TallGuyJohninBKK

Gee.. maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything in the U.S. Constitution that says America has to be a majority white country, or that only white people get to be Americans! In terms of who has entitlement, there are a lot of American Indians and African-Americans who have ancestral origins that date back farther in the U.S. than a lot of the white people here today. And most of the Southwestern U.S. was inhabited by people of Mexican and Spanish heritage long before those areas became part of the U.S, It seems like you have some problem with, or being around, non-white people. ["This is what population replacement looks like. Call it an invasion or whatever you like"] I think I know what most people would call than kind of attitude. Maybe you should volunteer to go back to the U.S. and, you know, help hold up the WHITE end.... PS - I grew up in Los Angeles and went to school in Los Angeles, with classmates who were Hispanic, black, Asian and from various other nationality origins... And I'm a better person for it in my life. But then again, I don't have a Confederate flag hanging in my garage....

The "chaos" is all of Trump's creation." To deny this is simply folly, as the reports below make clear: LA Mayor blames Trump administration for sparking chaos and fear How Trump's immigration raids sparked protests and unrest https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c626y7d1zlxo ICE Raids Spark Chaos In Los Angeles, Protesters Clash With Federal Forces Inside a Courthouse, Chaos and Tears as Trump Accelerates Deportations Immigration courtrooms in New York City have emerged as a flashpoint, with masked agents making surprise arrests of immigrants who have appeared for routine hearings and check-ins. [emphasis added] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/nyregion/immigration-courthouse-arrests-trump-deportation.html

MAZE and Insurrection Barbie.... You really go to the top when looking for credible info to post here on the forum!

Preferred and liked/disliked countries of immigration to the U.S. come and go thru the years... There were past times in the U.S. when Italian, Polish, Chinese, etc immigrants were hated and discriminated against. But Trump seems to have a simpler and more basically racist view of the world -- if you're not white, he pretty much doesn't want you coming to the U.S. Trump: Why allow immigrants from ‘sh**hole countries’? January 12, 2018 "WASHINGTON (AP) — In bluntly vulgar language, President Donald Trump questioned Thursday why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “sh**hole countries” in Africa rather than places like Norway, as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to people briefed on the extraordinary Oval Office conversation. Trump’s contemptuous description of an entire continent startled lawmakers in the meeting and immediately revived charges that the president is racist. The White House did not deny his remark but issued a statement saying Trump supports immigration policies that welcome “those who can contribute to our society.” [emphasis added] ... Trump has claimed without evidence that Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, wasn’t born in the United States, has said Mexican immigrants were “bringing crime” and were “rapists” and said there were “very fine people on both sides” after violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one counter-protester dead. https://apnews.com/article/immigration-north-america-donald-trump-ap-top-news-international-news-fdda2ff0b877416c8ae1c1a77a3cc425

The targets of the ICE raids under Trump have hardly been limited or or even focused mainly on the agriculture sector. He and his minions have been canceling foreign student visas for students at very prestigious U.S. universities, chasing down migrants working in restaurants and other service sector industries in cities...stopping people on the streets in cities because they "look" like they might be undocumented.... The recent raids in Los Angeles City and County haven't been about agriculture at all! Rather, it's part of his plan to wage a politically-motivated attack against political "Blue" states, e.g., his political opposition.

Trump's been busy cutting off / reducing available visas to foreign nationals... and the visas that are available typically are not available to low-skilled workers who would be doing so-called menial jobs. So it's a strawman's argument.... unless Trump and Co. are going to come forward with another round of "earning a path toward legalization" or temporary worker visas for service sector employees... And I haven't been hearing any of that from the Trump Admin lately... Until perhaps.... US immigration officials told to largely pause raids on farms, hotels, NYT reports "June 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has told immigration officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, the New York Times reported on Friday. The report cited an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance. "Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” Tatum King, a senior official at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in guidance to regional leaders of the department, the Times added." ... The report comes after Trump said on Thursday he would issue an order soon to address the effects of his immigration crackdown on the country's farm and hotel industries, which rely heavily on migrant labor." [emphasis added] (more) https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-immigration-officials-told-largely-pause-raids-farms-hotels-nyt-reports-2025-06-14/ So it's typical Trump non-governance... Create chaos and disruption, then reverse course, and try to find ways to mend or undo all the chaos and disruption he has just created... YEESH!!!

