spidermike007

The American Psychological Association (APA) Dictionary of Psychology defines pedophilia as “a paraphilia in which sexual acts or fantasies involving pre-pubertal children are the persistently preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement.” I think it's very dangerous to call somebody a pedophile, since technically that word means something other than a man who is a predator and targets underage girls. It refers more to totally perverted men who get off on abusing young kids. I think it would be safer to call Donald Trump a likely serial statutory rapist. We know he was best friends with Epstein for 20 years, we know they hung out together a lot, and it's impossible knowing Trump's true nature that they didn't participate and share the young girls. Trump is on record saying that he likes them very young, what exactly does that mean? The man is morally depraved and ethically bankrupt, so why wouldn't he have gotten with a lot of young girls who were underaged, and why wouldn't he have forced himself on them? There are multiple federal agencies doing everything in their power to hide any evidence of that, but that doesn't change the reality of his history, does it?

There have been so many instances where this man has denied promotions to very high ranking and very accomplished women and men of color. He seems to be on a crusade to rid the Armed Forces of high-ranking women and black officers in particular. “Hegseth, in my opinion, is the kind of white guy who has a small personality but wants to seem big, strong, and tough,” Marks said. “People like that can be very dangerous. That’s evident in some of the actions they’ve taken. I never thought that I would see the National Guard being deployed outside of a national disaster or emergency.” https://share.google/m1kW0pruGRwAr1bUe Hegseth recently shifted his views on women serving in combat. In November, he said he opposed women in combat, and used gender stereotypes to make his case. He stated, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.” But after meeting with several women senators in December, he said “we support all women in our military today, . . . combat included.” https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/who-is-pete-hegseth Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking the promotion of four Army officers to be one-star generals, a highly unusual move that has prompted some senior military officials to question whether the officers are being singled out because of their race or gender. Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consists of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials said. Mr. Hegseth had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, for months to remove the officers’ names, military officials said. But Mr. Driscoll, citing the officers’ decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused. Earlier this month, Mr. Hegseth broke the logjam by unilaterally striking the officers’ names from the list, though it is not clear he has the legal authority to do so. The list is currently being reviewed by the White House, which is expected to send it to the Senate for final approval. The frustrations with Mr. Hegseth’s approach came to a boil last summer during a heated exchange between Ricky Buria, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, and Mr. Driscoll about a separate promotion. Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, the officials said. Today, about 43 percent of the 1.3 million troops on active duty are people of color. But those leading the military are overwhelmingly white and male. Mr. Austin pressed promotion boards to look deeper into the ranks to ensure qualified women and minorities were considered for senior positions. Senior military officials said they could not recall any previous instance of a defense secretary seeking to remove individual officers from a military board’s list. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/us/hegseth-promotion-list.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

No. Absolutely not there's no question about the fact that the negotiations with Iran are totally fabricated by the biggest liar in American history, this very creepy man has no integrity and nothing he ever says should be taken at face value, nor believed.

No. The US seems to be incapable of learning from either history or any previous war that it's been involved in. The arrogance, hubris and extreme sense of superiority due to the size of our military, and how "truly great" America is, seems to prevent any sort of wisdom from seeping into the planning or forming of major decisions. And the fact that the US has not won a war since 1945 does not seem to enter into any equation either. Lastly nobody seems to be considering the fact that regime change has never been accomplished without years and years of boots on the ground, and thousands of American casualties. But don't expect any wisdom from Don or Pete. They are two of the most ignorant men in America.

Part of the issue might be that enclosed air conditioned bars might be stricter about enforcing smoking rules. And that's one of the reasons why I prefer them. This time of year when it starts getting warm I'll take air conditioning over dripping sweat, whenever I have that choice.

There is much evidence that the Ayatollah did not support the nuclear weapons program, and that his son who is far more of a hardliner does support the program. Another omelet on Don's face.

More deflection. I wouldn't have expected any less.

