Transcript of the above video: 

I know the title of this video is not exactly subtle. I also want to be clear; I don't view this as hyperbole at this point. A confluence of things has happened in the last like 8 weeks, and let me be clear, look at my record okay, go back and watch my videos. I believed in this Coalition some 3 months ago. I was very happy when I saw Ms. Paetongtarn, now the suspended Prime Minister or soon to be Ex-Prime Minister - I don't know what her status will end up being - but right now she is suspended pursuant to a Constitutional Court decision or a Constitutional Court finding of suspension pending a decision, we will get to that in a moment, but I made the videos where I really did believe in this coalition. Not 3 months ago was I on the ramparts saying, "hey, let's hold together.; this is the right thing for Thailand." She survived the no confidence vote but intervening facts that have occurred in the meantime most notably her leaked phone call which she corroborated, she was on the call, and her conduct in that call which resulted in the Constitutional Court here in Thailand, in a 9-0 decision deciding to take up a case regarding her removal from Office as PM, and a 7-2 decision deciding to suspend her in the meantime. And again, I have done the videos on that already, I don't want to go into too much detail there, but long story short, she either intentionally was, to my mind, selling out the interest of Thailand and at the very least on some level subverting the Field Commander in calling him an "opponent" to a foreign power, the foreign power that we were in the dispute with specifically; she either intended to do that or she didn't. Perhaps somebody that doesn't have the presence of mind to know that is not a good thing isn't who you want to have as PM. So she is currently suspended; I think she presently technically the Culture Minister which she has another portfolio, but while that is pending, now we have this so-called "acting" Prime Minister - which I don't even know what that is really - especially in light of the fact I thought that when these things happened, we were supposed to get a caretaker in its place. Now we saw this already, a similar set of circumstances happened with Prime Minister Srettha, now former Prime Minister Srettha where they adjudicated his fitness to sit in the Prime Ministership, but during the adjudication they did not suspend him, so when he was removed then it went into a caretaker position. Oddly enough, the conduct reached such a critical point that it appears the Constitutional Court deemed it worthy to suspend her pending adjudication, but the irony is that because she suspended awaiting adjudication, we don't have a caretaker Government apparently because we are still waiting for the adjudication. So now in her place is an “acting” Prime Minister - we have actually had two -  we had Prime Minister for one day Mr. Suriya and then now we have this Mr. Phumtham who was confirmed in the reshuffle, as now the Interior Minister which I will get to in a moment, but also is now the “acting” Prime Minister, which exactly what that means now, I don't really get it. Why aren't we in a caretaker Government? And meanwhile, again as I have discussed in another video, who voted for this guy? That's my main concern and we have other options. As discussed in other videos, and I will briefly explain here, there is still a slate of five people that per the Constitution and Parliamentary procedure, we could choose another person to be the actual Prime Minister and one of those people hails from the Core Coalition Party Phue Thai. Why aren't we bringing that person forward? Why is the Thai Government being hamstrung by someone who is suspended on very serious charges and now we have been saddled with an “acting” Prime Minister who I will get to in a moment, doesn't appear to care much for the legal protocols and procedures associated with the Office. And now I have serious concerns as to whether or not as the title of the video suggests, there is some sort of WEF inspired, sort of Neo-Bolshevik kind of attempt at a power grab going on within the organs of the government here. And again this isn't hyperbole. Understand, Mr. Phumtham, as I have discussed in other videos, is a Communist, he was an avowed Communist. We talked about it - apparently, he was in a guerrilla unit or something back during the '70s and was in the Communist Party. He's called, I cited it myself from France 24, his nickname is "Big Comrade" which anybody that knows the history of Thailand, and as a naturalized Thai myself, I had to become well acquainted with the history of Thailand, the notion that we have "Big Comrade" as a Prime Minister is really, really concerning. That said, again I don't think and when I use the term Bolshevik, if you get into the history of Communist rhetoric, Marxism and the history of the Russian Revolution etc., Bolshevism is basically like where a minority clique takes power through takeover of specific organs of the Government, and I am very concerned about this. This really isn't hyperbole, it isn't anything and this is just from stuff I'm reading in the main press here