That piece is about what the establishment can do by way of self preservation. I mean, okay, depending on how you define ‘progressive’ it might contain something by way of a lesson for progressives in NZ.
Or does it merely just add highlighter pen to what should already have been some pretty obvious writing on the wall for the establishment’s liberal left? That’s what I’d pick it to amount to. A kinda “Gadzooks! This triangulation and third way shit really is dead on its feet. Oh noes, what’s we going to do?”
As one who has lived in paradise 1950 though to paradise 2016 I tend to agree.
It is just we have different problems to cope with today.
Remember 6 O’clock closing, Nordies budget, Holyoakes guff, separate traffic cops from regular cops etc etc.
And I was reading an article a year or two back that made the argument that we should split them apart again as they use different skill sets. Although that article seems to be more concerned with improving the image that the police have which I think would come more from them being better police.
Disturbing, Did the police know it was fake before the raid, what if it was a toddler running around with a toy gun. with that extra 30 sec’s to a minute to have the dog under control make that much difference, maybe they could have got there earlier if they are in such a hurry or was the young fella legging it over the fence. Not a good look again for the department.
One would assume the police were initially taking it the gun was real.
Going off what was reported, the dog was in a fenced off area. The police claim they were at risk of attack.
Therefore, for the dog to put the officers at risk, it must of either got out of the enclosed area (which wasn’t reported) or the police entered into the enclosed area (knowing an irate dog lay within, hence putting themselves at risk) while ignoring pleas by the young girl to allow her to further constrain the dog.
Can you keep us updated on this, very sad about the dog and keen to learn more on the so-called fake pistol or was it a rifle, maybe air pistol which are not illegal per say, I know they are using gun (what terminology). Ta
I mean I am curious as to why no political party has mentioned going back to the old system of having separate, dedicated traffic cops as I don’t think its a good look having police sitting on the side of the road with a speed camera
I’d much rather see traffic cops patrolling the highways and dealing with traffic offences and let the police deal with everything else
I’m positive our PM compared working as a junior doctor with working for Merrill lynch this morning on breakfast, similar working conditions, similar stresses…
Did the doctor also earn 50 million speculating on foreign currency and earn the name “smiling assassin”, for his cheerfulness while putting people out of work like Key’s days at Merrill?
A beautiful day ….. Now which incompetent natz is going to utter some Bullshit and be the first on a Monday to fuck it up?…. ShonKey, Joyce, parata, Smith, collins, English.. … The list seems endless
Women’s refuges, church agencies and other community groups will soon have to hand over their client details to the Government in return for funding.
Ministry of Social Development (MSD) deputy chief executive Murray Edridge says all 823 agencies funded by the ministry’s $330 million Community Investment arm will have to provide client details for funding by next July.
Well now, wouldn’t Paula Bennett have a ball. Every time someone criticised her she could demand to see their file and publicly discredit them for perceived misdemeanours in the past.
Apart from that, it’s an insult to all the social groups who have had to pick up the work the government is no longer supporting – turning these organisations into the whipping boys and girls in order to take the heat off themselves?
No surprises here, just more contempt from this Government to make vulnerable people’s lives more shitty. How much more does this Government have to do with its punitive, controlling and vindictive attitude towards unfortunate people, to make themselves feel satisfied and happy? Extermination of them all – would they like that? I see a Police State on the horizon and rights and freedoms removed from the political landscape in the near future. Someone on this site keeps on about a revolution – not us, we are too feeble and ignorant to do anything like that. We are sleepwalking right into misery in this country and the 1% will just love that.
We are sleepwalking right into misery in this country and the 1% will just love that.
Although true I’m pretty sure that they won’t like the inevitable result. And they always act so surprised when they find out that their actions have consequences.
There are few jobs for immigrants as well as locals. We can get migrants here, but we don’t have a decent job for them in our low wage economy. Same for the 1 in 4 Kiwis that have to work overseas. Adding more people just increases the problem.
So that leaves the elderly and children who want to live here. Not only that, but I think people are coming into NZ and then leaving on other passports. So it appears there are more people here, but NZ or at least Auckland, is emptying again.
It’s not rocket science, even with all the fake government Stats, migrants and Kiwis need real jobs. If they are not here and with the lack of innovation and diversification, then there is no future and people will relocate for work.
As with many things, immigration is about getting the balance right.
We often hear talk of balancing the skills requirement and numbers coming in, but little on the age balance.
Immigration can be utilized to help offset our aging population.
I’m with Winston, immigration should only be used as a stop-gap measure. Our skill requirements should be met at home.
Immigration shouldn’t be used to lower incomes or NZ work practice standards.
Numbers coming in are currently far too high. Infrastructure is failing to cope.
And the high number of older immigrants is putting pressure on the health system while putting the sustainability of our superannuation at further risk.
Therefore, when it comes to immigration, it’s clear to see the Government has got the balance all wrong.
Denis O’Rourke introduced a very good N.Z.F. policy of pro rata super where the Government pays super proportionate to the amount of time one spends of their career working in N.Z. If you spent half your 40 years working here then you get 50% of what a New Zealander who did their entire career here.
Go Bus has been accused of exploitation after it illegally housed migrant workers in an office building at its Dunedin depot early last year.
The Tramways Union, which represents workers at the site, said the housing of workers, believed to be Filipinos, at the depot was part of a wider problem where Go Bus was employing foreign workers to keep wages low.
The workers were moved after the Dunedin City Council, which owns the building, informed Go Bus it was illegal under the district plan for people to live in commercial premises “due to fire risk and other safety factors. It would have been unpleasant,” council property manager Kevin Taylor said of the suitability of the building as worker accommodation.
To those who say this is common practice world wide I say “Multiple wrongs do not make it right” … another field for NZ to lead the world. 12 hour shifts are fine but only as long as one has time to recuperate after three or four days.
I presume you don’t literally mean 3 or 4 days off, rather that a 12 shift is not followed by another the next day. That the next day shift would be a standard 8 hour shift.
There are plenty of jobs/vocations that require people to do two or three 12 hour days in a row. Seemingly without any serious problems. I have had these type of jobs in the past.
I appreciate that the default position of Standardnistas is always to support strikers. However, I am a bit surprised at this strike given the shift by the DHB’s in the current negotiations.
Some years ago Junior doctors (led by Deborah Powell who seems to have been the union leader for about two decades) went on strike to get better conditions and pay. Most people were pretty sympathetic to their cause, since some of the days were very long indeed, way beyond 12 hours. And there was a big increase in pay so that the compulsory residency years in hospital have become quite well paid, around $100,000 a year I think, when all the shift work is taken into account
At that time the junior doctors essentially got what they wanted, at least as I recall it. Presumably what they got has applied through to the present. So why has this strike arisen?
Why are the conditions now terrible, but were OK when the junior doctors accepted them, and not so many years ago? Did they think they were hard done by when they accepted the offer of some years ago?
I do appreciate there have been annual negotiations each year on pay, and presumably conditions.
Incidentally I suspect not all junior doctors will actually go on strike.
OK, firstly hours and conditions creep, especially in highly critical areas that are understaffed: someone stays ten minutes over in an incident, and without careful and bastardy behaviour it can become the norm. Then ten minutes gets stretched, then it gets formalised.
I’ve done twelve or thirteen hour shifts myself. As an extension to a regular day, they’re bad. On a rotating 24hr roster, they’re fucking murder. I’d say that three calendar days off after a twelve hour night shift should be the minimum, just to teach HR to not do it again.
Doctors are paid a lot, but your argument reminds me of the ports of auckland bullshit around salaries. Even if doctors didn’t have larger student loans to pay (thanks for that) it should be illegal to sell your good health. We don’t allow it with steriod abuse, we don’t allow people to take cuts in workplace safety in exchange for a pay bump, why do we expect doctors to operate, literally, while fatigued for long hours?
So very very true – and let’s sheet this problem right back to where it starts – consistent underfunding of our DHB’s by central government. There should be no surplus while we cannot employ sufficient staff in our hospitals and pay them adequately. We might also have a look at the obscene levels of renumeration our DHB CEO’s are granting themselves.
Was your comment that Deborah Powell had been the union leader for 20 odd years meant as a criticism? Perhaps she is dedicated to her cause, just as Helen Kelly had been involved with union concerns for many years. I guess some farmers have been involved with Federated Farmers for years, or pilots with their union, or business people with their “union”.
Why are the conditions now terrible, but were OK when the junior doctors accepted them, and not so many years ago?
You’re assuming that the doctors were OK with them when they accepted them then rather than that they accepted those terms then understanding that they were the best that they were going to get then and that they would ask for more at the next negotiations.
Hell, if we followed your prescribed logic we’d still have slavery. After all, the slaves were Ok with the conditions then weren’t they?
Presumably what they got has applied through to the present.
Have they though? Because from what I’ve been hearing/reading things have been getting worse over the last few years of this governments attacks on public services.