There's an argument to be made! The outcome of Trump's anti-immigrant policies, if they're sustained, may be the same in helping to hasten the financial demise of U.S. Social Security and/or lead to major reductions in Social Security payouts to retirees who have earned them -- whether or not that's a conscious/deliberate part of Trump's policies. A late 2024 report below by the right-leaning Bipartisan Policy Center: The Effect of Immigration on Social Security’s Finances "The primary Social Security trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2033 unless Congress acts. At that time, beneficiaries would face an automatic 21% reduction in benefits, threatening the financial security of millions of Americans. [emphasis added] A steadily declining worker-to-beneficiary ratio—the number of workers paying into Social Security compared to the number of beneficiaries—poses a major financial headwind for the program. In the coming years, however, immigration is expected to be the major driver of U.S. population growth and could potentially narrow Social Security’s financing shortfall. [emphasis added]" So how do immigrant workers help the Social Security system financially? --Immigrants make up 19% of the U.S. labor force, but only 14.3% of the total population. This improves the worker-to-beneficiary ratio and helps strengthens Social Security’s payroll-tax base. --Foreign-born workers pay into Social Security at the same rate as others, but have lesser expected Social Security benefits vs. native Americans because the foreign-born tend to have lower lifetime wages and have fewer years of work that counts toward their Social Security benefits. There's also the trend of foreign-born immigrants to return to their native countries once they reach retirement ages, leaving them potentially unable to draw the Social Security benefits they earned. Ya, but what about those pesky "illegals"? The right-leaning BPC report concluded: Unauthorized workers contribute taxes but are ineligible for benefits "In 2022, unauthorized immigrants contributed $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, typically by working under borrowed or fraudulent Social Security numbers. Unauthorized immigrants, however, are ineligible to claim Social Security benefits." [emphasis added] Thus the report found -- immigration has significant relevance to Social Security's financial health and helps financially offset the continuing declines in U.S. birth rates that produce young people who are needed to financially support Social Security. Full report: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/immigration-social-security-solvency/ The Bipartisan Policy Center is a not-for-profit organization that ensures policymakers work across party lines to craft bipartisan solutions. By bringing together Republicans and Democrats—and providing them with the space, policy insights, and evidence-based research they need to negotiate in good faith—we help turn legislators’ best ideas into passable, durable laws. Since 2007, the Bipartisan Policy Center has helped shepherd countless bills across the finish line. So, next time those of you who are cheering Trump's anti-immigrant and deportation raids against both legal and illegal immigrants, you might well be helping imperil the future of your Social Security benefits.

You and your one-man band of quackery: "Vernon Edward Coleman (born 1946) is an English conspiracy theorist and writer, who writes on topics related to human health, politics and animal welfare. He was formerly a general practitioner (GP) and newspaper columnist. Coleman's medical claims have been widely discredited and described as pseudoscientific conspiracy theories. [emphasis added] ... He relinquished his medical licence in March 2016 and is no longer registered or licensed to practice as a GP." ... AIDS denial Writing for The Sun newspaper in 1989, Coleman denied that AIDS was a significant risk to the heterosexual community.[31] He later claimed AIDS is a hoax, writing, "it is now my considered view that the disease we know as AIDS probably doesn't exist and has never existed".[32] Such claims have been rejected by the medical community." [emphasis added] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Coleman Every time you post here citing your favorite loon, you force me to remind the forum's readers of just whom you're using as the basis for your nonsense beliefs.

