Walker88

So far, the POTUS-elect has refused to submit any names of his nominees for the requisite background check before they are granted a security clearance. Before I was granted my TS/SCI clearance for the CIA, a 9 month long security check was done on me by the FBI. My high school teachers and university professors were interviewed, as were friends and employers. There was no social media back then, but today the bureau even checks social media and web browsing habits of anyone seeking a high level clearance. When people like Hegseth and Gabbard are being put up as heads of extremely sensitive and critical agencies and departments, the American people have a right to know if these people passed a security check. 'Good enough for 47' is insufficient. Lack of a check not only makes them suspect, it will discourage any liaison cooperation with allied nations and intel services, so the chiefs themselves will not be able to do the complete job. The US relies heavily on intel sharing with allied nations for critical things such as terrorism, the intents of hostile nations, and the movement of dangerous materials such as U-235 or plutonium or viruses. With no intel sharing, the US will be blind, and much less secure. Repubs have long been hesitant to play by the rules, so while 47 is the worst, other Administrations have been bad. As a CIA operative, I once uncovered a huge scandal where a foreign govt had recruited a very senior cabinet official as a clandestine asset, paying the cabinet official for secrets and to do the foreign govt's bidding. A second case officer corroborated my intel from another source. Before it could become the scandal it should have been, I received a direct message from the then-Attorney General of that Republican Administration ordering me to 'stand down' and to destroy any reports and cables I had related to the matter. I was threatened, and then given a kind of 'good cop' excuse that "the country cannot afford such a scandal right now; surely you can understand that." The individual's name never became public and the scandal never made the news.

So you think a morbidly obese guy with spare tires Airbus could use on the A380, who dines on either Macs or KFC, and who probably thinks ketchup is a food group, is going to fix the US' weight problem? Oh my! You may not have noticed, but Biden isn't a chubbo like 47. 41% of Americans are obese because they lack discipline and self-respect. None of them went to bed svelte and woke up with the kind of guts I see on 47's faithful waddling around Bangkok.

The maga cult is going to look back on Biden as 'the good ole days'. When the asteroid was heading to Earth 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs of that time had a better chance of survival than the maga dinosaurs of today. Any of you really think he has a plan, or even the 'concept of a plan', to improve on the economic performance of Biden? How exactly is he going to juice employment? GDP? Get inflation down? If any of you have heard any details of his concept of a plan, please post them. Other than massive tariffs and deporting 11 million people, what are his policies and how will they improve the economy and prices? Come on. You all worship the guy, so you must be intimately familiar with what he plans to do. Retribution does not bring down the price of bacon, nor does deporting 11 million or raising tariffs on Chinese goods. If we're lucky, we'll just have stagflation. We will be at war with Iran, with US boots on the ground, not proxies. We'll see UE double, maybe even to double digits. Either the Dow will crash, or else go to 60,000 while the dollar collapses. Keep whistling past the graveyard, if you like the tune.