I do appreciate there have been annual negotiations each year on pay, and presumably conditions.
No, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t appreciate it at all.
Why are the conditions now terrible, but were OK when the junior doctors accepted them, and not so many years ago?
Yeah, funnily enough, employers also come to the table with demands, even though they accepted the last agreement without those demands in it. What an impenetrable mystery! Actually, I’m sure you don’t find it as mystifying as you make out.
Actually Wayne should thank his lucky stars he’s on the pig’s back and stop sniping at real workers in our society. We should really be looking at stopping ex parliamentarian perks, and spending it somewhere useful.
I can understand progressive annual adjustments to agreements.
However, Deborah Powell negotiated the last junior doctors agreement, which as I noted was not that many years ago.
She now says how terrible things are, but these terrible conditions are presumably the ones she previously agreed to.
Now I don’t know the actual details of the agreements, there have been too many claims and counterclaims on the media to know the actual status of the negotiations. Certainly two weeks ago listening to the Morning Report interviews of the DHB rep, and to Deborah Russell, they seemed not to even agree what was actually in dispute, or at least did not agree to a common set of facts.
But I do know that Deborah Russell always says that all the conditions she has to negotiate are terrible and will lead to deaths. So presumably when she has negotiated in the past, she has agreed to hospital deaths due to the terrible working conditions she has agreed to.
… and we should still be sending children up chimneys because they accepted it in the nineteenth century and change should take place only on geological time scales. So says the fossil.
“I have had these type of jobs in the past.” Are you seriously trying to conflate what you do (office, sitting on your arse, drinking coffee all day) with truck drivers & cleaners & doctors? No wonder you guys don’t take workers rights seriously!
Well in the spirit of not trying to better oneself or your conditions why did you ever stop being a paperboy? Didn’t you find the conditions acceptable when you first began under the existing conditions?
In an exclusive interview on The Nation, Justice William Young said courts could benefit from having a Criminal Cases Review Commission, like that established in the UK.
Despite high-level support, the Government has ruled out a commission in New Zealand.
Yes we should have a criminal cases review.
We also need a prosecutorial misconduct review
And a police misconduct review (that is not the disfunctional one we have now!)
“Why Hillary Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump”
Thanks save nz.
In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make “the world free from nuclear weapons”. People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was all fake. He was lying.
The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president.
Of course, Obama never had the guts or the werewithal to stand up to the wishes of the Deep State on these issues.
But I do credit him with holding back a full scale US invasion of Syria which many neocons wanted – and still want.
So pilger also prefers a candidate who wants to make it policy to murder innocent civilians by drone simply because they’re related to suspected terrorists, and wants to throw out the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
For my money the Jill Stein interview that has elicited the Pilger link was making the very good point that when we’re reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils, then our choices are being made somewhere down the path to hell.
That was, in my mind, worthy of discussion/debate.
And it’s a crying fucking shame that it got fucked by a piece of exaggeration (she didn’t actually say a vote for Clinton would result in war with Russia, she said it could result in war with Russia – a reasonable analysis) and a nose dive into the tired old shit about which one of the two despicable presidential candidates was the more despicable, vile and dangerous.
Neither should be allowed to be in office. One of them will be. We’re about to be in the shit unless unreported, the broader left in the US has got its shit together and is ready to confront whoever becomes El Presidente from day one of their term.
I just hope to fuck the discussion in the US is a bit more mature than the school yard point scoring nyah, nyah, nyah nyah nyah bullshit that’s been sprayed over this site of late.
The question is whether Clinton will lead to significantly worse shit than Trump, or whether bother of them are any worse than the current shit we’re in.
Neither are ideal for office. It’s a question as to whether the office itself should even exist. But the current shitpool we’re in is set to get some different shit in it. It might be better shit (but I doubt it). One of the prospective new shits might look a bit greener than the other, or more orange, but does that make it better shit or worse shit? And will it blend in well with the current shit, or will the two combine to make some really manky shit? Can we keep swimming in the new shit, or will we finally drown in shit?
I think I might call this The shitpool model of democratic decisionmaking.
How long are we going to stare at shit saying “It’s shit” and arguing over how much worse the shit might become, or not become, before we get bored staring at shit, stating the fucking obvious about shit, how it looks, smells and feels like shit; before we lift our eyes to take in something else and bend our minds to ways in how that something else might be realised? Or give some thought to how we might neutralise or ameliorate the effects of the shit that, yes, we know about but are no longer intently focused on because, I dunno, maybe we’ve grown the fuck up and aren’t so taken by the prospect of dabbling in other peoples’ potties any more?
Your preference is fine. But seeing as how (presumably) you don’t get to cast a vote in the US elections and (presumably) have no impact on any left activism in the US, then your preference can only be just that. The passive wish of a by stander who hopes to be not too adversely impacted by whatever goes down.
Meanwhile, we could have been having more meaningful or productive discussions on what was what US wise, that were situated somewhere beyond the tedious Clinton/Trump flavoured poop throwing contest that the campaign seems to have unleashed on this site.
We are all bystanders aren’t we and therefore any discussion on the whys and wherefors of the US is really just for the benefit of our intellectual stimulation isn’t it.
There has been the potential to springboard into discussions that might have led to a better understandings on a number of fronts, but when everything nosedives into Clinton/Trump shitsmear…
Throwaway examples off the top of my head.
1.The msm is partisan and would have been against whoever or whatever was positioning itself against the status quo or establishment. It happened with the SNP during the independence campaign, to Corbyn, to Sanders…so Trump is correct to say there’s a bias and whatever. That’s not saying that Trump shouldn’t be hung, drawn and quartered. But it might be questioning what is being glossed over with regards Clinton.
2. The reality of abuse and power that’s suddenly in every living room because Trump is a valuable discussion. I’d hate to see it fade after the election but fear it will. Y’know? Trump will be ‘the bad apple’ – the exception to the rule etc and the cozy world of entitlement will get back to it’s default and invisible setting again.
3. Policy? Beyond soundbites and bullshit, I can’t say I’ve much of an idea about much actual policy and what its impact might be. Yes, there’s Syria and woefully inadequate action on CC that I get or am aware of.
4. The friction between a swathe of the broader left and the liberal establishment left and the utter disconnect of the latter from swathes of the population across western (so-called) social democracies.
5. There’s probably a 5 and a 6 and whatever. You get the picture. But it seems all the discussions and debates or disagreements, yeah…potty time.
ffs CV. The important word – the one you threw away in your haste to get all wavy armed was could.
Everybody knows that Clinton has spouted shit about having a no-fly zone. And everybody knows what that’d likely entail…which is why she probably won’t get her way (assuming she hasn’t already changed her mind through taking a reality check).
And sure, even if there’s no ‘no-fly’ zone, I’m pretty sure a Clinton administration will find 1001 other stupid and highly risky ways to impress on Russia that the US means business and means to rule.
You weren’t reserved on how you interpretated Steins comments – you misrepresented them, and worse,you obliterated the far more important message she was imparting with all your pointless fucking arm waving.
Well people could have read past the title of my post to read the exact quotation from Stein which I included for everyone to see.
But since you raised this point, and have returned to it, I’ve gone back to edit the title of my post to
“Jill Stein: a Clinton Presidency could mean nuclear war with Russia”
which exactly reflects what the Green Candidate said. You may think this reflects a great improvement now that it doesn’t “misrepresent” what Stein said.
Everybody knows that Clinton has spouted shit about having a no-fly zone. And everybody knows what that’d likely entail…which is why she probably won’t get her way (assuming she hasn’t already changed her mind through taking a reality check).
Pretty sure the US deliberately bombed that Syrian military outpost in Eastern Syria killing over 80 Syrian soldiers (final death toll, initial death toll was ~62) as well as killing a few Russian military advisors (reading between the lines) during up to an hour of aerial bombing.
So don’t over estimate the level of common sense and cool headedness in the Pentagon at the moment.
I’m pretty sure they deliberately bombed the position as well.
I just don’t know whether they thought it was an Isis position or a Syrian one when they decided to bomb it.
I’d agree those bombing runs were probably deliberate. And I’d say the risk of dead Syrian army regulars escalating into a confrontation with Russia was about 5/8ths of zero. Totally different ball game to a direct attack on Russian military.
And yes, I know Turkey got away with it, but then, if Russia had retaliated militarily, they’d have found themselves at war with NATO. Who knows? Maybe the whole Turkish downing of a Russian bomber was to gauge Russian reactions?
US and Russia are working together in Syria, both Asad and Isis are losing every day, and the EU having to deal with a few refugees, like wtf, who cares.
Lets run it by. Should Asad win, more than half of all Syriams want him gone, or worse. Isis would be gone. So why would the US waste time on Russia, especially since Russia for the most part is stable, and eventually will be a muslim nation, so Putin is just create a legacy, not a good one.
Syria is what happens when both Asad and Isis are loathed by the world.