in Bangkok as to what's going on here. Most notably, let me go to the first thing which I have already gone to in another video, but apparently the Prime Minister doesn't even seem to care what the Council of State has to say. Quoting directly from a recent article, Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham says he can dissolve House. Quoting directly: "Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai dismissed the Council of States opinion about the acting Prime Minister's power to dissolve the House of Representatives as just one of many legal views." Well somebody asked in a comment, and I in somewhat an erroneous way analogized the Council of State or the ignoring of a Council of State opinion as tantamount to like a President in the US ignoring a Supreme Court opinion. First of all, as I even said at the time, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but more to the point, after doing some further thought on this, ignoring the Council of State's opinion on this matter is more akin to the President ignoring the White House Council's opinion as to the powers of the Presidency himself. The Council of State sits under the Office of the Prime Ministership and understand, makes legal opinions regarding the powers of the Office of the Prime Minister, not the PM personally. It is not talking about any one person, it is talking about the functions of the Office of the PM and they have said, "hey you can't do something", and he said "I don't really care about that". Again, quoting further: "His remarks on Monday followed media reports that the CoS (that's Council of State) told the July 3 special Cabinet meeting that an acting Prime Minister had no legal authority to dissolve the House. Mr. Phumtham, who is currently serving as the acting Prime Minister, said the CoS' opinion, given by its Secretary-General, does not constitute a formal stance and is being treated as one of several legal views being considered after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended from duty pending a Court ruling." Which again he is in an acting position; he doesn't have a legislative mandate behind him, nor a popular mandate behind him. He's just sort of in a temporary role pending her possible removal based on a 9-0 decision to take up the case and a 7-2 decision to suspend her from Office by the Constitutional Court as to her conduct regarding the phone call with Hun Sen, and then he is just saying, "yeah, I don't really care what the Council of State says", even though it's their function to advise as to what the duties and powers of that Office are, and he's just ignoring that. I find that very, very troubling; I have discussed that in another video. Meanwhile, as we also discussed in that same video where I discussed that, this whole notion, you keep hearing in the press that, "oh they have a thin majority", - what I will call the Rump Coalition at this point - "has a thin majority in the Parliament." Well as of last week they couldn't even get quorum to get the thing opened, and I question the thin majority narrative. 

Again, quoting from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Coalition in crisis is the title. Quoting directly: "The decision to delay deliberation of the Entertainment Complex Bill stems from fears that the Government, now sitting on a thin majority, lacks sufficient Parliamentary support to pass the legislation." Well as I discussed in another video, I had serious concerns and this goes back to Mr. Phumtham again regarding this Entertainment Complex Bill - which is basically a euphemism for the Casino Bill - which as we discussed in prior videos, the iteration that we had seen that was going to the floor and nobody ever seems to have countered this, I haven't seen anybody dispute this, would have allowed foreign operators to own the casino complexes outright in the form of the enterprise itself, and then on top of that, he in his capacity as the Interior Minister would have been or could be in a position in the future to sign off on the possibility that foreigners would own the land underneath a casino. And now they are pulling this because frankly it looks like their legislative "majority" is tenuous to say the least, and they are trying to pull it out of consideration, although they are playing some games as to whether they are going to completely pull it from the legislative agenda entirely or somehow try to delay it, which again I question the motives of any Coalition that is trying to push for this casino legalization when we have a lot of other pressing issues. Most notably things like the budget need to be dealt with, but they keep pushing on this casino thing. Now they are saying they are pulling it back, but it doesn't look like they are pulling it back out of any thought that this might not be the best thing in the world. It more looks like it's political maneuvering, as I'll get to here in a moment, because if they can't get it passed, it makes them look bad and possibly weakens their position within Parliament even further. Quoting further: "Instead, the House will begin discussions on four Amnesty Bills:" Now that's another one. This has come up within