It's quite obvious that the problems with this war of choice in Iran are causing fuel prices to spike and that will simply filter down into the economy and effect hundreds upon hundreds of commodities. Whether or not they anticipated this is hard to say from my point of view it looks like this war was very poorly planned, and I believe Netanyahu convinced Trump that it would be very short-lived. Of course neither of them had the wisdom to understand how a 5,000-year-old civilization would react to being bombarded by the great enemy. Iranians are used to living with hardship, Americans are not. In my opinion most Americans are quite soft, and though they love to waive the flag, the question is how prepared are they to make real personal sacrifices in order to gain whatever goals Trump has in mind with this very unnecessary war? There's no question that Trump and the US military have been surprised by Iran's reaction and unpredictability. How long this will go on is anyone's guess, and how long the repercussions will be felt is also very difficult to predict. Certainly the eight baht per liter increase in gas that we've seen here is going to hurt an awful lot of people, and there's no question that the "Trump Tax" is punishing people throughout the world right now. Trump doesn't care, he has more money than he knows what to do with and so do most of his cronies. But when the midterms come he may be crying for days. It is no secret that fuel costs are soaring. The four-week U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, with its disruption of energy exports from the Persian Gulf, has led to a spike in oil prices that’s passing through to other products. For American consumers, the most apparent reminder of this is in the gasoline prices billboarded across the country. A less immediate, though arguably more pernicious threat to the economy is the cost of diesel — which has climbed faster than regular gasoline. That could lead to inflation across a wide range of goods. “Because of its far-reaching consequences, it can stop a lot of industries,” she said, adding that if prices continue to rise, consumers will probably begin to see the effects on everyday items and necessities within the next several weeks. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/business/diesel-prices-inflation-consumer-prices.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

It's very likely that Trump and his proxies who are likely his sons and others are making fortunes from this war. We already know that his sons have invested in a drone manufacturing contractor that has already won a contract with the defense department to supply drones for the US Military. Not a coincidence that it was time perfectly with the Iran War. Don is by far the most corrupt president in American history and he worships at the golden calf of money, so this creep would do anything to make an extra buck. Integrity, honesty, or done by corruption, none of that means anything to him. It would not surprise me if he was getting $50 million dollars per pardon, and making billions under the table. That's just who he is and anybody who doesn't realize that is either ignoring the facts, or sweeping those facts under the rug, in a desperate bid to be blindly loyal.

One can always hope. The Persian people sure deserve a better life. I am skeptical if it can be forced upon them, but we shall see. Keep up the good posts. You are a tribute to this forum.

I do have some friends that will come right out and say the man is a butthead, he's an idiot, and he's an absolute clown, but I like his policies. Those are the Republicans I admire. It's an interesting point that you bring up, and one that a lot of Republicans just don't understand these days. During the 20 years that Clinton, Obama and Biden were in office I was continually critical of their policies. Just look back at some of my posts when Obama and Biden were in power. I was not a big fan of Obama for many of the years that he was president and my posts reflect that. As a centrist democrat I criticized a lot of his policies. I see so little of that coming from Republicans these days, to point where their absolute fealty is actually quite frightening. Most just can't handle critique of Trump, they immediately clam up, get defensive and start making it personal. Instead of behaving like rational intellectuals and debating policy they just start throwing out nonsense, accusations that I've never criticized my own party, or that I get paid to be critical of Trump. That is not only ridiculous, it is inane. I wish somebody would offer to pay me to criticize Trump. I would spend my whole day doing it. Criticism and open mindedness is what independent thinkers engage in, and it sets them apart from dogmatic subjects of a wannabe king. I invite you to reflect on that for just a moment.

Switching off if somebody were to try to kill somebody why would they use seven substances to do it? That alone raises an awful lot of suspicion. I'm not saying he wasn't murdered but the presence of seven drugs in his system seems odd.

With many people, once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They’d screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook, multiple fraud convictions, and Jan. 6th truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what. There was no such thing as a bridge too far.

Israel and America are directly to blame for the high prices of gas right now, and worldwide they should be calling it the Trump Tax.

Just another example of Trump raining economic destruction down upon America, and creating more Trumpflation everywhere he goes. The positive side of all this is that he's going to be gone very soon.

Well we know the IRG already had at least 150,000 men and we know the National Defense Forces already had at least 200,000 men. With the reckless attitude that both Israel and the US have demonstrated toward the Iranian civilian population and infrastructure, it is likely that they've been able to recruit hundreds of thousands of young men for the cause. Had the nimwits adopted a different approach, a public uprising would have been very possible, but now it's virtually impossible. And if Trump does send troops into Iran it is going to be a slaughterhouse and thousands upon thousands of Americans are going to lose their lives. And the only good that's going to come of that will be the total and complete downfall of Donald Trump, Hegseth, and the MAGA movement.