That's one solution, I guess. Neutering them so they don't pass on their gene pool is another. Seriously, what I write is a harsh reality for which there is unlikely to be any solution, and I know 47 does not have one. The human race has entered an era where Darwinian Capitalism rules: the fittest survive and prosper. There have been a few periods like this in human history, with varying 'solutions'. The age of serfdom ended when the Bubonic Plague wiped out 25%+ of Europe, putting labor in short supply. Sometimes the 'solution' is war, because governments try to divert attention from domestic problems by manufacturing an external enemy. WWI was kind of like that. One type of labor was obviated when the McCormick Combine was invented, a device that could do in a day what it took 50 farm workers two weeks to do. Fortunately, displaced agricultural labor had the factories of the Industrial Revolution to absorb them. Tell me where unskilled labor goes today, when technology and AI continue to replace human labor? I have no idea. Neither does 47. Maybe we're all just going to paint each other's fingernails and cut each other's hair? Others see this harsh and intractable reality, and have proposed measures like a guaranteed income. Two problems with that: one is every nation is already wildly indebted, so where is this money going to come from to provide obviated labor with income? The second problem is that work gives many people their major source of personal "meaning". If an increasing percentage of folks have nothing to do but sit around collecting their guaranteed income, what effect will that have on their mental well-being? Let me add one more problem: the world is awash in capacity. China added more steel production capability in the last fifteen years than existed until 15 years ago. Where is the market for all that steel? Since much of these new factories use lots of automation, what is the labor component relative to steel factories of a hundred years ago? The world also has excess capacity in cars, TV and electronics, aircraft....almost everything. We also have excess capacity in weapons of war, but we have the occasional war as a 'solution' to that problem. I am of the view the reason people like 47 get elected is because they offer false hope to people who have lost hope. The trouble is, NOBODY has a solution. 47 is both cynical and transactional, as well as totally self-centered; he offered pie-in-the-sky fantasy to the forlorn, while lacking even the 'concept of a plan', and did that solely to get their votes. He got what he wanted. Now he wants to do what...enact massive tariffs? That will just add more pain to those already hurting. My view is not elitist. It is simply the reality the world faces. AI is just going to exacerbate the problem. Adding massively to debt has been the solution for the last few decades, and that worked as long as everybody suspended their disbelief and pretends sovereign debt will at least be serviced. Nobody thinks sovereign debt will ever be repaid, but so long as it can be serviced, we can continue to suspend our disbelief. Greece ran into trouble a decade ago when it couldn't even service its debt. As rates rise, more nations will suffer the same problem. In the US, each 1% upward shift in the Yield Curve adds another $350 billion to each year's deficit. What happens when the 'guaranteed income' scheme adds even more to the deficit? Money printing and wild inflation, or a sharp rise in rates, neither of which have pleasant outcomes. 47's new sidekick Elon Musk has stated that Americans are going to have to suffer. That's some tough love, but I cannot think of an alternative. Obviously you don't like my take on reality. Perhaps you have a solution? If you do, get 47 on the phone, because he certainly doesn't have a solution. Tech and AI have given birth to an unprecedented time in human history, worse than the age of serfdom. Maybe one reason why birth and fertility rates are falling everywhere (this year it's .69 in South Korea, and even in Thailand it's below 1.5) is that is a natural way of doing something about the problem of redundancy and obviated labor. Again, if you have one, please let us all know your solution.

As I have written many times, the Biden economy has been the best since the late 1990s. Incredible growth, especially relative to the rest of the developed world. Wealth has never accumulated faster in those with the ability to participate. The whole world also suffered inflation, but only the US has knocked it back down to 2.8%....and that without causing a Recession. Amazing! The caveat is that to enjoy the booming Biden economy, one had to have marketable skills and talents. Not everyone has those, and most of 47's cult is both poorly educated and has no marketable talents. The world has left them behind. I wonder what his supporters here think he can do to make silk purses out of sow's ears? What are his specific plans to bring prosperity to those the world no longer needs? Maybe he doesn't even have the 'concept of a plan'. How disappointed will his cult be when nothing changes for them? Maybe he will blame it all on Biden, as accepting personal responsibility for anything has never been part of his character. The problem of obviated labor in a technological modern word isn't going to go away with a vote. Useless is useless. Redundant is redundant. Actually, I doubt 47 cares in the least. He got all he needed from his loser cult, and that is their vote. They are no longer of any use to him, so even if he could do something for them (he cannot), he won't.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess none of those guys voted for Kamala Harris. They are some of those "very fine people", like the tikitorchers chanting "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville.. I stated this right after Harris lost, and I will repeat: When the mass deportations get going in earnest, hate crimes against anyone who 'looks different', especially Hispanic and maybe East Asian and South Asian, are going to skyrocket. It will not matter if they are legal residents or not....they will be the objects of hate and violence. 45/47 has given the racists and white supremacists the 'all clear'.

