behavior with the fans of 47 and jihadis who get outraged over Danish cartoon artists. A cult is a cult is a cult.

Is that Kamala Harris you're describing? I don't seem to remember you being so effusive in your championing of Harris' qualifications. Harris also has on her resume Senator and VP. FL might be a large State, but CA is the world's 5th largest economy and home to 40,000,000 people.

Looks like Gaetz has been replaced by former FL AG Pam Bondi, a woman with an interesting history. Perhaps her main 'qualification' is that she once led chants of "Lock her up!" re Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Republican National Convention, indicating that she isn't hampered by that 'silly' "innocent until proven guilty" thing enshrined in the US Constitution.

Goodness...he was such the perfect candidate! He gave new meaning to the term sycophancy...he was so far up 47's backside that he got the first bite of cheeseburger! And if he really is a kiddie diddler, as witnesses in his investigation allege, that behavior had to win him the respect of the guy known to enter teens' dressing rooms during beauty pageants. And talk about qualified! King Solomon is jealous! Gaetz made that Matthew Whitaker guy from 45 1.0---the guy who schlepped deep water toilets for the well-hung man and who sold time shares in time travel machines---look like a mere posseur (although 47 has now nominated Whitaker, with those impressive credentials, as NATO Ambassador). One wonders just how egregious the allegations---with witness testimony and photographs and Venmo receipts---must be against him. While he is unlikely to be named anything other than a public nuisance by FL Gov De Santis, I'm going to guess he ends up with a Prime Time show on Fox or Newsmax. Fox, in particular, has a way of hiring alleged rapists like Pete Hegseth (who paid a financial settlement to his accuser) and guys who engage in inappropriate sexual advances in the workplace like Bill O'Reilly, Ed Henry, Roger Ailes. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pete-hegseth-sexual-assault-allegation-payment/

So if I understand correctly, when an aggressor invades, you bend over and give him what he wants? Maybe that's a policy for candy-arse wussy girly men, but real men and women are willing to fight for their independence and not to be subjugated by a miscreant little dictator. If up to you, I guess we'd just have handed Hawaii to the Japanese, Europe would have given in to Hitler and handed over all the Jews, and maybe the US should just cede southern California, southern Texas and Arizona to Mexico. Sorry,, but real men fight for liberty and freedom. Wusses and bend over and take it up the backside. Better to die standing than serve on one's knees with a dictator's junk in his mouth.

LOL! I seem to remember 45 bombing airports in Syria, even announcing to members in his club that he had to go bomb someone. I also seem to remember he called for the assassination of Gen Soleimani, which resulted in Iranian retribution in Irbil and Jordan, where 45 then downplayed any injuries of US soldiers. 45 wanted to attack Iran before the 2020 election, as he thought that might help him win. Fortunately Gen Milley and the SecDef stopped him. After he lost, according to Gen Milley, 45 wanted to start a nuclear war with China, thinking he could then declare a national emergency and stay in power. When Gen Milley did the responsible thing and contacted his counterpart in China to calm things, 45 said Gen Milley should be executed. And for some humor, let's not forget he wanted to nuke hurricanes. I guess we can also attribute the terrorist attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 (terrorism is the word used by 45-appointed DirFBI Wray), as it was 45 who called his goobers to DC for the 6th, Tweeting "It'll be WILD!" and then telling them to march to the Capitol and fight like hell. Biden started no wars, but supported the freedom of Ukraine, invaded by Russia. As for the Middle East, perhaps you missed it, but there have been numerous wars and battles in that area going back 80 years. Maybe you can blame Biden for 1967, 1973, the Intifada, Black September, the PLO, George Habash, Munich........ Biden is no more responsible for October 2023 than he is for the eruption of Krakatoa or Mt St Helens.

Growth under Biden exceeded growth under 45, even BEFORE Covid, so you are hoping 47 can do something he failed to do as 45. In the cult, fantasy springs eternal. I would have said 'hope' instead of 'fantasy', but all MAGA has is false hopes.

If you know of any mongers who dallied with underage females like Gaetz allegedly did, you can contact local Thailand police and report them.

No. They did not have checks. So 47 doesn't trust the man he appointed as DirFbi, Christopher Wray? If you toss Wray into the same bucket as other previous "Best People", like Mattis, Kelly, Coats, Tillerson, Bolton, Esper, Pence, etc., it certainly doesn't say much about 47's assessment abilities. All of those guys became "losers" once they stopped sniffer the4 vapors of 47.

