Walker88

LOL. The US is once again the laughing stock of the world. They can all feel better about themselves, knowing that he will be a magnet for abject failure and lunacy, just like last time, only worse. I love when people try to parse his comments, claiming he's some sort of 3 dimensional chess player, and that he really means....blah blah blah. The fact is he's a clown, a willfully ignorant lazy bloated bozo, who has been a failure in life, save for his daddy's money and his Game Show, which made losers think he's some sort of great businessman. That's the guy who wanted to nuke hurricanes and inject people with disinfectant to cure Covid. He wasn't joking, as the devastation of Maria in Puerto Rico, and the millions of deaths that would result from Covid were not laughing matters. As for Europe and defense, I guess that should become like the US mil-ind complex and engage in massive cost overruns and fraud. THAT is how the US got such a massive defense budget. Seriously, if Germany builds another 10,000 tanks, that helps how? Most weapons nations build or buy sit unused, until they get mothballed and the next generation of massive cost overruns takes hold. As for Putin, I guess if Greenland is okay for the US< "Seward's Folly" must be okay for Russia. The US has never controlled Greenland, while Denmark has had it since 1380 AD. Oh, and maybe the Apache and Comanche and Seminoles and Navajos, etc. can use force to take back lands white Europeans took from them. Oh, and Syria and Lebanon? Anyone in those nations who is a jihadi type couldn't care less about 47. He couldn't dictate a Drag Queen Story Hour to them, much less any sort of policy or behavior. It's 2024. What's done is done, and the days of Colonialism, Imperialism, the 'white man's burden', etc., are over.

I'm so happy the Fire-Man-in-Chief ("You're fired!") is going to be taking over. I have no doubt "Nobody knows more about fires than me (47)". I am equally sure he has the "concept of a plan" to address fires in California, which might involved anything from sweeping forests to using nuclear weapons, as he wanted to do with Hurricane Maria. No doubt if he had been in charge, those fires would have been too scared to burn and 100mph Santa Ana winds---driven by that Chinese Hoax called "climate change"---would have stopped dead in their tracks. I'm going to guess his next grifting NFT will be him as a Fireman, or maybe Smokey the Bear. Astronaut, Fighter Pilot already....why not Fireman. Fahrenheit 47!

Gee, if there was only something like the JCPOA, a deal which had been 100% effective in shutting down Iran's nuke program, including smashing high speed centrifuges that are used to enrich U235, inspectors given anytime access to medical reactors and facilities, monitoring of imports that could be used for enrichment or bomb making, and filling enrichment reactors with cement, Iran (like Saddam after Gulf War I) would have given up its nuke program. 45 abrogated the JCPOA, and Iran immediately went back to U235 enrichment and nuke development. The JCPOA had two intents: one was to stop Iran's nuke program. The other was for succeeding Administrations to use it as a stepping stone for more negotiations with Iran, such as stopping support for Shi'a terror groups. The Obama Administration had put fear into the mullahs with the Stuxnet worm, which scared Iran enough to agree to the terms of the JCPOA. Obama also knew that the mullahs were aging, and the youth of Iran was favorably disposed toward the West and wanted to enjoy economic growth and more opportunity for a better---and secular---life. The policy of Obama took a long term view, and it was effective. All nuke development in Iran ceased (despite a misinformation campaign orchestrated by Netanyahu, where he released Iran nuke documents from the early 2000s, all of which had been obviated by the JCPOA.) The US and the world had taken three steps forward in trying to bring a more modern Iran into the family of nations. Under 45 and his Amateur Hour Administration, Iran took two steps backwards, and has gotten back in the nuke game.

Erased Podesta emails? Where did you get that, Mr. Flat Earth? Is there any conspiracy silliness you do not believe? Hey, if it gives you some sort of psychic joy to believe Hillary and Tom Hanks lead an international cabal of people who kidnap, rape, roast and eat babies, knock yourself silly buying into it. On the other hand, if you want to see someone who absolutely has contact with pedos, Google George Nader, Tim Nolan and Tevfik Arif. Here's something for you to ruminate over, if you're looking for pedos....