I come to threads like this for the oozing and unctuous sanctimony. Luscious! I'm late to the game here, but what the heck....I'll post. I'm going to guess that the "bargirls" who marry foreigners do so for the exact same reasons any Thai woman marries a foreigner....some combination of money, security, familiarity and affection. Zero difference between so-called "good girls" and bargirls, despite the table pounding to the contrary. Unless one is a celebrity or centi-millionaire, few if any top tier, creme de la creme, hi-so Thai women with a good education are going to pair up with a foreigner. What's left in the marriage pool for foreigners---from what I read here and know from chatting with expats in Thailand, the foreigners here come from failed 'back home' marriages---are women who absolutely were in the trade, probably were in the trade, might have been in the trade, or those who dallied out of horny-ness. The self-claimed morally superior foreigners make some distinction between women who had sex for money and women who had sex because they were horny. The difference escapes me. I'm sure some will claim they married a Thai virgin. Good luck to you, is what I say, as my times with virgins were back in my own teens, and I do not remember those trysts as being noteworthy. The last thing I would seek in a spouse or partner is virginity, something wildly overrated and best left to religious fantasies about deities. I am not a virgin, so I would never be so hypocritical as to demand virginity in a spouse. I'm also confident enough in my own masculinity that I think I can provide what she needs between the sheets. I smile when I read about "uneducated", when referring to bargirls. Is the Thai education system so powerful that one can spot the difference between a woman who completed 8 years of school and one who completed even a Thai university degree program? I haven't seen that. A few years ago I read an article that the top Thai university was rated the #418 university....in ASIA. That leads me to conclude, perhaps in error, that few outsiders could tell the difference in education between any bargirl and a local uni grad. The Thai women educated in a foreign country might have better chops, but they likely also come from hi-so families, and thus tend to marry other hi-so, well-educated Thai men. As a bit of an aside, I employ in my business many Thai women with university degrees. They have told me that among their friends---the attractive ones in particular---most all did 'sideline' work while in university, generally with a Thai businessman or politician. Some did it for money, some for the excitement, some just to get a little extra cash to buy something Mom and Dad would not buy for them. Not all attractive Thai women dallied, of course, but a surprising number have. I know "yours" never did, so don't think I'm implying otherwise. Before anyone asks, no, I do not have a bargirl spouse or girlfriend. Admittedly I have entered agogos from time to time and have met and spoken with women in those establishments (some of whom are paying for university with their earnings, by the way). One thing I have concluded is that they seem to have better social skills than women who never entered the trade. These women have had to develop ways to appeal to a wide range of men from a wide range of cultures. The women have 'people skills'. Also, a bargirl is as likely to have an above average IQ (brains are the sexiest part of a woman) as a "normy". I have met women in bars who are absolute kicks in terms of personality, so fun to be around they have become friends without benefits. Since I never walked in the bargirl's flip flops, I cannot make a value judgement on what path she decided to take to earn a living. There but for the grace of Zeus....... Marriages fail all the time. As I noted above, the average expat in Thailand came from a failed marriage or two back home, and let's be honest...it wasn't always the woman's fault. He is just as likely to fail again, whether he ties up with a bargirl or "normy". All that matters is what both parties do when they agree to be together. What they did yesterday, no matter how many sex partners they had for whatever reason, is irrelevant. Only what both do from today matters. I really doubt the bargirl is more likely to cheat than the normy, nor more likely to cheat than her foreigner hubby. Others will disagree. Unless a man is a total failure back home, it's still likely he is in a much better financial position than any Thai woman with whom he develops a relationship, so whether bargirl or normy, money and financial security is one of the incentives for the woman. Also, sometimes people just hit it off; they get along enough to have a desire to try to make something more permanent. Now the OP did not ask this, but I will answer: Would I ever consider marrying a bargirl? Yes, if I fell in love and believed she loved me in return....kind of like any relationship anywhere. Imagine that! Would that make me a lo-so? As Oscar Wilde once said, "People may boo me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself." If someone judges the woman I love because of her past, then I do not want to associate with that 'morally superior' person. If I'm happy, then eff those who look down on me and my chosen partner. I'm not into 'face'; I live my life for my own enjoyment, not the approval of others. For those who insist on wearing their moral superiority on their sleeve, collect your bonus points and try to cash them in when you're on your death bed. Both you and I will just be wormfood, whether you've followed some fake and sanctimonious moral code or just loved whom you loved.

Weak men who have failed at relationships with women for their entire life (you know who you are) always seem to end up with negative views of women and fail to believe a minor would not stop a large adult male from a wealthy and well-connected family from engaging in sex with another minor. Yes, the scars run deep, as can be seen on this Forum whenever a discussion of women arises.

Let's see....45 2.0 or nuclear holocaust ??????? Hobson's Choice, it is. Or as they say in Thailand, "Same same...but different".