USSR was its own karma. AS for post wall. Russia weakness in grafting on the profit motive, meant going straight to a few rent seeking oligarchs, was its own decision. Russia has China, the Artic, Islam and Europe, each requires a different strategy, its past, present and future are all different. So of course the world needs Putin in charge, not only to stablize, or to take potshots at, but to hold back Islam entering Europe, provide a backdoor to moderate China, to burn off oil adventures in the Arctic, the EU helps by being a incentive to keep a militrary up to scratch, Ukraine would be good fit to keep Russia Christian…
Look Russia needs all the enemies it can get, since nobody wants to invade, climate change will decimate it in a hundred years.
There’s some truth in that, some on the Left anticipated a thawing after the war – but Russia had cheerfully allied with Hitler before WWII – they or at least their leadership were by no means innocent.
There’s an interesting parallel with the end of the Cold War – when, given the absence of a credible enemy there was some expectation of a universal move to moderate centrism. I imagine the same forces that drove the US remorselessly to the Right are to blame for both events.
Trump is merely symptomatic of this – the US Right are now so extreme they can no longer find anyone credible to represent them. The pendulum cannot move indefinitely in the same direction.
“They have shat on Russia at every opportunity since Roosevelt died.”
Winston Churchill could see what was coming, and felt Roosevelt did not fully comprehend that all the West was doing was replacing one madman (Hitler) with another (Stalin).
Churchill was proven correct.
To say the US was paranoid with Russia (USSR), you would also have to say Russia (USSR) was paranoid with the USA.
A question…would you rather that the USSR was the dominant world power or the USA?
I say the USSR because if they had “won the cold war” there would have been no break up of the USSR…
So 40% living under a new syria, all with network access gathering intel for the next civil war. No. No nation could survive with such poor weak leadership like Asad. A nation that does not fear ts population isnt long for overthrow. In a time of pre internet the terrorizing dicator held the upper hand. Remember Bush juniors axis of evil, its was just the report of the inevitable overthrow of dictators by network enhanced peoples. Syria was just unfortuae in being a first mover and has to learn how to threaten its elites properly, i.e midle classes rule.
He has opposed just about everything the US has done for decades, including opposing the international effort to get Iraq out of Kuwait in 1990. I guess he is also opposed to the anti-ISIS coalition. I suspect Jill Stein would be of the same persuasion. Pilger makes Robert Fisk look like a moderate.
Now if that is your benchmark, fine, but in my view it does not define Clinton as a warmonger, unless for instance you think resisting ISIS makes one a warmonger. On that basis, most if not all, western and other leaders are warmongers since the anti-ISIS coalition has about 60 countries in it (including Russia).
If you think about it real hard, you might be able to figure out why blaming the US for Saddam Hussein ordering the invasion of Kuwait is completely moronic. This may come as a great shock, but not everything bad that happens in the world is the work of the US government.
Wayne. Iraq and Kuwait. You’ve heard of the road to Basra, yes? A huge military and civilian convoy heading out of Kuwait that was bombed to shit for no fucking good reason at all. Oh yeah. And the non-existent babies in incubators that weren’t actually thrown out of hospital windows by Iraqi troops that was used as a pretext to go all gung ho on the situation….
Syria. ISIS and Al Nusra, or whatever name change either adopts, are being directly funded by both the UK and the US through the ‘white helmets’. The Syrian government, with the aid of Russia (that it requested) is resisting ISIS and AL Nusra. Oddly, ‘our’ media says that makes the Syrian government and Russia the (irredeemable) bad guys. Go figure.
Same goes for the peoples in Rojava. Branded as terrorists, yet on the front line in the war against religious extremism.
And Turkey? Who gives save haven to Al Nusra and others while bombing the crap out of any and all Kurds? Good guys.
Saudi Arabia? Bombing the crap out of Yemen and funding every ‘religious’ lunatic in the middle east? Good guyss.
Militants have banned civilians from leaving the city have set up checkpoints on outwards roads and have blown up the homes of those who do flee.
While leaving can mean trekking through minefields and the risk of discovery and punishment by Isis, those who stay know they face airstrikes, street battles, a potential siege by the Iraqi security forces and the grim possibility of being used as human shields by Isis.
Just the logic of it. Why else would you advertise all over the corporate mainstream media that you are going to launch a huge offensive on Mosul weeks ahead of time.
That and the US effort to build a Salafist principality in eastern Syria where they bombed the Syrian military outpost.
You should know better than to trust The Guardian.
Wall St Journal Sept 8, 2016
U.S. Gets Ready to Assist Offensive to Retake Key Iraqi City From Islamic State
The U.S. is gearing up to assist in an offensive to reclaim the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State, and has sent 400 additional troops to the country in anticipation Iraqi forces will begin the long-delayed battle in October, officials said.
BTW I heard about this because Trump has been saying in his speeches that it is total incompetence to let the enemy know in advance what your plans and timing are.
To be fair to the Guardian (not because i think it should be trusted you understand) but the piece said that “The start of the offensive, which has been months in the planning, was announced in an address on state television by Iraq’s prime minister in the early hours of Monday morning.”
Stupid me just assumed that was the, well….announcement. Not an announcement in a long trail of announcements 😉
Heh! They coudn’t have telegraphed their plans any louder and further ahead if they had tried (which I believe was the point…but that’s “conspiracy theory” stuff.)
If you have complete air dominance, and the city is in a state of siege, then please tell me how it is incompetent to let the population of the city know what your plans are? And it would not take a genius to work them out anyway. Besides it is not the US who are the dominant force in this instance.
Iraqi government forces have launched a campaign to retake Mosul, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Iraq.
The bid to retake Mosul comes after the military, backed by armed tribes, militias and US-led coalition air strikes, regained much of the territory the fighters seized in 2014 and 2015.
“We are proud to stand with you in this historic operation,” Brett McGurk, US envoy to the coalition against ISIL, said on Twitter at the start of the Mosul offensive.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Khazir, just east of Mosul, said preparations for the offensive had long been under way, with forces amassing around the city where an estimated one million people still live under the control of ISIL, also known as ISIS.
“Now that the formal announcement has been made, we are expecting the US-led coalition to carry out air strikes in support of what is expected to be a ground advance from a number of front lines around the city,” she said.
The dropping of thousands of leaflets on the city advising the population of the impending offensive I see as a humanitarian gesture not one of incompetence.
ISIS got at least 6 weeks warning from the Wall St Journal and other news sources that Americans were sending in extra help for a big push which was going to happen in October.
You think that’s a humanitarian move?
I do not think that ISIS allowed any significant evacuations from the city.
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting line – which we cannot confirm – in its piece on the battle for Mosul, suggesting that Isis has decided to give up on the city.
A mid-ranking Islamic State commander said in an interview over Facebook that the group has made a tactical decision to partially abandon Mosul, recalling their “human resources” to Syria where they hope to strengthen their foothold. “There will be no big great epic battle in Mosul,” the commander said. “The tactic now is hit-and-run.”
And why not strike a deal with your enemy’s enemy that will cause your enemy a heap of trouble? Hell, throw in a bit of armament for the inconvenience you’re causing them.
And then, hey….do a photo-op Boys Own military advance on….nothing.?
And even get to show how you took a city in ‘no time’ with ‘only acceptable’ civilian casualties!
And then back to finger pointing and condemning the Russians and the Syrian government…
So, basically, while the ISIS leadership would have noticed a massing of something like 45000 troops, telling them the volume (and maybe even overegging the actual numbers) has shifted ISIS from conventional warfare in a city to leaving some smaller forces to hold out forlornly (then asymmetrically), while most ISIS forces leave the city (probably in convoys easily observable from the air if they want to take heavy equipment with them)?
And even get to show how you took a city in ‘no time’ with ‘only acceptable’ civilian casualties!
I love these win-win-win scenarios. The Americans look good. The Baghdad government looks good. And Assad/the Ruskies get heartburn from a few thousand more ISIS fighters.
(Shame about those Syrian civilians who will get torn apart.)
A huge military and civilian convoy heading out of Kuwait that was bombed to shit for no fucking good reason at all.
Meh. Same thing happened to the retreating German forces at the Falaise pocket – if you have a large force trying to escape along a single route, and the enemy has 100% air superiority, your people are going to die like flies. That’s a given, and it doesn’t happen for “no fucking good reason at all,” it happens because competent military commanders don’t allow the enemy to withdraw intact with their heavy weaponry. It was horrifying to us because we didn’t live through WW2 – in the first half of the 1940s, this kind of thing happened multiple times.
I visited the junk pile in 2005 – 14 years later there were still wrecked Iraqi military vehicles there being cut up and put into containers for scrap. The Kuwaitis weren’t shedding any tears over it and neither was I.