So how would your love muffin prevented all of this? Sweep the forests? Hold up his tiny hand to stop 100 mph winds? He ain't no god, but you cult members are so easily fooled that you think so. MAGAs get sillier and sillier by the day.

Come on, MAGAs. You can do better. Find some fake news about why fires and 100 mph Santa Ana winds are Gavin Newsom’s or Democrats’ fault. Here’s an idea….make up a Family Tree that shows Gov Newsom is a descendant of Prometheus. I bet 75% of MAGAs would believe that. I mean, you all believe a 6 time bankrupt, convicted felon, and civilly convicted sex offender, whose existing money comes from allowance and inheritance from daddy, a Game Show, and grifting golden sneakers and autographed bibles to the forlorn is a “successful businessman”. Hey, and how would your bloated messiah have prevented the fires? Maybe he would have nuked them, like he wanted to do to Hurricane Maria? Injected everyone with disinfectant? The guy's a stable genius, you know. He says so himself. I bet you're all still gobsmacked by the stable genius's ability to repeat "Man Woman Person Camera TV", a parlor trick that amazed doctors, according to 47 himself. LOL.

LOL ! Sure 'nough. He's a MASTER on the art of the deal. Or maybe he's just baiting his critics, which would make him a Master Baiter, right? You can fool some of the people all of the time. Abe knew MAGAs were in the future. So did H.L. Mencken. The guy who actually wrote the infamous book made up the personna MAGAs know as the Dealmaker. That writer has admitted it was all a ruse, all made up. Absent his dad's allowance, co-signing of every loan until dad passed, and the eventual inheritance of his actually successful father, 45 would be lucky to be pouring Slurpies at a 7-11 on a highway truckstop in Keokuk, Iowa. There's a reason the guy continues to grift...with golden sneakers, autographed bibles, threads from his Georgia booking suit, NFTs where he pretends he's a fighter pilot or astronaut, etc. It's because he squandered what dad handed him. If not for the Game Show and the PT Barnum-like skills of Mark Burnett, not only would 45 never have been POTUS, but he'd be dead broke. Six bankruptcies are proof of his "dealmaking" and business acumen. Stiffing subcontractors and fraud (for which he has been found guilty on numerous occasions, whether regarding bank and insurance fraud, or charity fraud) are his "Business Plan". Years ago---you can Google this---he had to have daddy go into one of his NJ casinos and buy $3.2 million in chips so sonny boy could make a payment on a New York loan from a bank, a loan that was guaranteed by personal assets. (NJ was primarily junk bonds, on which he defaulted and ultimately foisted his loss on to the US Taxpayer. In MAGAstan, sticking losses on to the taxpayer seems to constitute "dealmaking") As for no 'sane' people believing he really intends to take NATO member Denmark's Greenland via military force, apparently the leaders of Denmark are not sane, because they have taken exception to his silly mouth diarrhea. He's the dumb person's idea of a smart guy, a failure's idea of a success, and a loser's idea of a winner. Did he win in 2024? Sure. Of course both H.L. Mencken and George Carlin would know why. Those who don't know Mencken's famous quote re democracy can Google it. As for Carlin, he said: "Think of how dumb the average person is; then realize half the people are dumber than that." With a plurality, not an outright majority in 2024, Carlin's words ring true. For those of us lucky enough to be on the right side of the mean on the IQ Bell Curve, we have schadenfreude to enjoy over the next 4 years, as 47 absolutely will do what he does best: fail and blame others. In his bizarre Greenland/Panama/Canada presser, he also said "I'm inheriting a terrible economy". LOL. BIDEN inherited a Recession and 6.8% unemployment. 47 is inheriting a growing economy that is performing 3 times better than the average G7 nation since 2020, has low UE, and even just saw a massive surprise in data showing job openings are running at 8 million. BOTH savings and consumer spending rose in 2024, which is something historically seen more often in the 1960s. 47 is just trying to make excuses for the failure he knows deep down he will create. Here's an interesting video, no doubt sacrilege and blasphemy to those who worship the bloated one, where folks who have done actual research: MAGAs who could not benefit from the Biden Boom are not going to do any better under 47. Those with marketable skills and talents saw our net worth soar in the last 4 years. Those who diss Biden are really just admitting they lack what the modern tech economy requires.