I have two reasons for staying out of the US until the dust settles on the absolute disaster and real American carnage that will be 47. One is that I'm not a fan of dictatorships, where anyone who criticizes the weak man is "deranged", an "enemy within", and will be the target of a "military tribunal" or alleged kiddie-diddler Gaetz' proxy retribution-ist (All nominees will be installed via recess appointments, so spineless Repubs need not fear a mean Tweet or being "primaried"). I also know the economy is going to collapse with an abject incompetent---the clown who inherited a growing economy and 4.8% UE and left his successful successor a Recession and 6.8% UE, who was the first POTUS since Hoover to leave office with fewer Americans working than when he entered, and who even before Covid produced the lowest GDP growth since the end of WWII, who at least had a few guardrails as 45, but will have none as 47---at the helm of the economic Titanic. On the plus side for his cult, there might be a couple of strawberry-picking jobs, at least in the early stages of the Administration, where their lack of education will not be an impediment to 'success' and the 'Merikan Dream. Get your Moonpies and RC Cola while you can! The second reason is with the shutting down of the FBI (per Elon and Vivek, at the request of the crybaby who thinks he should be able to steal thousands of highly classified documents and pay no price) and with Tulsi as DNI, I know the intel community's best are leaving and bugging out of the US. The US WILL face a major terrorist attack in the next few years (I expect BOTH a dirty bomb and a bioterror weapon, as the combo of no US intel service of any skill, plus a total lack of liaison sharing makes the US an easy target), transnational crime will find a new home, kiddie diddlers and kiddieporn fans will have no FBI to stop them, serial killers---you know, great guys like Hannibal Lecter---will only have to fool donut-munching local cops, foreign intel services will recruit clandestine assets in every govt department, China and France will recruit clandestine assets in every cutting edge AI/quantum computing/materials science/etc. corporation, and drugs will flood in not over or under 52 miles of non-Mexican funded wall, but straight through the ports. Oh, and we'll be at war with Iran, because 45 wanted to do that before the 2020 election (and he wanted to attack China after he lost, per Gen Milley, as 45 assumed a war would allow him to declare an emergency and stay in power), and because 47 will not want to have a military under his command and NOT attack SOMEBODY, as he thinks that will make him less than the bloated, cowardly girlyman he is. 47 will blame Biden, MSNBC, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, George Soros, Taylor Swift, etc., and his House and Senate, along with his cult members in this Forum, will say "Nobody could have seen all this coming" (you know, like Covid, where he was warned by the agency as early as Nov 2019). And most important, the people will have gotten that for which they asked. Yes, elections DO have consequences. I'll be in my bugout location, sitting back and enjoying a case of '97 Biondi-Santi Brunello di Montalcino along with a heaping plate of schadenfreude. Now all of his cult members here can come back in 4 years (if you are still alive, especially those on a USG pension who---if they still get it---will be paid in worthless USDs) and laugh at those of us who never drank the Kool-Aid and were never fooled either by painfully transparent 45/47 or Nigerian 419 scammers. Remember, though, that he who laughs last, laughs best. Danderman, wherever you are, I tip my glass to you! The cult, like the dinosaurs, simply could not see the asteroid coming.

You mean the way 45 did after Biden beat him in 2020? Besides being illegal, that sure looked like girlyman behavior to me.

Admittedly the Dems are really bad at messaging, while the Repubs are quite good at blowing up statements made by the uber far left into alleged Dem policy. Repubs are also quite skilled at hypocrisy. Case in point..... The Elon and Vivek Show known as DOGE is being given the mandate to close down whatever agencies and departments they think should go. Among others such as the Dept of Education, the ATF, the IRS (good luck with the National Deficit), one on the chopping block is the FBI. (Remember the outrage over one or two fringe Dems saying something about defunding the police?). Elon and his sidekick are not just talking about defunding the FBI (per the request of the POTUS-elect, who thinks he had every right to steal TS, SCI, SAP, Codeword, HCS and RD documents and keep them at his golf club/wedding planning facility, where anyone willing to pony up $200K---such as Chinese MSS operatives---can join), but shutting it down altogether. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr would be outraged! Now the FBI does an important and valuable job, for those of you who do not know. Get rid of that agency, and we all better hope the typical donut-munching cop in Keokuk, Iowa is up to speed on al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, La Cosa Nostra and Russian Mafia, serial killers, drug lords, forieng intel agents from everywhere from Iran to North Korea to Israel to Russia operating in the US, importers of fake medicines, movement of radioactive material such as U-235 and plutonium, various forms of trans-national crime, human trafficking, kiddieporn, and assorted other threats and security risks that are rather unlikely to be part of the knowledge and skillset beat cops bring to the table. Couple this with a total shutdown of liaison intelligence cooperation because nobody in Five Eyes, the BND, DGSE, NPA or NISSK, trusts the POTUS-elect, much less Tulsi Gabbard, and the US instantly becomes a much less secure nation. I guess the G in MAGA means when Al Capone ran free, and Jeffrey Dahmer ate whatever whomever he wanted. We also might as well just make copies of all secret US weapons system, the NATO Order of Battle, the capabilities of the nuclear triad, etc. and send them to Putin and Xi, because absent the FBI, nobody is going to stop domestic espionage. Mentally disturbed kids can post their manifestos and plans for mass school shootings online, too, since nobody will be watching (and with no Bureau or ATF), even a ten year old will be able to buy an AR-15 with dozens of mags and oodles of 5.56 NATO rounds. Nice work, Elon and Vivek!