Oh yeah. And the non-existent babies in incubators that weren’t actually thrown out of hospital windows by Iraqi troops that was used as a pretext to go all gung ho on the situation…
Again, meh. First casualty of war is truth, and the Kuwaitis were willing to lie in their propaganda, although probably not to the extent Saddam Hussein was. The fact remains that Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, and the rest of the world had an obligation to kick the Iraqis back out of the place. Responsibility for any and all ugly shit that resulted lay with the Iraqi government and no-one else.
PM ,you conveniently leave out the complete US support Saddam had up until then.
The whole Middle East cock up since WW1 can be blamed on the West. Their treatment and attitude towards them has been, and still is ,appalling (and that is over and above religious and oil concerns). We have practiced extreme levels of deceit and hypocrisy in our dealings with them.
Isis came into existasnce in Iraq out of the rubble, destroyed society, and secular cleansing that Bush and Blairs illegal invasion and war brought to that country …..
Wayne supported this illegal war and alongside ‘get some guts johnny’ urged New Zealand to join it ……….. based on WMD bullshit and lies…….
Apart from supporting war crimes……. wayne badmapp is the closest NZ has had to an official minister of propaganda ….. when the nutty nats put him in charge of the very important “Political Correctness Eradication” ministry …. http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/search?q=mapp%2Bpolitically
Wayne cares not for the ethics of a man like John Pilger …. as racist warmongers like him look even worse and more disgusting after watching a Pilger doco
There’s a bit of work involved. I think it’s worth trying I’m just trying to decide if it’s a good use of time, or if I even have the time. Encouragement in the comments makes it more likely to happen 🙂
“Trump is not running a presidential campaign, he is running a cult.” Here are a few signs of a cult:
Submission: Complete, almost unquestioned trust in leadership.
Persecution complex: Us against them mentality.
Control: Manipulate members actions and thinking through repetitive indoctrination.
Indoctrination: Teachings of the group are repeated and drilled into members.
Salvation: The belief that what your hopes and dreams can only be accomplished by following this group.
Cognitive dissonance: Avoidance of critical thinking, maintaining illogical or impossible beliefs, while denying any facts that contradict your beliefs.
Sunning: Those who are not like us are the enemy. All of that (plus racism, bigotry, fear-mongering, and more) is exactly what Trump has done throughout his campaign.
They exclude economic arguments as not being “left wing”. Ok, let’s go with that: what are the non-economic arguments for and against immigration? Not considered, and no explanation as to why “left wing economics” isn’t a thing according to the author.
The article doesn’t say why the author “changed their mind” on immigration. House prices? It’s not immigrants who are the problem, but more likely foreign absentee owners and years of increasing government mismanagement. Besides, that’s economic. Schools demand? More jobs for teachers. Infrastructure? What, are immigrants the cause of auckland’s traffic woes? Come on.
Seems to me to be just a bullshit piece that tries to turn dunnokeyo’s flipflops and waffle into a positive factor, rather than the vacancy that results when you substitute apparent amiability for leadership.
If the system is broken after a 1% increase, it’s probably solidly broken before the 1% increase. And any solution, to be a solution, would have to be able to handle a 1% fluctuation or the system is still broken.
Our level of immigration doesn’t break infrastucture, or make it more difficult to solve. If it did, an unexpected home semi-final or any particularly rainy day would drive the transport system into dispair. Or an outbreak of gastroenteritis would overflow the sewers.
Immigration is a distraction, at the current levels. It would have to increase markedly to be an economic or infrastructure problem.
Our current level of immigration does make the problem of our lacking infrastructure more difficult to solve.
Take housing for example, while immigration isn’t the only factor driving demand, it is still largely adding to it.
And as you well know, this also drives up the cost of housing.
Therefore, not only do we need to build more homes to make up for the extra demand, but we are also going to require a larger correction (due to the extra demand further increasing prices) to bring house prices back into line with incomes or increases at the rate of inflation. Making the challenge more difficult.
New homes being built can’t keep up with demand without immigrants, and hasn’t for years.
And yet the number of vacant homes in Auckland in the 2013 census was 33,000, about 6%, similar to the rest of the main centres (although regions have higher rates), and similar to preceding census.
The problem, therefore, isn’t a shortage of homes. It’s a shortage of availability, for whatever reason. And immigrants are too small in number to be that reason.
We have plenty of vacant homes, and yet the number of homeless has increased. This points to a sick system, not a problem with immigration.
To the point you’re effectively saying “don’t throw that thimle of fuel on the house fire, it’ll make it worse” while the fire department (government) just stands by and watch the house burn down.
Immigration is a distraction when it comes to the inequity and hardship in this country. An historically tried and true distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. We are not in hardship because of immigrants, they don’t make the problem detectably worse compared to normal social fluctuations, and bitching about it does nothing to address the real problems in our society.
Unless they occupy homes at six times the rate of those already here, their contribution to any of our problems is indistinguishable from the background noise that is the general systemic clusterfuck in our country at the moment.
Their negative impact is unnoticed. An unnoticed impact compounds nothing.
Really? An increase of 1% is noticed by whom? assumed, maybe, but things like transport and electricity use fluctuate many more times than 1% every day, and longer term things like housing and education are significantly worse off than 1%.
Logically, yes, an increase of 1% would increase the burden by 1%, give or take some population differences. But no, we don’t notice a 1% increase in discomfort, or even a 1% delay in our typical daily commute. Or are you one of these people who consistently arrives at work in the same level of relaxed punctuality, within a couple of minutes of the same time every single day? Never 5 mins early or even five mins late?
And given the population of New Plymouth also contains families, we’d be looking at requiring around the same number of homes (as New Plymouth) to house them.
But I suspect about half of permanent and long term migrants settle in auckland these days. If that. Most recent report on regions vs nationally I could find was data 2010.
But, yes you’re right, 74,000 people and 31,000-odd dwellings in New Plymouth. 33,000 unoccupied dwellings in Auckland. So everyone in New Plymouth could move to Auckland and fill up the empty houses, while all the 69,000 net migrants can live in New Plymouth and have slightly more vacant dwellings there.
So how were you negatively impacted by immigration?
and liked some of the comments too… in particular Setting your moral sights on the globe is a complete non-starter if you can’t keep your own society healthy and flourishing:
So everything was just fucking peachy when her party was flat out gerrymandering and suppressing voters to disadvantage other communities for their own political gain, attacking African Americans, women’s reproductive rights, WOC, solo mothers,Hispanics, immigrants trade unions, the poor, the working poor, Muslims…..but sexually assaulting in the main wealthy white women was a step too far so she had to speak up……really?.
//
Once she’s finished clutching her pearls in shock, she could reflect that the Republicans are fully on track to retain control of both the Senate and Congress.
The Republican Party is going to do just fine out of this election.
“The problem with this approach is that it reduces the incentive for tenants to take good care of the property they rent. It also reduces the landlord’s incentive to have insurance as it lessens tenants’ responsibilities.”
Who says Trump hasn't won any newspaper endorsements? Here's one from "The Premier Voice of The White Resistance." https://t.co/Olgy6a5YK1— America's Voice (@AmericasVoice) October 16, 2016
“As I’ve said to others. Either comment (honestly) on the substance of the post (preferably intelligently) or take yourself away to the fuck somewhere else.”
you abuse your responsibility and the power it confers
you accuse the poster of dishonesty…… (honestly)
you dismiss ad hominum their arguments….. (preferably intelligently)
you do not hold yourself to the standard you impose on others
Ironic in thread discussing the abuse of power
[Happy to oblige you with your call to martyrdom. Two days. Longer if I forget…on second thoughts…] – Bill
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Regarding the women groped by Trump, in real life, was the problem there that they didn’t ” set their own limits”?
What women? The majority of these stories currently exist at the same level of tabloid heresay and have not been established as fact with any independent witnesses or evidence.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Assuming tabloid level allegations against Trump as fact is on topic and relevant, but pointing out that those allegations are at this stage poorly substantiated is off topic and irrelevant???
Well, he told “bushy” he did it. Was recorded doing so.
A dozen women have agreed with him, claiming that he assaulted them on separate occasions.
How many before you believe it about Trump? Three was enough for Bill Clinton. Two is too few for Assange. Your judgementalism seems to be a bit erratic.
Which is precisely why we need everything everyone does recorded 24/7/365. Then put it all in the public domain. Stop sex crimes absolutely in their tracks.
Why not? It would remove all this ‘he said, she said’ malarkey. No abusive court cross-examinations, no faulty memories, no quibble about the facts.
Here is the thing; in recent days we have seen an avalanche of women telling of their millions of rapes and assaults that happen to them every day. They live in constant fear. But in my daily life I see none of this; so I conclude that all these sex crimes occur in private, when other people are not around to witness them. Removing all privacy would logically immediately stop all sex crimes.
Besides we really only have a selective privacy for the very wealthy and powerful; the rest of us can have anything we do recorded and made public at any time with complete impunity.
100% transparency for everyone. Totally fair and even handed.