the narrative within just basically the last week or 10 days. I wasn't hearing much of anything about this up until then and I am starting to wonder - as I will get to here in a moment - whether or not this is its own level of Parliamentary chicanery or something. Quoting further: "a people's Amnesty Bill (proposed by civil society), a general amnesty bill (proposed by the main opposition People's Party, or PP), a peace-building bill (put forth by the Thai Teachers for the People Party), and a Peace-building Bill (sponsored by the UTN Party)." I have just got to say, the names of some of these parties, it's hard to keep track. Quoting further: "Political activist and former red shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan,” -  now let's be clear who this person is. This is a person that as noted, is a former red shirt leader. I don't necessarily agree with this guy on everything. I think sometimes he has some misguided notions, but this is somebody from ostensibly the same faction as the so-called Rump Coalition is supposed to be representing, although more and more it's looking like there's a small clique within even the Rump Coalition that is really trying to push their own agenda, as I'll get to here further in a moment. That said, quoting again: "Political activist and former redshirt leader Jatuporn Prompan sees the Amnesty bills leap-frogging the Entertainment Complex Bill as a "political trap" designed to create divisions among the opposition -- particularly between the PP and the BJT -- just as the two appeared ready to file a joint no-confidence motion." Yeah, going on in the background with all this and I haven't gotten into it very much because I don't really want to do that analysis right now, I'm more concerned with what could happen that could affect direct policy and therefore direct legal changes to Thailand, going on though in the background is that oddly enough, Bhumjaithai seems to be talking with the People's Party, formally the legacy of the Move Forward Party, and there's talk of "hey let's just put in an interim Prime Minister. We will all agree that really nothing major of substance will happen, and things like the budget I presume they will go ahead and get read through and moved on through, the PP has said, "hey we'll stay completely in the opposition, we don't want anything to do with that, we want an interim Prime Minister to get us through basically it sounds like the end of the year, and then we need to have new elections." That seems to be kind of their main thrust of what they want to do. All things considered, it sounds like kind of a reasonable way out of all of this instead of basically having a "coalition" - Coalition in quotes, because I really do question whether the votes are there for a full majority but, whether we want all this stuff because especially as I am seeing this play out, this doesn't look like it is anything anybody wanted in 2023 or before, when people were actually voting on these things. And certainly when it comes to Mr. Phumtham, he's not on the list of the slated folks that are slated to be able to be PM. Meanwhile, strictly speaking, we don't have a caretaker Prime Ministership nor a caretaker Government because the thing is in this kind of limbo because we are waiting for the adjudication on the suspended Prime Minister. So it creates this question of is this really what anybody wants? And if it's not, maybe we should have some sort of alternative. Now I don't know what that looks like and as I have discussed in other videos yeah there is a Phue Thai candidate that still viable, that could come in so it could still be the same type of Coalition we have been dealing with heretofore but again this Mr. Phumtham and all of his machinations I have no questions about this. I think any Thai reasonably would especially in light of the fact he seems very dismissive of the Council of State. That said, quoting further: "Mr. Jatuporn characterized the move as "a shallow trick" to sew confusion, distract from internal tensions, and pave the way for the later passage of the Entertainment Complex Bill under a different name." So that's also a good point to bring up. Again as I brought up in a prior video, I have real questions about this Casino Bill. At the beginning when we first started talking about legalization of gambling I was generally speaking on balance in favour of it, if it was brought in correctly. Every iteration of this week have seen now it looks like it's basically just a pure sell out to foreign interests wherein Thailand will get all the negative repercussions of legalization of gambling in this country and it won't see any of the benefits because all of the money basically will be sucked out by foreigners, and it looks like there is even a possibility that they could even sell the land associated with such a complex. So again, that whole Bill in and of itself is problematic just on its own, and it looks like they are playing shell games to sort of keep it from happening at this moment so they can maybe preserve it for later, I don't know. That said, quoting further: "He also cast doubt on the sincerity of the reconciliation efforts stating