People are protesting Trump and his outrageous policies because otherwise law abiding residents in the U.S. were being arbitrarily swept up in Trump's immigration raids, college students having their student visas canceled for no reason, people with valid pending asylum claims arrested, even American citizens wrongfully detained by ICE. And immigrants arrested and deported by ICE in direct violation of judge's orders to the contrary.... etc etc etc... These are the actions of a would-be tin pot dictator: US citizen blasts ICE after being detained as he drove to work: ‘They’re the criminals’ ICE and Homeland Security agents forced Elzon Lemus out of his car and detained him for between 20-25 minutes, apparently based solely on his appearance Friday 13 June 2025 A New Yorker who was stopped and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents says he was treated like a criminal for simply existing as a Hispanic person in the U.S. "[ICE] said that they’re looking for criminals, but in reality, they're the criminals," Elzon Lemus, a 23-year-old from Brentwood, told reporters during a Thursday press conference. Lemus, an electrician, was riding in the passenger seat of a car on his way to work when ICE agents stopped the vehicle in Westbury, New York. The ICE agents reportedly said that Lemus "looks like somebody we are looking for." (more) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-citizen-detained-ice-criminals-new-york-b2769786.html

Speaking as an American, I can pretty much guarantee that most Americans are not interested in taking most of the jobs currently being held by the various undocumented workers from foreign countries. Have you ever tried picking lettuce in the fields day in and day out for 12 hours a day? How about cleaning the toilets and mopping the floors in a hotel? Or washing the dishes in a restaurant day in and day out? You wanna go to America and apply for those kinds of jobs?

Your lack of knowledge and facts on the matters involved here is mythical!

Yep, the would be King was on the news yesterday saying Ohh... we can't be deporting all the good people who pick our food and the people who take care of customers in our hotels... just because they may not have some document they ought to have.... We need to find some solution for them, and we're not going to target them. Their employers love them and they do good work..... That's the reality of the service sector in the U.S. and has been for many decades - lots of undocumented but otherwise law abiding people doing lower paid jobs that American citizens don't want to do.... And now, after causing immense disruption and fear around the country and calling out the Marines and National Guard, now only now, Trump's waking up to those facts???

There's historically been burning and looting many times in many U.S. cities for different reasons thru the years.... even after somebody's team won the Super Bowl, if memory serves... Not condoning it, just stating the reality of things. Some right wing posters here some years back posted to the forum dangerous looking photos of rioting and mayhem claiming that they were BLM protesters after the George Floyd episode. Turned out, the photos were of post Super Bowl rioting by Philadelphia Eagles fans that had been on the front pages of major newspapers, if memory serves.. Nobody called in the Army or National Guard back then, because that's what the police are f for. Trump is a dictatorial loon who's out on a limb.

I think I answered that above as YES... With WSUSA, the sender never pays any Thai customs duty or VAT on what they send -- only the flat fee per Kg. rate listed above for either sea or air shipment. The 300 baht per kg sea shipment rate is the best I've ever found anywhere for sending packages from the the U.S. to Thailand -- sea method being if you're not in any hurry. IME, the 800b per kilo air shipment method they offer is comparable with, or a bit cheaper than, what most of the other U.S. to Thai package forwarding services charge for air delivery...and I've used or checked on a lot of them over the years, so I'm familiar with their actual rates. But, and this is a big but, most of the other U.S. based air forwarders will leave the sender on the hook for added and often unpredictable extra charges from Thai customs on the receiving end, and with WSUSA, you don't have to deal with that at all... never any extra charges on arrival. The only method that I'm aware of that's a better pricing deal than WSUSA's air forwarding is having someone in the U.S. (a private party) receive the item for you, repack it, and then take it to a local post office and have it shipped International First Class mail. To qualify for that, I believe the package has to be under 4 lbs, and there's no intl tracking on those. And thus, that's part of the reason why most US commercial package forwarding services don't offer than option directly, preferring instead to use (and charge for) pricier methods like UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc etc.