Rape is not logical. That’s why we have a very powerful man admitting to sexual assault and still being able to become president. It’s in the public domain, and people are still arguing that it didn’t happen or it wasn’t assault. And that’s not even getting to the issues of tech and how criminals can stay ahead of that.
That you don’t see sexual assault going on is in part to do with you not looking in the right place. Women see it all the time.
Privacy is an intrinsic human need. It varies culturally, but in generally it exists across all societies. That we have lost a lot of privacy doesn’t make that benign. And even though in limited circumstances we can have things recorded and made public against our will, we are still a long way from the absolute loss of privacy you are advocating.
Not really. One of the most striking things about the few remaining indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that is noticed by those privileged enough to live with them for a time, is the complete lack of personal privacy.
And the complete absence of sex crimes.
we are still a long way from the absolute loss of privacy you are advocating.
Not really … technology is ensuring that we are losing privacy at a very rapid rate. Within our lifetimes it will, for all practical purposes, be entirely gone.
Once everything is recorded, then it becomes a question of what is made public and what remains private … and who does the selecting?
So you are suggesting that humans in general are going to be ok with being recorded having sex or going to the toilet or giving birth or crying and for all of that to be made public?
“One of the most striking things about the few remaining indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that is noticed by those privileged enough to live with them for a time, is the complete lack of personal privacy.”
I don’t think that’s true. I think you are comparing their cultural privacy with your own and assuming that because theirs looks like no privacy to you, with your cultural lens, that there isn’t any. But there is, it just manifests in ways that work for that culture. That you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“Once everything is recorded, then it becomes a question of what is made public and what remains private … and who does the selecting?”
Which brings us neatly back to technology like this won’t solve rape.
So you are suggesting that humans in general are going to be ok with being recorded having sex or going to the toilet
Well yes. Aaron Smith may not be ok with it, but almost everyone else is. Donald Trump may well regret being recorded, but everyone else can only be grateful his vulgar gloating about his sexual crimes have been revealed.
I guess if women have a problem with being recorded having sex, the technology could be enhanced to ensure all females have their faces and bodies automatically pixelated or something.
I think you are comparing their cultural privacy with your own and assuming that because theirs looks like no privacy to you, with your cultural lens, that there isn’t any.
I don’t really understand this.
Which brings us neatly back to technology like this won’t solve rape.
I imagine this naturally turns into all women should wear body cameras. If the case goes to court the defence will say “Why was she not wearing her body camera!”
Well, he told “bushy” he did it. Was recorded doing so.
Did what? To whom? Do you imagine that recording of Trump trash talking like a frat boy on an illegally recorded conversation would be any kind of evidence in any kind of court – other than the court of Tabloid journalism?
A dozen women have agreed with him, claiming that he assaulted them on separate occasions.
What dozen women? Who are their independent witnesses? What due process has Trump been given to refute their claims, most of which would be totally inadmissable in court without substantially more evidence?
Three was enough for Bill Clinton. Two is too few for Assange. Your judgementalism seems to be a bit erratic.
They found semen stains for Clinton. Where are the semen stains from Trump?
As for Assange – you want to go another round of that here? I’m game if you are. The only parallel Trump has with the Assange case is the insidious political motivation associated with each case.
Actually no I was not being cute at all. Given that 99.9% of sexual allegations are true, Trump is almost certainly a serial rapist. I fully anticipate at least one of these women will put him into prison for the rest of his life.
Why not? There would be enormous support for any one of Trump’s many victims to take this through to a conviction.
For a start there could be no question of a hostile cross-examination in such a high profile setting. The pressure on the court to ensure the process avoids the usual re-traumatising aspects of these cases would be immense.
Taking down Trump with a life-sentence would be massive and powerful message that women were no longer going to tolerate unwanted sexual aggression from men ever again.
When the two of you start agitating for justice for women that have been sexually assaulted (and men and children), then you might gain some credibility on this topic.
Pretty basic shit from you cv -discredit the women – soon you’ll have all sorts of backstory and trumpish bullshit from your trump fanboy sites. It is 101 stuff bur still dusgusting, demeaning and diminising but what happens to these women now doesnt bother you does it.
For someone making allegations about the evidence against Trump “what women” is a stupid question to ask. It shows that you’re either a blinkered fool or a callous, blinkered fool.
Similarly, your comment about semen stains shows that you still don’t understand the difference between a allegation of a consensual if unprofessional affair and an allegation of sexual assault. A bit like the NZRFU, I guess.
Do you imagine that recording of Trump trash talking like a frat boy on an illegally recorded conversation would be any kind of evidence in any kind of court – other than the court of Tabloid journalism?
Illegally recorded? they were mic’d up for their own fucking TV appearance!
And if you think that what they joked about was typical “frat boy” conversation, he wasn’t a fucking frat boy when he said it. And I worry about the people you regularly associate with if you think that was normal conversation and boasting.
Apparently Trump was just acting like a man of his age and station.
Interesting that it’s frat boy though, given that in the US campus rape is a huge issue publicly now. I guess he can’t use locker room now that athletes have come out and said it’s not locker room talk.
poor trumpeters just can’t catch a break, trying to find groups of men who are willing to say that they boast privately about sexually assaulting women.
No CV. Reasonably assuming that women who are speaking out are being honest is on topic. Suggesting it’s all just tabloid bullshit isn’t.
That and like many, many others I’m basically just sick and fucking tired of the constant casual misogyny you throw around the threads. Funnily enough, given that your usual line is a variation of ‘men too’, the piece in the posted article you completely missed…This is bigger than us. We know feminism isn’t just for women, but we need to keep saying this aloud until it’s crystal clear. The fortification of the gender binary hurts all of us. It’s about freeing everyone from the expectations and inequalities of each, and creating the freedom to be yourself – despite what society tells you you should be because of your assigned gender.
Nah fuck it Bill, what I am really sick and tired of is the hypocritical Left totally ignoring the stories of all the women who have come forward over DECADES describing how Hillary Clinton knew exactly what Bill Clinton was up to, enabled his predatory behaviour and in some cases organised to threaten and fuck up these womens lives in order to protect Bill.
While SIMULTANEOUSLY acting all pious about how we have to give strict credence and assign immediate credibility to all the women who have come forward and made lesser allegations against Trump.
And why this clear and blatant hypocrisy? Because of, as far as I can tell, nothing more than closed minded political tribalism masquerading as moral righteousness.
Suggesting it’s all just tabloid bullshit isn’t.
I’ve never said these women are lying. But it seems that independent witnesses, corroborating evidence and due process is too much to ask that the Left wait for nowadays before assuming and assigning guilt.
No idea what you said there but I will simplify my point:
-Bill Clinton’s female victims who claimed for years that Hillary enabled/protected Bill’s predatory behaviour while threatening them personally have no credibility with the Left.
-Donald Trump’s female victims who claimed for a week that they were assaulted and humiliated by Trump have full credibility with the Left.
You may consider that “false equivalence” but I think its pretty damn obvious tribal hypocrisy.
-Bill Clinton’s female victims who claimed for years that Hillary enabled/protected Bill’s predatory behaviour while threatening them personally have no credibility with the Left.
Actually, can you find any allegation of HRC’s complicity in any of WJC’s sexual misconduct allegations prior to 2016? Link pls.
And who “in the Left” has said that those allegations against HRC had no credibility?
Donald Trump’s female victims who claimed for a week that they were assaulted and humiliated by Trump have full credibility with the Left.
A bit more than a week, but it has snowballed recently, I agree.
Well, plus the fact that he claimed he did it, on tape. Illegally recorded or not – you’re a fan of wikileaks aren’t you? Oh, and a lawsuit in 1997 filed by jill Harth. But whatever.
You may consider that “false equivalence” but I think its pretty damn obvious tribal hypocrisy.
Actually, it seems to be putting the “false” in “false equivalence”.
I don’t know who the Left is, but am wondering if we should form a club.
Then there is this (note the date)
An anonymous “Jane Doe” filed a federal lawsuit against GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump last week, accusing him of raping her in 1994 when she was thirteen years old. The mainstream media ignored the filing.
If the Bill Cosby case has taught us anything, it is to not disregard rape cases against famous men. Serious journalists have publicly apologized for turning a blind eye to the Cosby accusers for over a decade, notwithstanding the large number of women who had come forward with credible claims. And now history is repeating itself.
In covering a story, a media outlet is not finding guilt. It is simply reporting the news that a lawsuit has been filed against Mr. Trump, and ideally putting the complaint in context. Unproven allegations are just that – unproven, and should be identified that way. (Mr. Trump’s lawyer says the charges are “categorically untrue, completely fabricated and politically motivated.”) Proof comes later, at trial. But the November election will come well before any trial. And while Mr. Trump is presumed innocent, we are permitted – no, we are obligated — to analyze the case’s viability now.
No outsider can say whether Mr. Trump is innocent or guilty of these new rape charges. But we can look at his record, analyze the court filings here, and make a determination as to credibility – whether the allegations are believable enough for us to take them seriously and investigate them, keeping in mind his denial and reporting new facts as they develop.