the Phue Thai lacks the moral authority of past leadership." That's a pretty big statement coming from that guy. Anybody that knows the history, knows 2010, and the aftermath of all of that, I mean for him to question the moral authority and say it's not the same as past leadership, wow, that's a big statement. That said, quoting further: “He accused the government of resorting to “day-by-day survival politics”. Yeah, and the question there is I even question like the term “government” at this point because again we have got Mr. Phumtham who's there in this “acting capacity” while the PM is suspended on really serious charges and then he is just saying “ahh,  Council of State, I don't care what they have to say.” Again, it's creepy but I'll tell you where my hackles really got up and where I immediately just in my head it just went Boom! Bolsheviks! Let me get to it. Quoting directly from another article, again Bangkok Post, hats off to you guys bangkokpost.com. Before I get into this, I get into a deeper dive in our paid news service, if anybody's interested in that. Integrity news service you can email us at [email protected], I go into deeper dives on all of this stuff. How it pertains to the expat world etc. Also, for those who also interested in getting some American diner style food, especially in downtown Bangkok, if you're interested you can come by to the restaurant my better half and I recently opened. Pancake Palace, again in downtown Bangkok. We've got all day breakfast as the name implies, pancakes included, and we've got good stuff like American diner style food including chilli bowls, cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, and we've even got glass bottled Coke Cola just like in American diners back home. So folks that are interested in that, Pancake Palace, downtown Bangkok, there's a link in the description below to the location.

That said, going back to this and this is where my hackles really got up and I started thinking Ooh, minority strategically going after specific points in the organs of state in order to exercise disproportionate amounts of control in a very lack of a better term, Bolshevik manner. Quoting directly, again Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Phumtham defends reshuffle is the title of the article. Quoting directly: "Interior Minister Phumtham Wechayachai insisted that the decision to replace several senior Ministry officials with known ties to Bhumjaithai Thai Party..." Well that that in and of itself these are people within the Civil bureaucracy that are seemingly being replaced for “known ties” to a Party that has now gone into the opposition; kind of creepy just on its face. That said, quoting further: "...wasn't politically motivated, saying the move was taken to improve administrative performance." Again this guy is really good at talking in platitudes. Quoting further: "The veteran Phue Thai politician who is also the acting Prime Minister", I love how they say that like offhand; again acting though. And the Council has stated itself, it said, look you are not the same thing as a Prime Minister themselves. Quoting further: "…made the remarks on Tuesday after Government Spokesman Jirayu Houngsub announced the Cabinet had approved the reshuffle of several positions within the Interior Ministry." Now it should be noted, this is a Cabinet representative of what I can only describe as the Rump Coalition, the Coalition that has a from the mainstream press itself, “razor thin majority” and I even question that majority when the rank-and-file of the various Parties in the “so-called’ Coalition are actually voting on the floor of Parliament. I would be very curious to see if they really have the majority they claim. I am not convinced that they do as evidenced by the fact they couldn't even get quorum up last week and they are already running away in terms of the Casino Bill which they are moving around as noted in “survival day-to-day” politics because I don't think they can get it passed, and they don't want to basically be viewed as being unable to have done that. I think they view it as making them look bad or something, or it could start the process of seeing this whole thing reorganized within Parliament, which is frankly the purpose of Parliament. That's why we have it. It's not there to be sort of frustrated and forestalled so as somebody that has no mandate, legislative or popular, to just maintain this tenuous effective day-to-day control. It's really creepy stuff. But this is where it got even like, it just hit a fine point with me. "Mr. Phumtham stressed that the appointments were based on their performance, especially in combating narcotics under the "Seal Stop Safe" policy." Well what is a "narcotic"? Is that where they are unilaterally now calling Cannabis a narcotic even though it was a licensed thing and everybody that was doing it not a fortnight ago, was perfectly within the law, and now because the Public Health Minister just “says so”, it's now some kind of a problem, even though there has never been a Law passed through Parliament on it? Is that the narcotics we are talking about? That was the first thing that caught my eye. Then