Your linked report above is from last Wednesday, and the imposed overnight curfew only applies to the Civic Center area of downtown L.A. -- not to the rest of the very large city of Los Angeles. And, if you think things are so bad with the ICE protests, how about, not bad enough to prevent scheduled downtown opera and theater performances of "Hamlet" and "Rigoletto." Wow, the wheels really must be coming off if theater and opera performances downtown must go on!!! Downtown L.A. curfew update: exemptions for L.A. Opera, Mark Taper Forum and restaurants Updated June 13, 2025 "Los Angeles city officials on Thursday carved out a curfew exemption for ticket holders of indoor events and performing arts venues downtown including the Music Center, paving the way for evening performances of Center Theatre Group’s “Hamlet” and Los Angeles Opera’s “Rigoletto.” ... “At this time, Center Theatre Group, the Music Center, and the surrounding streets have not been directly impacted by protest or law enforcement activity. Our staff and artists are already on site, and we look forward to seeing you,” CTG wrote in a statement Thursday." The bigger issue, the Los Angeles Times reported, are planned nationwide protests this weekend, including in downtown Los Angeles, against Trump's Washington DC birthday parade involving the U.S. Armed Forces. "Major protests are planned nationwide for Saturday, when Trump’s 79th birthday coincides with the massive 250th anniversary military parade he is throwing in Washington, D.C., at a reported cost of $45 million. One of the so-called “No Kings” protests is scheduled to take place 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of City Hall." https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-06-12/downtown-la-curfew-exemptions-opera-center-theatre-group-broad-closing

Federal and state data tell a far different story about migration to California than the political fury unfolding in Washington and on the streets of Los Angeles "President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to California, saying the troops need to “liberate” Los Angeles from a “migrant invasion.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a key architect of the president’s immigration crackdown, said on social media that the city is proof of how migration “unravels” a society. But federal and state data tell a far different story about the Golden State than the political fury unfolding in Washington and on the streets of Los Angeles, where the administration has sent 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops as protests continue over recent immigration raids. In California, violent crime is down, and the unemployment rate is close to the national average. The state recently overtook Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy. It has the highest number of immigrants — both legal, most of them citizens, and undocumented. But in recent years, the state has lost hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to their homelands or to more-affordable states. Unauthorized immigrants in California remain well below the peak of nearly 3 million more than a decade ago for reasons that often have little to do with enforcement — or Trump." [emphasis added] (more) Washington Post https://archive.ph/Cm300

The above op-ed is responding to a flood of misinformation and misleading reports about what's actually been occurring in Los Angeles. Some examples follow below, courtesy of fact-checking service NewsGuard: Special Edition: The Unrest in Los Angeles 1. Newsom Did Not Misrepresent National Guard Images; 2. Outdated Photos of Bricks Falsely Cited as Evidence of Premeditated Violence; 3. Spoof Craigslist Ad Offers Payment for Protesters "Today’s special edition of Realty Check unpacks the misinformation frenzy sparked by the unrest in Los Angeles, including: how malign foreign actors are exploiting the unrest; a false claim that California Gov. Newsom posted old or AI-generated photos to reveal poor conditions facing National Guard troops; how out-of-context images are being used to claim that pallets of bricks were placed around the protests to be used for violence; and how a prank Craigslist ad was cited as proof that protesters are being handsomely paid. 1. Conservatives Falsely Claim Gov. Newsom Faked National Guard Photos (details in the full post) 2. False Claim of the Week: Pallets of Bricks Were Planted in Los Angeles in Plan to Arm Protesters for Violence (details in the full post) 3. 3. Prankster’s Craigslist Ad Cited as Proof that LA Protesters Were Paid (details in the full post) https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/special-edition-the-unrest-in-los