I have done that. And the answer is a clear “yes.” These allegations are credible. They ought not be ignored. Mainstream media, I’m looking at you.
Legal analyst for NBC News and Avvo and attorney Lisa Bloom.
Oh, that would be all the people who refuse to accept that HRC probably knew about, was complicit with, and helped protect Bill Clinton from the consequences of his long term ongoing predatory sexual behaviour.
Leaving aside the weirdness of providing a Fox news reference
Maybe pretend for a moment that Broderick has credibility as a rape victim despite the Fox News logo, and actually listen to what she says about both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“Oh, that would be all the people who refuse to accept that HRC probably knew about, was complicit with, and helped protect Bill Clinton from the consequences of his long term ongoing predatory sexual behaviour.”
Right. All those people that you can’t actually point out.
“Maybe pretend for a moment that Broderick has credibility as a rape victim despite the Fox News logo, and actually listen to what she says about both Bill and Hillary Clinton.”
I already watched the video and don’t see any reason to not believe her. The comment about Fox was a reflection on you, not her. But interesting that you conflated those two things (my thinking the Fox reference was weird, with my ability or not to listen to and believe someone’s story). Interesting slur-y attempt to undermine me though.
I know you struggle with this because you are so caught up in the false binary you have created, but you really are missing the fact that my criticism of your rape apology doesn’t stop me from seeing rape culture elsewhere in the world including with Bill Clinton.
When Hillary was starting to run for president then. see how that works, by your standards?
But thanks for finally providing a link to an actual sexual assault allegation against Bill Clinton. Feel free to focus on that instead of a consensual affair.
And yes, I do have reservations about WJC being back in the White House – but at least he’s not president. As for the clip, I believe the incident she described happened. I’ll even go so far as to say the inferred subject was probably implied. Whether that was intended as “threatening them personally” is unclear.
Unlike Trump’s tape and the explicit allegations against Trump and WJC.
Your problem there CV is that you think Monica Lewinsky having an affair with Bill Clinton is the same as Donald Trump grabbing women’s crotches. That you don’t understand the difference is a large part of why no-one here takes what you say about the Clintons as meaningful. You are the one creating a false dichotomy, and you are doing it in a sick and manipulative way by conflating different kinds of behaviour of two men and then using that to try and minimise the one that women are most concerned about. And to push a political agenda.
“I’ve never said those women are lying. But it seems that independent witnesses, corroborating evidence and due process is too much to ask that the Left wait for nowadays before assuming guilt.”
If you think that justice for men is the most important thing, that makes sense. However women, and many men, want justice for women too. Those of us who have paid attention to rape culture (or who just care) know that the justice system is hugely biased against women who are victims of rape. We also know that rape culture in large part promotes and supports that by say not believing women. Trump will get his day in court and that’s the place where legal guilt or not will be established. Outside of that it’s not longer acceptable for rape culture to enable rape and for women to just put up with that. We’re done with that. You can make out that this is some kind of trial by public, but that’s just you distorting it again to suit your political agenda.
Of course your other big problem here is that the man who the accusations are being against, has just admitted to the behaviour.
Your problem there CV is that you think Monica Lewinsky having an affair with Bill Clinton is the same as Donald Trump grabbing women’s crotches. That you don’t understand the difference is a large part of why no-one here takes what you say about the Clintons as meaningful.
Bill Clinton used the obscene differential in power, financial and experience differential between himself as President of the United States to ply sexual favours from the lowly paid/unpaid young temporary White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
It’s pretty clear there are direct parallels there with the alleged behaviour of money drunk power drunk billionaire Donald Trump.
Even at a straight legal level there are differences between sexual harassment in the workplace, and sexual assault. I don’t know the exact laws in the US, you can look it up seeing as how you are so concerned about justice and due process.
What you are saying is that you have a problem with how the men are acting, because of how they are acting (is that a moral thing?). I have a problem with how they are acting because of how it affects the people being acted upon. That’s why I can tell the difference between sexual harassment in the workplace and sexual assault. It’s why I can tell the difference between consensual sex and rape. Because I listen to women.
It’s also why I don’t need to minimise Trump as a sexual predator in order to look at BC and his actions. You on the other hand…
My god, man, you can’t even bring up an actual sexual assault allegation against Clinton, you’re so fixated on a consensual affair. And yes, it was consensual. Not even the Republicans at the time alledged otherwise.
Of course your other big problem here is that the man who the accusations are being against, has just admitted to the behaviour.
Firstly, it’s not “my problem.”
Secondly, Trump said a whole bunch of locker room trash talk. That means he’s guilty of having talked crass shit about women.
It doesn’t mean he confessed to sexually attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds, unless it is your position that what he said on that illegal recording is as good as a confession to attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds.
Yeah it is your problem. You are arguing that he’s not getting due process. That might have been true had he not said he sexually assaults women. He’s the one that lowered the bar so massively.
“It doesn’t mean he confessed to sexually attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds, unless it is your position that what he said on that illegal recording is as good as a confession to attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds.”
Strawman, I’m not conflating what Trump said with those allegations. I’m saying that for you to argue that Trump’s word that he didn’t sexually assault those women means no-one should be talking about him as if he did has bigger all credibility. The guy is a self-confessed sexual predator, of course people are going to talk about him as such when looking at the accusations.
I’m saying that for you to argue that Trump’s word that he didn’t sexually assault those women means no-one should be talking about him as if he did has bigger (sic) all credibility.
That’s not what I argued. Please don’t lie about what I said or claimed people should do.
Come on CV, why don’t you give this a rest. Trump’s comments and excuses for those comments are defensible. You could argue if it’s frat boy talk or locker room talk (although lots of locker room people have already said its not), if it was confession or boast, whether women are confirming that behaviour or making unfounded allegations, but that’s the past and it’s not affecting his rating, apparently.
Why don’t you argue on policy – the future, that’s what counts if he becomes president, yes? There’s plenty there – immigration, tax, why the US doesn’t use nukes even though they have them, waterboarding, China as an economic threat, climate change, taking oil from countries that have it…. all things he could do something about – things that would make a difference if he were president.
Because it seems impossible, given attitudes of the defenders of Trump, to see how attitudes and behaviours could ever change in a way that would make a difference to the well-being of women if he was to become President.
Probably the clearest comment you have made to illustrate your frustration
The twisting of positions could be more apparant in the hypocrisy over reaction to the allegations against Trump versus the complete dissonance and denial over Bill Clinton
Trump alleged to have sexually assaulted women
Hillary who is alleged to have covered up for and enabled Bill’s multiple rapes and affairs over many many years.
But yeah, the hypocritical political tribalism is fucking rampant.
Well yes there is the ‘covering up’ aspect which the ‘progressives’ disregard at the same rate as the ‘allegations’ against Bill. The abuse involved , is still abuse
So very limp on self discipline with regards to elementary rationale and reasoning
Quite why, is the interesting aspect
Perhaps bullying, denial and hipocrisy are considered ‘tools of empowerment’
“Some believe there is somehow a difference in what they are”
Citation needed. Or at least clarify if you are referring to people in this thread. You imply that you are, and if you are then you need to provide a reference. If not, then clarify that.
Oh you mean the women who have made ALLEGATIONS that they were groped by Trump. Yes there are a few of those who have suddenly come out of the woodwork, all at once, and several using the same lawyer.
So much of what comes from you are just scenes and dialogue from movies – the funny thing is you think you’re being clever but I think you are like a parrot not even comprehending any depth in the syllables escaping your lips like a rapidly deflating balloon. Sunnyside up for me ta.
The only person I suspect to have definitively organised against women in this way is Hillary Clinton, in order to protect the political career of her husband, Bill Clinton. Do you not get this?
I know, cheap shot but I’m tired of arguing against people who believe Trump’s female accusers in a flat second, while simultaneously utterly dismissing the female accusers of Hillary Clinton who have been speaking out for years.
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It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Asia Pacific Report A score of Palestine solidarity protesters draped themselves in white shrouds with mock blood in a sombre “die-in” demonstration at Te Komitanga Square — the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city — today as speakers urged people to take a stronger boycott against Israeli products. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tackling violence against women will be the sole agenda item for a national cabinet meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened for Wednesday. The meeting, held remotely, follows thousands of Australians attending rallies across ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
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Some lessons for progressives in NZ here too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-if-trump-loses-big-the-anger-will-remain-heres-how-the-left-can-address-it/2016/10/14/c848c4b0-8f02-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1796d561ad6f
That piece is about what the establishment can do by way of self preservation. I mean, okay, depending on how you define ‘progressive’ it might contain something by way of a lesson for progressives in NZ.
Or does it merely just add highlighter pen to what should already have been some pretty obvious writing on the wall for the establishment’s liberal left? That’s what I’d pick it to amount to. A kinda “Gadzooks! This triangulation and third way shit really is dead on its feet. Oh noes, what’s we going to do?”