Actually, those 'most voters' are hoping for a miracle and were susceptible to the pie-in-the-sky fantasy 47 tossed them. I'm still waiting for the cult to explain what exact plans and policies 47 has to lower prices and juice the economy (which has been gangbusters since he was voted out in 2020, but which requires those who wish to participate to have marketable skills and talents). I'd even be willing to listen to a 'concept of a plan'. When I was earning my MBA, I do not remember my professors noting any link between mass deportations or high tariffs and economic growth/low inflation. Maybe if I had attended 47's eponymous "university"....... I do know Misters Smoot and Hawley tried big tariffs almost a hundred years ago, and after that the US suffered from the Great Depression and upwards of 25% UE. Shall I put the famous George Santayana quote here? My guess is 47 would confuse George with Carlos Santana, and then say, "with a name like that, he must be a rapist or murderer who sneaked across Biden's open border".

So you're a scientist and expert of GLP-1 agonists? Do tell. I seem to remember you have admitted to being fat. If your abhorrence of GLP-1 agonists is because you intend to alter your diet and hit the gym, I applaud that sentiment. Being fit and slim is a wonderful thing. Personally, I've never been overweight or out of shape, but if it takes GLP-1 agonists to get other people into a state of health, that seems to be a good thing. I certainly prefer that to the anabolic steroids RFK, Jr reportedly has taken, and certainly it is preferable to the heroin he admits to having used when he chose to become addicted.

Recess appointments The Founders who wrote the US Constitution (Madison and Jefferson), with a goal toward a functioning government in a time when there were no airplanes or railroads, and calling Congress to session could take considerable time, allowed for a President to make recess appointments to heads of Departments and agencies. The rules---geared toward a world with the travel inconveniences and communication difficulties of 1700s---were never changed. Many Presidents have used recess appointments to fill positions, but generally these were for less than critical jobs. To stop such appointments, all that is needed is for Congress to call a pro forma session, and then it becomes a partisan game of recess or pro forma. Both the House and Senate must agree on adjournment, and note the specific date of such. When one Party controls the House and the other the Senate, agreement is unlikely. When one Party controls the White House, Senate and House, there is nothing to stop recess appointments except common sense and courage, neither of which currently exist in the Party that used to be known as Republican, but which is now clearly a cult of personality, controlled by cowardice and the fear of a mean Tweet or an elected official being 'primaried'. Toward the end of the campaign, 47 spoke of a 'little surprise' he and Speaker Johnson had planned. I suggest the plan is this: Shortly after the Inauguration, the Speaker will call a House recess. This could come as early as January 21, 2025. The Senate must conquer to make a total Congressional recess official, and given the spineless people who are the Republican Senators, it is likely the Senate will conquer. The sitting President can then appoint, without anyone's approval, people like Gaetz, Hegseth, Gabbard and RFK,Jr to official positions. Recess appointments last until the current session of Congress ends, which would mean the end of the year in 2026, and in actuality until the new Congress is sworn in the first week of January 2027. 47 could get his people in their position for nearly two years. Only if Dems retake the House and Senate could these appointments then be forced to come before the Senate for official confirmation. It Republicans maintain control of both houses, the Speaker can do a rinse and repe4at, allowing the recess appointments to last until the early days of 2029. The Founders established the system of checks and balances specifically so that no one person, not even the President, could have such power. Recess appointments were put into the Constitution in view of the fact even sending communications to various States took time (think of riding a horse from DC to Maine in 1776), and the subsequent travel back to DC by horse or horse-drawn carriage took time. The Founders' intent was not to grant a President such broad and overwhelming power, but rather efficiency. In 2025, the abuse of an article and clause written 250 years ago creates a de facto dictator with near absolute power, something that slaps in the face the intent of Madison and Jefferson when they established the United States of America and its system of checks and balances via three branches of government. The US was founded by incredible wise people, so wise they were willing to admit their own human faults and aim the new nation toward a land of total legal equality and with limits on the power of any one branch of government. The 'little surprise', if my suspicions are correct, destroys the system much smarter men than 47 and Speaker Johnson created. We shall see, in my opinion, in the first week or two of the new Administration. We shall also confirm the totally spineless nature of Republican Senators if they go along with Speaker Johnson and also declare the Senate in recess. If that is the country you want, then you do not deserve to be American and have no clue what the United States was intended to be. Madison and Jefferson would agree.