It's not "like a religion"; it IS a religion. Just a few days ago, on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Capitol, lots of video was on the news showing his cult sporting flags with his name, kind of like the flags some nations have noting the name of their particular deity. Same same, and NOT different. Purely a captured cult. I bet you're feeling like a Danish cartoonist, who some cult members think committed heresy by criticizing their messiah. One little guy has posted 19 replies already, I guess trying to prove his fealty, as if his love muffin could even guy the guy exists. 47 has no decency and no compassion. Though I'm not a psychiatrist, many board certified psychiatrists have labelled the guy a psychopath. Certainly he's been in the public eye enough so that an accurate diagnosis can be made. Psychopaths have no empathy, no guilt, lie as easily as they breathe, and think rules do not apply to them. They are totally self-centered and self-absorbed, out solely for themselves, though they can fool the naive, gullible and forlorn.

another frequent thread-starter, put up a thread today that's maybe right up your alley. He asks if human existence has become just too complex to comprehend. I guess I have an advantage, as I studied lots of biology and zoology in my pre-med days, so I know the 'birds and the bees' are wont to do what birds and bees do. The sole purpose of life is more life, and as humans, we want to practice for game day as much as possible. Pattaya offers up that chance. Get in there and follow the prime directive, Bob. Practice makes perfect.

Without being too prurient, I believe his comment was a play on the homonym of the verb.

Every country and culture has its own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. That's what makes being an expat fun. If one has lived in a variety of places, one just learns to go with the flow. Expect everywhere to be 'like home' or 'make sense' according to what you think makes sense, maybe means you should have stayed home. Once when living in Japan, I had this encounter at an electronic store.... I needed to replace an ink cartridge on a printer I had shipped from home. Cartridges have software, and at the time the only cartridges I could buy in Japan only worked with Japanese operating systems. The saleswoman suggested I just buy a Japanese printer. I wondered if my computer could communicate with a Japanese printer. She thought maybe not. So I took the ball and ran with it..... I said I guess I have to buy a Japanese operating system computer. She thought probably so. I asked her if the interface was in Japanese or English. Just Japanese, she said. I told her that as yet I could not read Kanji, though my hiragana and katakana were good. She said much is in Kanji. She thought maybe I could take a language course to learn Kanji. So I summed it up as a question: So I need to go take a Japanese language course, so that I can read the interface on a new computer I must buy, so I can link it to a Japanese printer I also must buy, so the Japanese ink cartridge will work, so I can print the document I need today? "Hai", she said. The Japanese are wont to be agreeable and not cause confusion. That is their style and their culture.