quote: "There is no colour [political affiliation], just the colour of the Interior Ministry", he said". What does that mean? Do you mean the Manila bland paint on the walls? Quoting further: "Those who are active will be recognized, while those playing golf all day won't." Okay, I mean I have my serious questions as to whether or not people were playing golf all day, but whatever. That said, that was not the thing. This here is what got my hackles way up. Quoting directly, I should say maybe not hackles but the hairs is on the back of my neck; it creeped me out. Quoting further: "Asked if the Government is planning to reshuffle other positions within the Interior Ministry, Mr. Phumtham said it will depend on the official's performance in the next three months." When asked to explain why the Government moved to replace the Director-general of DoPA, (that's the Department of Provincial Administration) who only has two months left until his mandatory retirement in October, Mr. Phumtham said it had to do with his handling of administrative issues." Again, I've been hearing this for years. Ever since TSA went completely off the rails, 15-20 years ago in the United States, anytime you hear "administrative functions", "administrative issues" it's usually a catch-all for whatever we say or whatever we want to say or whatever we think, "because we say so". I think it's almost a euphemism for that. But think that through again. I want to re-quote that. We are talking about the replacement of the Director-general of the Department of Provincial Administration. So that is the person that is in charge with direct administration of the provinces here in Thailand, who only has 2 months left until his mandatory retirement in October, mandatory retirement in October. So it's not like, politically or otherwise, is there really that big of a rush to replace a guy who has been in that job this long, and is set to retire in what, less than two months’ time now? August, September. Okay the full 2 months, maybe a week or two into October whatever it is, but definitely not 90 days. But meanwhile that put the hairs on the back of my neck of a lot and really creeped me out and got me thinking. Is this an effort to during this tiny little sliver of time wherein we have this “acting” Prime Minister, who is by the way acting in place of a Prime Minister whose qualifications to be Prime Minister and whose conduct in the Office are being called into serious question by the Constitutional Court and not by a particularly bifurcated opinion - 9 to 0 they agreed to take up the case, now 7 to 2 they said there needed to be a suspension, but 9 to 0 they said, yeah there's a case here. So again it's clear the Court thinks there is at least something to look at. Again we don't know what the ultimate adjudication on that is going to be, but meanwhile somebody who was not elected to this Office, does not have a mandate to the Office pursuant to Parliamentary Procedure, there's a slate of five other people who could be put in there including one person from the Core Coalition party that's already there, that is all being sidelined for this acting guy who is now going out of his way to remove people only 2 months prior from a time when they will be out of that Chair anyway, to remove people who administer large segments of the country? I mean again we know this person has communist background, so they are going to be familiar with ideological leanings of that. The prior Prime Minister had the World Economic Forum I don't know, emissary, I mean they are not like a government power or anything, they are just this amorphous group of basically totalitarians, and in a prior video somebody was putting up, “oh they're not Communists, they are Fascists”, - look I don't care they are totalitarians and they clearly have their eyes and their chops a’ licking for Thailand which has always maintained her own sovereignty. And frankly Thais have a level of liberty on a personal level, on a day-to-day level, that really no other country I have ever been to really has. And what for whatever reason these International, we used to call them the Comintern, but these internationalists, these supranationalists they just don't like a free and independent Thailand is what it looks like to me. And again, prior to her suspension, Ms. Paetongtarn was hosting these folks. Now we have got a guy that was a Communist guerrilla who is the “acting” PM, and he is moving to replace people who have really important roles within the apparatus of state here in Thailand in such a way that it gives him more leverage during what appears to be a brief and limited period of time in which he's going to be in there. And and if that doesn't smack of the kind of tactics utilized by the Bolsheviks so many years ago, I don't really know what does, okay?

So as I say, this really isn't hyperbole. I'm seriously concerned about all of this. I think anybody that looks at the whole situation in its totality and kind of realizes the background and understands what's going on here, is going to be concerned as well. Now exactly how this plays out remains to be seen, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.