I’ve been at the protests in Los Angeles this week, and I have news for you: The city is not facing an “insurrection.” In the vast expanse that is Los Angeles County, the rallies barely register as a blip. The protests are confined to a very small area of downtown. The protesters I spoke to weren’t anarchists bent on burning down the system. They were mostly young people — first- or second-generation U.S. citizens — protesting the persecution their immigrant parents are enduring. They are certainly not “insurrectionist migrant mobs.” And for the most part, yes, the protests have been peaceful. There have been isolated — and reprehensible — incidents of looting and vandalism, but nothing near the scale of past riots in Los Angeles. The notion that the situation is under control thanks to the National Guard is simply false. The LAPD has been managing the response very well. Los Angeles isn’t a “ruptured, balkanized society of strangers.” It is not “occupied territory.” It certainly isn’t experiencing the consequences of an “invasion.” What Los Angeles, this vibrant, pluralistic city where dozens of languages and nationalities coexist, is experiencing is an attack on its most essential social fabric — a concerted campaign of terror. Since last Friday, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement began its operations, the immigrant community in the city that best embodies the immigrant experience in the United States has been paralyzed. (more) Washington Post https://archive.ph/799sN Opinion column by León Krauze, an award-winning Mexican journalist, author and news anchor.

For my U.S. online shopping, I've had very good experiences using a Thailand-based forwarding service called We Shipping USA, which you can find on Facebook under that name. Basically, you contact them by FB Messenger where the Thai rep speaks OK/rudimentary English. They have two options for forwarding U.S. online shopping stuff to Thailand -- an address in Virginia, if you're not in any rush, that has every month or so ocean shipments that cost a flat fee of 300 baht per kilogram, never any extra Thai customs or VAT charges. Delivery time is 2-1/2 to 3 months. Or, for quicker delivery, an address is Oregon that does weekly (Friday deadline) air shipments to Thailand for a flat fee of 800 baht per kilo, again, no extra Customs or VAT fees. Delivery time about 2 weeks. For either option, nothing extra on the Thai end except for the small domestic EMS mailing charge to deliver your packages to your home here, once they've arrived to Thailand and cleared Customs. So you never have to worry about any nasty surprises or unexpected duty charges coming from Thai Customs upon receipt. Payment is by bank transfer to their Thai bank account once your package has arrived here in Thailand, cleared customs and they send you a FB Messenger notification with the price owed, which is just the actual weight of your package X the applicable per Kg. rate.

Re Amazon, it depends on what exactly the OP wants to buy. Some kinds of products Amazon can and will ship to Thailand addresses, usually for some added fee.... But for other kinds of products, including food products, fabrics and various other things, you'll get an error message saying Amazon can't ship that product to Thailand. Just have to check on an item by item basis. If you log into Amazon and switch to a Thailand delivery address associated with your account, their search results will tend to narrow the offered choices to those that show as available for shipping to Thailand. These are a couple of examples where they don't ship to Thailand:

If you are a non-American who's paid taxes in the U.S. due to past or current U.S. earnings, I guess FATCA might apply also... But it's predominantly affecting U.S. citizens.

Not much of a reader, huh? From the latest news report above: Also, the week before the current one cited above, the number of reported COVID fatalities here was 30+, and that's surely an undercount, because the official stats here only count people who are diagnosed and die in hospitals. From the prior week, and the original OP in this thread:

Looking to save on Social Security fund payouts to the retired... and/or avoid paying to purchase imported COVID vaccines.... Since the country never ended up deploying a domestic, more affordable COVID vaccine of their own, despite many promises that one was soon coming. Sept 2023, and then silence after that, AFAICT. "Early next year" re 2024 came and went... with nothing!: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2639981/homegrown-covid-vaccine-nears-approval

Didn't we have a news thread here just the other day with Anutin publicly insisting that all the published rumors about him getting moved out of the Interior Ministry were false and that he was staying in that position??? Guess he ought to be moved instead to be in charge of the Thai Meteorology Department, so he can be in charge of the country's great weather forecasting system! Raining crocodile tears today in Thailand!!!

Amazing day in Thailand! At least SOME people in some authority are actually held accountable for once. How often does that ever happen here? Color me skeptical.... but I have to wonder still..... if all this won't be undone somehow in the end... 😞 And yes, the public health minister ought to go too... not just because he's a political crony who was serving his master as always, but because he doesn't belong in the job, period!