Though not the intent of the Fourm, this will become clickbait for the Moonbat Brigade, the conspiratorialists who think they are 'awake' and that their 'research' (aka, goal-seeking, confirmation bias) gives then a unique insight into the agency. Well, MK Ultra was real, but long before the Church Commission of 1978. EVERYTHING changed after 1978, especially as the Cold War wound down a decade later. Presentism has folks applying 2024 'morality' on to 1950s-1960s behavior. After WWII and through the major part of the arms race and the spread of communism, "liberties" were taken, just as a century or more earlier "liberties" were taken by Colonial/Imperial powers like the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands, etc. All those folks responsible are dead and gone, but Colonialism doesn't elicit the same sort of conspiracy theories that clandestine and covert actions do. I think if folks really knew how hamstrung and leashed the agency is today, not only would all this conspiracy nonsense disappear, folks would be surprised. The restrictions on agency actions are quite strong. Also, there is no such thing as "rogue operations". That's Hollywood B-fare. EVERY covert action results from a Presidential Finding. EIT? That was Bush. So few career officers, save for Jose Rodriquez, wanted to get involved that contractors were hired to perform these "enhanced interrogation techniques". Even going back to the Bay of Pigs, the agency was tasked with coming up with options for Eisenhower. Options tend to run a spectrum, from plausible to bizarre and unlikely to succeed. Once presented, the President chooses which option. Eisenhower chose the Bay of Pigs, and Kennedy inherited it. In the 1980s, the White House under Reagan, driven by Ollie North, constructed Iran-Contra. The agency had some part, but it was secondary to Col North. Reagan was kind of a basket case already back then, so North had lots of power and authority. The agency comes under the Executive Branch. They do two things: tell POTUS what he should know, not what he wants to know. They also respond to POTUS' request for action, and give him options. POTUS then chooses, and signs a Finding. Sorry if reality disappoints. I guess those needing conspiracy can watch some B-fare movies for their fix and faux outrage.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time" When Abraham Lincoln said that, he must have had MAGAs in mind, because they sure get fooled easily. First, the eternally whining POTUS-elect, said yesterday he "is inheriting a terrible economy". Really? The clown passed on a Recession and 6.8% unemployment. He is inheriting a booming economy and low UE. Yesterday the equity market was surprised when data was released showing a much larger than expected number of job openings. THAT is how strong the economy 47 is inheriting is, but his goobers will believe his lies, not reality. Since 2020, the US has grown at 3 times the average G7 economy, and now sports lower inflation than most nations, The US produces more energy than it consumes. In 2024, both Consumer Spending and Consumer Savings grew, something more in line with the 1960s than the 2020s. It is the best of times, at least since the Clinton years, though admittedly the poorly educated MAGAs have been left out, as they lack the skills and talents to prosper in the modern economy. I hope you MAGAs are satisfied with the "Gulf of America", because prosperity is absolutely not in your future. The guy who couldn't make a business work where addicted people line up to hand you their money (casinos), and save for a Game Show spent his life flittering away his sizable inheritance, has no clue how to manage a $35 trillion economy. He blew it last time, when he had at least a couple of competent people around him, so absent the Steve Cohns, he is virtually guaranteed to fail. There is also a not-so-subtle change in the US, which MAGAs lack the intellect and insight to appreciate, or else they have fantasies and delusions about how their lives might become better under 47. The joke will be on them. As the US becomes Russia is almost every sense, save for its soon-to-be psychopathic leader lacks the intellect of his hero Putin, look who benefits the most: Oligarchs. Consider: Elon Musk put $250,000,000 into getting a convicted felon re-elected. Since the election, Musk's net worth has jumped $140,000,000,000. That's a 56,000% return on investment in 2 months. Eat your hearts out, Crypto Bros! Yesterday, META CEO Mark Zuckerberg, showing Girlyman fealty, announced his company would stop fact checking. That will save his company $5 billion. The guy had two reasons for doing that. One is that in numerous statements over the last few years, largely a result of FB previously banning 47 from it's site, Zuckerberg has been threatened with life in prison. The second reason is that cutting $5 billion in costs might juice company stock enough that Zuckerberg stands to see his net worth jump by $15-22 billion, if P/E stays the same. Funny thing....MAGAs, who suck up every utterance from their bloated messiah, love the term "Fake News". Consider reality: ACTUAL news and journalism is expensive. Sending reporters around the world, and then doing fact checking, costs money. There are, in actuality, precious few instances where legacy media has erred and produced something inaccurate or untrue. Usually, when an error is made, media corrects itself. Of course sometimes media lies and pays a price, such as Fox and its $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Machines. Actual "Fake News" is cheap, because anyone can make up anything. The POTUS-elect is an expert at creating Fake News, but as usual, he projects his own sins on to others. With META throwing in the towel and kissing the ring, Fake News is going to become even more prevalent, and this at a time when people increasingly get their news from hermetically sealed echo chambers, either places like Fox, or else places driven by algorithms whose goal is to manufacture outrage, as outrage=eyeballs + clicks=MONEY. Now for more Oligarchy...... Consider this: the richest 25 Americans pay an average tax rate of 6%. Their secretaries likely pay 4 times that. POTUS-elect wants to be accepted by the "cool kids" and people who were actually successful, so policy is geared toward oligarchy. One social media company---from which maybe 40% of Americans get their news---controls a massive percent of sm space. One search company controls 90% of all international searches. One online retailer controls more than half of worldwide online sales. Show fealty to the autocrat, and he'll not weaponize government against you. What will 47 do to better the lives of the MAGAs the modern world has left behind? As Edwin Starr sang, "Absolutely Nothin'", (say it again). Tariffs are going to help the average Walmart shopper? Hardly. Of course, if the incoming POTUS actually spends the $billions it will take to deport 11 million people, lots of strawberry-picking and janitorial jobs will open up, so MAGAs have that. Or maybe "patriotic MAGAs", like the terrorists who tried to hang the VP and overthrow democracy on 6 Jan 2021, can sign up for military escapades in Greenland and Panama. Lets see if their really have any testosterone. (I'll go with the Vikings and MS-13 over obese MAGAs.) I suspect there are a few multi millionaires on this Forum. I know one (me) and I know another (who has left the site after the election). Yes, we will benefit financially if taxes are cut. I'm immune to the stock market decline I see coming, so I'll gain in a relative sense, too. I'd prefer the economy not collapse, but I don't see any other possibility. If MAGAs think the Biden years were bad, they will soon be viewing them as the good old days. Yes, MAGAs, elections have consequences. I don't think you're going to like them. You MAGAs get disappointment; I get schadenfreude.