Its a beautiful morning – lets try to be positive today huh kids?
As your mentor Paul Henry says “welcome to paradise.”
Indeed. Having travelled a lot of the world I can testify that we do indeed live in a beautiful place.
That is a bit of a shallow measure, typical of non-thinkers attracted to shallow right wing soundbites
As one who has lived in paradise 1950 though to paradise 2016 I tend to agree.
It is just we have different problems to cope with today.
Remember 6 O’clock closing, Nordies budget, Holyoakes guff, separate traffic cops from regular cops etc etc.
And I was reading an article a year or two back that made the argument that we should split them apart again as they use different skill sets. Although that article seems to be more concerned with improving the image that the police have which I think would come more from them being better police.
Speaking of improving the image of the police, this doesn’t look good:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/police-shooting-of-dog-traumatises-auckland-family-2016101617
Disturbing, Did the police know it was fake before the raid, what if it was a toddler running around with a toy gun. with that extra 30 sec’s to a minute to have the dog under control make that much difference, maybe they could have got there earlier if they are in such a hurry or was the young fella legging it over the fence. Not a good look again for the department.
One would assume the police were initially taking it the gun was real.
Going off what was reported, the dog was in a fenced off area. The police claim they were at risk of attack.
Therefore, for the dog to put the officers at risk, it must of either got out of the enclosed area (which wasn’t reported) or the police entered into the enclosed area (knowing an irate dog lay within, hence putting themselves at risk) while ignoring pleas by the young girl to allow her to further constrain the dog.
Can you keep us updated on this, very sad about the dog and keen to learn more on the so-called fake pistol or was it a rifle, maybe air pistol which are not illegal per say, I know they are using gun (what terminology). Ta
I’m surprised no political party has mentioned splitting the cops and the traffic cops, I reckon it’d be a vote winner
/facepalm
I mean I am curious as to why no political party has mentioned going back to the old system of having separate, dedicated traffic cops as I don’t think its a good look having police sitting on the side of the road with a speed camera
I’d much rather see traffic cops patrolling the highways and dealing with traffic offences and let the police deal with everything else
good grief, we agree on something.
i need a drink 🙂
Well you’re intelligent so of course you’d agree with me 🙂
I’m positive our PM compared working as a junior doctor with working for Merrill lynch this morning on breakfast, similar working conditions, similar stresses…
similar motivations for working those long hours too. Love of people vs love of money…
Did the doctor also earn 50 million speculating on foreign currency and earn the name “smiling assassin”, for his cheerfulness while putting people out of work like Key’s days at Merrill?
I doubt Merrill Lynch has saved a life. These doctors on the other hand…
A beautiful day ….. Now which incompetent natz is going to utter some Bullshit and be the first on a Monday to fuck it up?…. ShonKey, Joyce, parata, Smith, collins, English.. … The list seems endless
Ah, the Cult of Positivity raises its ugly head.
Just ask any disabled person about the cult of positivity.
I mean being positive is not going to magically turn stairs, into a ramp…. No matter how positive you get.
Yeah positive feels good.
I’m positive we have a creepy P.M, and I’m positive we have a government full of incompetent ministers.
I’m very positive that this type of corporate capitalism is destroying society.
Yeah, feels good to be positive knowing, the Tories are the scum we know them to be.
Go being positive!
“Origin and Etymology of huh
imitative of a grunt”
From the oh shit files.
This will help!!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11730063
Women’s refuges, church agencies and other community groups will soon have to hand over their client details to the Government in return for funding.
Ministry of Social Development (MSD) deputy chief executive Murray Edridge says all 823 agencies funded by the ministry’s $330 million Community Investment arm will have to provide client details for funding by next July.
In the herald this am
Well now, wouldn’t Paula Bennett have a ball. Every time someone criticised her she could demand to see their file and publicly discredit them for perceived misdemeanours in the past.
Apart from that, it’s an insult to all the social groups who have had to pick up the work the government is no longer supporting – turning these organisations into the whipping boys and girls in order to take the heat off themselves?
No surprises here, just more contempt from this Government to make vulnerable people’s lives more shitty. How much more does this Government have to do with its punitive, controlling and vindictive attitude towards unfortunate people, to make themselves feel satisfied and happy? Extermination of them all – would they like that? I see a Police State on the horizon and rights and freedoms removed from the political landscape in the near future. Someone on this site keeps on about a revolution – not us, we are too feeble and ignorant to do anything like that. We are sleepwalking right into misery in this country and the 1% will just love that.
Although true I’m pretty sure that they won’t like the inevitable result. And they always act so surprised when they find out that their actions have consequences.
According to Winston Peters, the two highest categories of immigrants coming into NZ are those that are pre-working age and those aged 55 to 60.
With our aging population and related fiscal pressure on our superannuation, shouldn’t the emphasis be on the young?
There are few jobs for immigrants as well as locals. We can get migrants here, but we don’t have a decent job for them in our low wage economy. Same for the 1 in 4 Kiwis that have to work overseas. Adding more people just increases the problem.
So that leaves the elderly and children who want to live here. Not only that, but I think people are coming into NZ and then leaving on other passports. So it appears there are more people here, but NZ or at least Auckland, is emptying again.
It’s not rocket science, even with all the fake government Stats, migrants and Kiwis need real jobs. If they are not here and with the lack of innovation and diversification, then there is no future and people will relocate for work.
As with many things, immigration is about getting the balance right.
We often hear talk of balancing the skills requirement and numbers coming in, but little on the age balance.
Immigration can be utilized to help offset our aging population.
I’m with Winston, immigration should only be used as a stop-gap measure. Our skill requirements should be met at home.
Immigration shouldn’t be used to lower incomes or NZ work practice standards.
Numbers coming in are currently far too high. Infrastructure is failing to cope.
And the high number of older immigrants is putting pressure on the health system while putting the sustainability of our superannuation at further risk.
Therefore, when it comes to immigration, it’s clear to see the Government has got the balance all wrong.
Denis O’Rourke introduced a very good N.Z.F. policy of pro rata super where the Government pays super proportionate to the amount of time one spends of their career working in N.Z. If you spent half your 40 years working here then you get 50% of what a New Zealander who did their entire career here.
It would save taxpayers a few dollars, but it overlooks the health burden a number pose. Moreover, the emphasis on the young we require.
Have a look at other N.Z.F. policies such as the recently released tertiary education policy. N.Z.F are not exclusively a party for the old any more.
And from the ODT
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/migrants-housed-illegally
Go Bus has been accused of exploitation after it illegally housed migrant workers in an office building at its Dunedin depot early last year.
The Tramways Union, which represents workers at the site, said the housing of workers, believed to be Filipinos, at the depot was part of a wider problem where Go Bus was employing foreign workers to keep wages low.
The workers were moved after the Dunedin City Council, which owns the building, informed Go Bus it was illegal under the district plan for people to live in commercial premises “due to fire risk and other safety factors. It would have been unpleasant,” council property manager Kevin Taylor said of the suitability of the building as worker accommodation.
Jack Tame to John Key: ‘Would you want a junior doctor working on you after 12 days?’
Apparently conditions have changed over the last 30 or 40 years and young lawyers also work long hours.
To those who say this is common practice world wide I say “Multiple wrongs do not make it right” … another field for NZ to lead the world. 12 hour shifts are fine but only as long as one has time to recuperate after three or four days.
I presume you don’t literally mean 3 or 4 days off, rather that a 12 shift is not followed by another the next day. That the next day shift would be a standard 8 hour shift.
There are plenty of jobs/vocations that require people to do two or three 12 hour days in a row. Seemingly without any serious problems. I have had these type of jobs in the past.
I appreciate that the default position of Standardnistas is always to support strikers. However, I am a bit surprised at this strike given the shift by the DHB’s in the current negotiations.
Some years ago Junior doctors (led by Deborah Powell who seems to have been the union leader for about two decades) went on strike to get better conditions and pay. Most people were pretty sympathetic to their cause, since some of the days were very long indeed, way beyond 12 hours. And there was a big increase in pay so that the compulsory residency years in hospital have become quite well paid, around $100,000 a year I think, when all the shift work is taken into account
At that time the junior doctors essentially got what they wanted, at least as I recall it. Presumably what they got has applied through to the present. So why has this strike arisen?
Why are the conditions now terrible, but were OK when the junior doctors accepted them, and not so many years ago? Did they think they were hard done by when they accepted the offer of some years ago?
I do appreciate there have been annual negotiations each year on pay, and presumably conditions.
Incidentally I suspect not all junior doctors will actually go on strike.
OK, firstly hours and conditions creep, especially in highly critical areas that are understaffed: someone stays ten minutes over in an incident, and without careful and bastardy behaviour it can become the norm. Then ten minutes gets stretched, then it gets formalised.