It seems there are allegations of sexual assault against SecDef nominee Pete Hegseth. No wonder 47 chose him....birds of a feather. Defending Hegseth against the news, mouthpiece Cheung used the usual hyperbolic drivel that spews from that coming Administration: “We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again,” Steven Cheung said. Safe and Great...Again (the quote used the caps)? There hasn't been a terrorist attack in the US in years, and in terms of great, a GDP running 3 times the G7 average is not chopped liver, and neither is 4% US, especially after 47 left Biden 6.8% and a Recession.

As always, the cult comes in to explain 'what he really meant'. Parsing POTUS is funnier and displays more pretzel logic than when folks write in awe of how Nostradamus even predicted who would win the World Cup in 2024. Now, apparently, it's 'a little humor'. I guess it's a joke like when he said "maybe we should inject a little disinfectant", or when he finally made a statement about the terrorists who attacked the Capitol on 6 Jan 2021, and said, "We love you all". Yes, he loves people who beat 140 cops and defecated on the floor of the Capitol, erected gallows, and chanted about hanging the Vice President. Maybe that last one is his playing the Second Coming and forgiving sins like Jeebus does. That's like those 'very fine people' who chanted "Jews will no replace us" in Charlottesville. As for humor, has he ever laughed, except when he was talking about violence? Oh, and as expected, his post election stock market rally lost a bit of steam yesterday. (Always fade the initial reaction, I have read posted here). I also noted a week ago that his talk and his deportation plan absolutely will result in hate crimes against Hispanics, and I see this is already beginning: https://www.yahoo.com/news/don-t-rights-mexican-southern-003056649.html Once the deportations start, likely using the military under recess-appointed Fox News host Hegseth, it will get much much worse, with hate crimes certainly spreading to East Asians, Sikhs and others who look "different". Plus, we've already seen the rise in misogyny with the latest meme of "Your body, my choice". The little dweeb Johnson, a Born Again (and again and again) Christian, is another one seemingly bereft of a sense of humor, unless he can find a way to "own the libs". He and the POTUS-elect have discussed "bringing back prayer in public schools", as if the Founders and their separation of church and State thing never happened. I'll go out on a limb and say such "prayer" is unlikely to be anything from the Qoran, The Teachings of Buddha, the Talmud, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, much less the Satanic Bible. Maybe it might come from The Handmaid's Tale, but otherwise it will be pure Born Again drivel about that all-loving skydaddy whose Master Plan and mysterious ways involved tsunamis and childhood cancer. What a guy! All kids should start their day chanting to him!. It's all shaping up as expected.....a TV Talking Head who never ran even a lemonade stand in charge of a $900 billion entity like defense, a Putin sycophant who also sided with Assad when he gassed his Syrian citizens as DNI, a steroid-using but vaccine hating guy with a dead worm in his brain to run Health and Human Services, a guy still under investigation of kiddie diddling to head the Department of Justice, and the planned closing of the Dept of Education (which would also de-fund programs for special needs kids), because who needs a Dept of Ed when kids can just pray for success on their math test. I'm still waiting for the QAnon Shaman to be named Surgeon General.