"sense of proportion and reality" MAGAs are just sooooooo good at that! Equate looting a pair of Nikes with trying to hang the Vice President and overthrow 250 years of American democracy and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. VP Harris, on Monday, gave an example of how adults and true patriots act. 47 is incapable of such mature and patriotic behavior, and had to get his ignorant goobers to do his wet work. The Chief of the law enforcement agency protecting the Capitol and other DC Federal buildings---a career officer, not a political appointee---commented yesterday about the promise 47 made re "pardoning" the 6 Jan terrorists: He asked "what kind of message" does it send to all, including law enforcement officers throughout the country, that violent assault on LE officers is okay ? I wonder if some LE officers will take it upon themselves to engage in some frontier justice and go after any of the felons released by 47? Perhaps the names and addresses of every one of those miscreant scumballs will be published online, allowing patriots who take exception to their violence to pay a visit.

Not sure either you or the felon will survive 4 years, but if you do, expect, at best, abject mediocrity....and at worst, a Depression and double digit unemployment. Who is the Infallible One going to blame that on? Maybe Hugo Chavez? Wind turbines? Electric boats?

Elections have consequences? Tell that to the Danes, Panamanians, and Canadians. They didn't vote for the convicted felon, but he wants to invade their lands. No doubt all of you Never Served armchair warriors will volunteer to take Greenland and the Panama Canal...well, unless those pesky bone spurs kick up.

To borrow from Groucho Marx, I'd never live in a country that would accept me as a resident.

At a presser Tuesday, 7 January, at Mar-a-Lago, the President-elect said he would not rule out military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal. Your hero, right, MAGAs? Oh, and he threatened economic force to annex Canada, plus he wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. It's 1700 again; do you know where your Colonial Master is? (Plenty of videos of his presser, for those who want to see their hero pretend he's a warrior.)

Yes, so nice to see a person act like an adult and a patriot. In contrast, 45 whined like a 3 year old and tried to overthrow democracy and stop the peaceful transfer of power. Harris is a patriot, 47 is a traitor. I guess you like cowards and traitors. No doubt you have things in common.

"even African women, with their "bad features" and skin colour, earn substantial sums." Heck, even vertically challenged, corrupt Sino-Thais can earn substantial sums. Fair is fair, no? Anyway, we all can't be a looker and babe magnet like that little guy. I can say that, right? After all, free speech. Plus, it isn't like he is royalty, except in his own mind.

......and the "Men in Black" trilogy is actually a documentary. Not sure if Ghostbusters is the same, but could be. All those are proof that those Socialists say "conspiracy theory", as if that's a pejorative term, we have to scream FACT and offer up experts like Victor David Hanson. One has to be truly "awake" and done his research to get to the bottom of all of these Marxist/Stalinist/Socialist conspiracies. Personally, I think we are all incredibly lucky that there are people out there willing and able to ignore reality, engage in fantasy and delusion, embrace "alternative facts" (Kellyanne Conway), know that "truth isn't truth" (Rudy Giuliani) and get to the bottom of what these dastardly libs would do to stop the Second Coming from making 'Merica great again. ("Great" defined as a Recession and 6.8% unemployment.) What kind of world would it be if a man COULDN'T try to subvert elections, cooperate with hostile nations (Campaign Manager Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik), engage in attempt to defraud the voter (Georgia, on tape), steal classified documents, and foment an insurrection to stop the certification of a free and fair election. And what's so wrong about sexual assault? Charity fraud? Bank and insurance fraud? Don't nip these evil Socialists in the bud and soon they'll be telling us injecting disinfectant can't cure Covid-19. It's bad enough 45 was cheated out of a Nobel Peace Prize, but he should also have gotten the Nobel in Chemistry, too, for his novel solution to the pandemic. Come on, all you folks "awake" and full of goal-seeking confirmation bias! Plant you flag squarely a std dev left of the mean on the IQ Bell Curve and make yourself known.