I would consider that to be a fairly accurate assessment.

I told you I wasn't woke and I don't pretend to be. @fredwiggy and I disagree on a lot of topics but as you can see we treat each other with kindness and respect for the most part. Though there may be a little snarkiness from time to time, it's not highly personal and that makes a big difference. Disagreements on many topics make the world go round, and I find them fascinating and try to be accommodating when it comes to different points of view. What I said about most Americans being prudish is absolutely true. I see more first-timers to Thailand from America that have a problem with the sex industry than people from any other nation, who tend to be a lot more tolerant and a lot less judgemental. A lot of Americans have an air of superiority and tend to judge people harshly. That's not a sweeping statement that's just simply truth, and I realize it's not PC, but as an American I think I have the right to state certain truths.

With all that being said some of us look at a factory owner paying someone 15,000 baht a month to work 50 to 60 hours a week, and then treating them poorly, is immoral and something that Buddha would not approve of. Thai friends of mine tell me even with the University degree unless one has been smart enough to specialize in a high demand industry, the pay is only about 5,000 baht a month more to start. And yet the amount of time effort and money that it takes to earn a four-year degree is significant. So you have to look at it through a cultural context and be a little bit more forgiving in one's outlook. For a gal from Issan, who barely has a high school education, the options are very limited here.

Exactly. Just think Steve Miller, Bessent, Lutnick, Vance, Trump, and other other bozos.

I know you're American, so a certain degree of prudishness is to be expected, but beyond that inability to wrap your mind around a completely different culture and its ways, we're actually trying to say something with this statement of yours?

We don't have to concern ourselves with what most activists are doing. Most "activists" these days are merely netizens. Getting up off your bum and actually doing something is far different than moaning, groaning and criticizing on social media. For me, that amounts to next to zero, in terms of courage. Being outraged is simply participating in victim culture, and weak PC nonsense, which is degrading society and preformed mostly by weaklings. Everything sparks debate these days, everything seems to offend the snowflakes, everything seems to cause "netizen outrage". Who cares, it means nothing, it is less than zero. Outrage is simply a manifestation of weak victim culture. I don't like anybody dictating to me how I should speak, nor how I should behave. I don't do PC, never have, and never will. You don't like the way I refer to you, that's your issue not mine. You want to be a victim that's on you. Being a real activist, who makes an honest effort to support a valid cause, is a whole different level of courage and conviction. Personally, I despise PC. And social justice authoritarianism. I think it represents alot of what is wrong with contemporary culture, and especially America today. It is a major form of weakness, when you allow yourself to be easily offended, and take everything personally. Granted, there are things that can be perceived as offensive, but allowing yourself to be offended by tiny little things people say and do is a bit much! But, the people who are offended daily, by things others say, are just weak, and would benefit by growing thicker skin. Life can be rough and caustic at times, and for those of us who have grown thick skin, it is like water off a ducks back. No big deal, at all. Think what you want to think. It just does not mean anything to those with self esteem, and a sense of who and what they are. Granted, these are just my opinions, and some will take offense to them. LOL. The US and the UK are by far the most tolerant countries in the world when it comes to the whole trans, non-binary, amorosexual, decide whatever you want today, if it fits mentality. No other country is as loose, driftless, and as silly as the US.

Want to hope that that same bill would apply toward IDF forces who have committed terrorism against the Palestinian people.

It's quite amazing how somebody could give a thumbs down to the statement that you just made. You really have to be wearing blinders, drinking a lot of Kool-Aid, or just living in complete denial to not even be man enough to admit how correct your statement is. Even if you agree with most of Trump's policies, a reasonable, objective and open-minded person can at least admit that he's the most corrupt president in American history, there's really no debate about that. I do have friends who support him, but are at least willing to say he's a butt head, he's an incredibly ugly person, I despise him personally, but I do support a lot of his policies.

This incredibly evil and pathetic man has already Unleashed hell on the Iranian people and for what?