Five Eyes will go into hibernation for 4 years. Add to those on long sabbatical, in terms of liaison cooperation, the BND in Germany, the DGSE in France, the NPA in Japan, and the NIS in South Korea. Even Mossad, burned once by 45, who mouthed off to FM Lavrov and Amb Kislyak, is going to pull back. None of those foreign intel agencies trust 47, and certainly none is going to trust Tulsi Gabbard, the sole person who backed Assad in Syria after he used chemical weapons on his own people, plus someone who is against any sort of action against Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. If Gabbard takes to the skies in a C-17, I doubt the plane will even get clearance to land in any major US ally nation. Of course she would get clearance to land in Moscow. The US will be markedly less secure---both from hostile nations and international terrorism---under 47. Best to stay from from coasts and major US cities for the next few years. Many planned terrorist attacks were uncovered and squelched specifically due to liaison cooperation with the US intel community. That is halted completely until at least January 2029. Just in case, kiss your kids goodbye.

Gee, I'm Harvard and Stanford, served in the intel community under cover, was ostensibly a diplomat, and have run businesses. Why didn't 47 call me? I was even a regular guest on CNN Business, back when I was in finance, so I've got the Talking Head chops. Hegseth will be running a $900 billion entity with 2.5 million men and women in uniform and 700,000 civilian contractors. He hasn't even ever run a lemonade stand, and even in the NatGuard, he never supervised more than a few dozen people at most. Also, having been in the NatGuard doesn't mean one knows his way around the Pentagon, defense contractors, plus have some diplomatic skills. What do you think he will do when the US faces its first post-Biden geopolitical crisis? Do you think he knows how to deploy the 7th Fleet? What parts of the nuclear triad he should put on notice? Is he skilled enough both in modern warfare and in the up=and-coming technology that will be at the forefront of future offensive and defensive capabilities? I suspect like Gaetz, Hubbard and RFK, Jr, Hegseth will be a recess appointment, giving him 210 days or so before even the chance his confirmation comes up in the Senate.

Perhaps this is apocryphal, but I've "heard" that when RFK, Jr takes over as Health and Human Services Secretary, they're going to carve in the marble of the Dept: "When vaccines are outlawed, only outlaws will be vaccinated". By the way, neither polio nor smallpox vaccines are good for life. Their efficacy wears off with time, but "immunity" relies on the vast majority of folks being vaccinated and unable to transmit the viruses. Best to be up to date, especially since al Qaeda has long had plans to weaponize smallpox, and lots of soccer Moms have bought into RFK, Jr's conspiracy theories.

So what will it be for you, Uganda or Russia as your next home? Both are gay unfriendly? If what Thailand chooses to do offends you, I understand there are many flights daily leaving from Suvarnabhumi. Don't even think about going back to Repub-controlled USA, because there you've got CPAC Chief Matt Schlapp, Sen Lindsey Graham, many Born Again "Conservative" Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, Jr., and lots of others still deep in the closet. As for Arabs, well, there's a couple of jokes that might cause some consternation on this site, so I won't relate them. As one who did time in the Middle East, I know that the death penalty thing is not implemented equally. And no, I have never engaged in any sort of same sex behavior, as my wiring is 100% hetero (though I know it is no more a conscious choice than what drives Lindsey Graham or Matt Schlapp).

You need to qualify your statement. He cared about those whom society has left behind, due to the modern technological economy and the need for workers who can offer needed skills, only so long as he needed their votes. He gave them false hopes, knowing the forlorn will embrace false hopes if those are the only hopes they can get. Now that he's won, he no longer needs the Loser Class, so he will pander solely to the elite. The minions who voted for him are going to have to deal with his incompetence---such as paying for his tariffs and also the likely increasing inflation he will cause via his massive budget deficits and requisite money printing to fund them. Reductions in 'regulations' will allow Flint Michigan to have the same quality of water as the rest of the nation, or rather the rest of the nation will have Flint, MI-quality water, but the elites will be drinking Evian and Panna. Oh, and 'deporting' tens of millions of illegals and Dreamers might free up strawberry-picking jobs for his SSDI-receiving rallygoers, but generally it is going to increase the cost of everything. I will go out on a limb and guess that the undocumented workers at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster will avoid deportation, as rules do not apply to someone whose every act is "official" and whose hand-picked Supreme Court has ruled he is immune from prosecution.

You forgot 'carried interest' a favorite of hedge fund managers like Ken Griffin, Bill Ackman and John Paulson, that allows those multi-billionaires to avoid taxes on their gains. Does anybody think those guys think 47 is some kind of wonder boy 'stable genius'? They know he's a self-serving idiot who understands nothing except the price it takes to buy favors from him when he yields power and authority.