Just look at that Biden-Harris economic boom! That's what's called "an inconvenient truth" to MAGAs. Let's not forget Biden-Harris inherited a Recession and 6.8% unemployment from 45, the architect of real American Carnage.

The mere mention of "Quality" or "Elite" tourist brings out howls from......folks who chose to live here. I don't get it. If Thailand is so bad..... Also, many feel the need to speak of what the truly wealthy really want, as if the wealthy are uniform and all cut from the same vicuña. The priciest rooms at the Mandarin Oriental go for 540-690,000 baht per night. There are restaurants in Bangkok where one can get a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Monopole Burgundy for 400,000 baht per bottle. Those are not budget tourists, nor are they likely to be mere millionaires. They aren't flying into Thailand on AirAsia. There are few genuine "paradises" on the planet, so no matter where anyone chooses to travel, they might run into bad air, crime, barely hidden poverty, or poor infrastructure. Maybe the Pebble Beach area of California or Telluride or Lanai is close to paradise, but most everywhere is kind of a mixed bag. NYC has plenty of billionaires, but frankly, it's kind of a dump. So is Paris and much of London. Santorini has uber wealthy and backpackers. Menlo Park and Palo Alto have billionaires, but El Camino Real has the usual assortment of Taco Bells and McDonalds. Thailand has a lot to offer. It should come as no surprise that some of the things that attract the divorced pensioner also attract the uber wealthy. That quiet fellow sitting near you in the agogo may well have flown into Thailand on his own jet. Despite the constant utterances from TAT about "quality", they actually set the bar pretty low. A visitor who spends 77K baht is hardly a high roller. No matter what TAT does, there are always elite who will come visit Thailand. It's on lots of folks' bucket list, whether they are backpackers, weed aficianados, families with young kids, or billionaires. Concentrate on smooth entry and exit at the airports, patrol the roads better, and do something about air quality and the tourist numbers will stay in the 30-40 million range.

No wife, but when I told my Thai GF my bison back home on the Colorado ranch was sick, she ponied up for the vet. Heck, she even paid for the Jet-A in my Gulfstream and covered the FBO fees at Don Mueang, so I could fly back and tend to Bessie the Bison. You just can't buy that kind of heartfelt care. Bob, I think you understand.

Well, Lewis Carroll, only curiouser to the MAGA cult. Others know all those weapons cached at the Motel 6 across the Potomac, it's owners waiting for 45 to tell them to cease "stand back and stand down", were pure MAGA terrorists. Let me remind you it was 45 himself who Tweeted for his goobers to come to DC on 6 January, because "It'll be WILD!". What is WILD! about a pro forma certification of an election every State and territory had already certified? Why did he tell his goober terrorists (DirFBI Wray's term is "terrorist") to "march to the Capitol" and "fight like Hell"? He said "peacefully" once, but fight 37 times. Which word do you think his Camp Auschwitz scum paid closer attention to? It wasn't "FBI informants" beating and bear spraying cops, injuring 140 law enforcement patriots. It wasn't FBI informants who shat on the floor and rubbed it on the Capitol walls. It wasn't FBI informants who set up gallows and chanted "Hang Mike Pence". Those terrorists are pure scum. They should rot in jail forever. 47 says he will pardon them. SO threatening to hang the Vice President is a pardonable crime? Okay, then Biden should pardon Ryan Routh, since all he did was carry an AR-15 near where the chief insurrectionist and coup plotter was cheating at golf.