Since you are clearly not up to speed on matters of intelligence or intelligence itself, I'll explain what an experienced SecDef might do if a CCP spy balloon took a leisurely flight over the entire US.... Such a SecDef would know that there is nothing such a balloon could gather that they couldn't get from a Google search. No harm done. The SecDef would also know that capturing such a balloon would reveal the capabilities of Chinese spy tech. Oh, and by monitoring the balloon during its path, the telemetry or how it might send any data to receiving stations, plus where those stations might be, would also be gained. It appears the balloon was a rogue operation by an idiot general in the PLA, and his stupidity was the US' gain. Now about the Afghanistan withdrawal.....Biden had to deal with a 20 year war with $hundreds of billions of equipment delivered over those two decades, and do it AFTER his predecessor had not only set the timetable for withdrawal, but had also released 5000 Taliban prisoners being held by the US and Afghanistan govt. Many of those prisoners now run the country, while others were battle-hardened jihadis. The withdrawal had to happen with those 5000 not only free, but angry and out for retribution, such as engaging in suicide bomb attacks. Had Biden/Austin done what critics bark about---such as withdrawing 20 years of equipment, how many more soldiers would you have been willing to sacrifice for that? Do you think the Taliban would have just sat back and not taking pot shots at soldiers and contractors gathering and shipping gear back to the US? The withdrawal involved not only US troops and contractors, but also Afghanis who had assisted the US throughout the 20 year war. I guess you would have abandoned them and let the Taliban slaughter all of them and their families. If you had ever served in a war zone or in Afghanistan, you would know that it is impossible to defend against every type of attack. Troops are exposed simply because the mission requires it. Remember the soldiers killed in Mali while 47 was 45? Whose fault was that? Also, do you considerate it appropriate for a President, when speaking with the spouse of one of the dead, telling her to "get over it; he knew the risks"? How about the soldiers injured when Iran sent missiles to a base near Irbil in Iraq during 45's term, especially when he claimed 'no harm done', when in fact many were seriously injured? That attack was a response to 45's order to take out Gen Suleimani.

The reason they cannot get recruits is they have an IQ cut off, and the dumbing down of the nation makes it difficult. There are also drug issues. This talk of 'real men' is kind of silly. The fans of 47 I have seen tend toward obesity, lack of definition, constant whining, and having absolutely no game when it comes to women. That's why he captured the Incel demographic. Most would require a test to see if they even carry a Y chromosome before I would believe they are men. Before you ask, yes, I served, albeit in a way that had me going out against bad guys, alone, in disguise, with fake docs, and a hope that my language skills would keep me off YouTube in a graphic video. The govt spent a lot of time and money teaching me how to stay alive, and yes, I was scared to death many times while working. If that makes me a girly man, so be it. If you haven't "been there, done that", then you have no clue.

Cute comment. Since you're a fan of the POTUS-elect, maybe you can share with us a photo of his library? I understand he's big on Proust.

Yes, he won, and he's filling up the clown car. Matt Gaetz as Attorney General suddenly makes the Whittaker guy---remember his deep toilets for well hung men, and his time share in time travel machines?---look like King Solomon. Not much better is Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, Ratcliffe as DCI, Fox TV Talking Head Peter Hegseth as SecDef, Kash Patel as DirFBI....I'm just waiting for him to name Lauren Boebert as a Fed Chair and maybe the QAnon Shaman as Surgeon General. Sane and rational folks just have to laugh, grab the popcorn and watch this disaster develop.

The POTUS-elect has always greenlighted miscreant behavior. When the tikitorch marchers in Charlottesville chanted "Jews will not replace us", he said there were "very fine people...on both sides". That was the all clear for racists, especially when he added his comments about s-hole countries (Africa), and asked why the US couldn't get more immigrants from Norway. When he fomented the insurrection on 6 January 2021 ("Come to DC on the 6th; it'll be WILD!" in a Tweet, and then his speech telling them to march to the Capitol and 'fight like hell'), he gave the all clear to political violence when he finally asked them to stop, but said "We love you all very much". A few weeks ago he said he was going to "Take care of women, whether they like it or not". That kind of suggests a patriarchal society where men hold sway over women, which is just what loser Incels and misogynists wish society was like. It's almost no wonder South Korea's 4B movement has been adopted by some women in the West. Of course the Incels won't miss what they never had, and perhaps some religious leader will give them the only kind of philosophy they might be able to use: "Love thy brother as thyself". LOL