I’ve done twelve or thirteen hour shifts myself. As an extension to a regular day, they’re bad. On a rotating 24hr roster, they’re fucking murder. I’d say that three calendar days off after a twelve hour night shift should be the minimum, just to teach HR to not do it again.
Doctors are paid a lot, but your argument reminds me of the ports of auckland bullshit around salaries. Even if doctors didn’t have larger student loans to pay (thanks for that) it should be illegal to sell your good health. We don’t allow it with steriod abuse, we don’t allow people to take cuts in workplace safety in exchange for a pay bump, why do we expect doctors to operate, literally, while fatigued for long hours?
So very very true – and let’s sheet this problem right back to where it starts – consistent underfunding of our DHB’s by central government. There should be no surplus while we cannot employ sufficient staff in our hospitals and pay them adequately. We might also have a look at the obscene levels of renumeration our DHB CEO’s are granting themselves.
Was your comment that Deborah Powell had been the union leader for 20 odd years meant as a criticism? Perhaps she is dedicated to her cause, just as Helen Kelly had been involved with union concerns for many years. I guess some farmers have been involved with Federated Farmers for years, or pilots with their union, or business people with their “union”.
You’re assuming that the doctors were OK with them when they accepted them then rather than that they accepted those terms then understanding that they were the best that they were going to get then and that they would ask for more at the next negotiations.
Hell, if we followed your prescribed logic we’d still have slavery. After all, the slaves were Ok with the conditions then weren’t they?
Have they though? Because from what I’ve been hearing/reading things have been getting worse over the last few years of this governments attacks on public services.
No, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t appreciate it at all.
Why are the conditions now terrible, but were OK when the junior doctors accepted them, and not so many years ago?
Yeah, funnily enough, employers also come to the table with demands, even though they accepted the last agreement without those demands in it. What an impenetrable mystery! Actually, I’m sure you don’t find it as mystifying as you make out.
Actually Wayne should thank his lucky stars he’s on the pig’s back and stop sniping at real workers in our society. We should really be looking at stopping ex parliamentarian perks, and spending it somewhere useful.
I can understand progressive annual adjustments to agreements.
However, Deborah Powell negotiated the last junior doctors agreement, which as I noted was not that many years ago.
She now says how terrible things are, but these terrible conditions are presumably the ones she previously agreed to.
Now I don’t know the actual details of the agreements, there have been too many claims and counterclaims on the media to know the actual status of the negotiations. Certainly two weeks ago listening to the Morning Report interviews of the DHB rep, and to Deborah Russell, they seemed not to even agree what was actually in dispute, or at least did not agree to a common set of facts.
But I do know that Deborah Russell always says that all the conditions she has to negotiate are terrible and will lead to deaths. So presumably when she has negotiated in the past, she has agreed to hospital deaths due to the terrible working conditions she has agreed to.
… and we should still be sending children up chimneys because they accepted it in the nineteenth century and change should take place only on geological time scales. So says the fossil.
The existing junior doctors agreement was negotiated just a few years ago.
Probably under the hellhole neo-liberal conditions that were such a prominent feature of the Helen Clark government.
“change should take place only on geological time scales”
“Buuut Hilary.”
How would you feel about being operated on in A&E by a doctor so sleep-deprived they were hallucinating?
Of course in your case it would be a paleontologist.
“I have had these type of jobs in the past.” Are you seriously trying to conflate what you do (office, sitting on your arse, drinking coffee all day) with truck drivers & cleaners & doctors? No wonder you guys don’t take workers rights seriously!
He takes workers’ rights seriously – he thinks there are far too many of them.
Do you think that an office job is the only style of job I have done?
Well in the spirit of not trying to better oneself or your conditions why did you ever stop being a paperboy? Didn’t you find the conditions acceptable when you first began under the existing conditions?
Do we need a Criminal Cases Review Commission?
In an exclusive interview on The Nation, Justice William Young said courts could benefit from having a Criminal Cases Review Commission, like that established in the UK.
Despite high-level support, the Government has ruled out a commission in New Zealand.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/tvshows/thenation/calls-for-new-body-to-end-wrongful-convictions-2016101509
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/supreme-court-judge-calls-for-criminal-review-body-2016101510
Yes we should have a criminal cases review.
We also need a prosecutorial misconduct review
And a police misconduct review (that is not the disfunctional one we have now!)
Improved oversight in those areas would be of benefit.
Just following on from the Jill Stein, article yesterday. Apparently she is not the only one worried about Clinton starting a war.
John Pilger: Why Hillary Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump
https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/
“Why Hillary Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump”
Thanks save nz.
Of course, Obama never had the guts or the werewithal to stand up to the wishes of the Deep State on these issues.
But I do credit him with holding back a full scale US invasion of Syria which many neocons wanted – and still want.
So pilger also prefers a candidate who wants to make it policy to murder innocent civilians by drone simply because they’re related to suspected terrorists, and wants to throw out the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Yeah, nah. He hasn’t thought it through.
For my money the Jill Stein interview that has elicited the Pilger link was making the very good point that when we’re reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils, then our choices are being made somewhere down the path to hell.
That was, in my mind, worthy of discussion/debate.
And it’s a crying fucking shame that it got fucked by a piece of exaggeration (she didn’t actually say a vote for Clinton would result in war with Russia, she said it could result in war with Russia – a reasonable analysis) and a nose dive into the tired old shit about which one of the two despicable presidential candidates was the more despicable, vile and dangerous.
Neither should be allowed to be in office. One of them will be. We’re about to be in the shit unless unreported, the broader left in the US has got its shit together and is ready to confront whoever becomes El Presidente from day one of their term.
I just hope to fuck the discussion in the US is a bit more mature than the school yard point scoring nyah, nyah, nyah nyah nyah bullshit that’s been sprayed over this site of late.
We’re already in the shit.
The question is whether Clinton will lead to significantly worse shit than Trump, or whether bother of them are any worse than the current shit we’re in.
Neither are ideal for office. It’s a question as to whether the office itself should even exist. But the current shitpool we’re in is set to get some different shit in it. It might be better shit (but I doubt it). One of the prospective new shits might look a bit greener than the other, or more orange, but does that make it better shit or worse shit? And will it blend in well with the current shit, or will the two combine to make some really manky shit? Can we keep swimming in the new shit, or will we finally drown in shit?
I think I might call this The shitpool model of democratic decisionmaking.
Let me put it another way.
How long are we going to stare at shit saying “It’s shit” and arguing over how much worse the shit might become, or not become, before we get bored staring at shit, stating the fucking obvious about shit, how it looks, smells and feels like shit; before we lift our eyes to take in something else and bend our minds to ways in how that something else might be realised? Or give some thought to how we might neutralise or ameliorate the effects of the shit that, yes, we know about but are no longer intently focused on because, I dunno, maybe we’ve grown the fuck up and aren’t so taken by the prospect of dabbling in other peoples’ potties any more?
Hey, if you can think of a way out of the shit, I’m all ears. But until then, I’d prefer the least stinky shit to swim in that is possible.
The immediate problem is the incoming bucket of shit – which one will it be? Will it make the pool worse, because for now we’re stuck in it.
Your preference is fine. But seeing as how (presumably) you don’t get to cast a vote in the US elections and (presumably) have no impact on any left activism in the US, then your preference can only be just that. The passive wish of a by stander who hopes to be not too adversely impacted by whatever goes down.
Meanwhile, we could have been having more meaningful or productive discussions on what was what US wise, that were situated somewhere beyond the tedious Clinton/Trump flavoured poop throwing contest that the campaign seems to have unleashed on this site.
We are all bystanders aren’t we and therefore any discussion on the whys and wherefors of the US is really just for the benefit of our intellectual stimulation isn’t it.
There has been the potential to springboard into discussions that might have led to a better understandings on a number of fronts, but when everything nosedives into Clinton/Trump shitsmear…
Throwaway examples off the top of my head.
1.The msm is partisan and would have been against whoever or whatever was positioning itself against the status quo or establishment. It happened with the SNP during the independence campaign, to Corbyn, to Sanders…so Trump is correct to say there’s a bias and whatever. That’s not saying that Trump shouldn’t be hung, drawn and quartered. But it might be questioning what is being glossed over with regards Clinton.
2. The reality of abuse and power that’s suddenly in every living room because Trump is a valuable discussion. I’d hate to see it fade after the election but fear it will. Y’know? Trump will be ‘the bad apple’ – the exception to the rule etc and the cozy world of entitlement will get back to it’s default and invisible setting again.
3. Policy? Beyond soundbites and bullshit, I can’t say I’ve much of an idea about much actual policy and what its impact might be. Yes, there’s Syria and woefully inadequate action on CC that I get or am aware of.
4. The friction between a swathe of the broader left and the liberal establishment left and the utter disconnect of the latter from swathes of the population across western (so-called) social democracies.
5. There’s probably a 5 and a 6 and whatever. You get the picture. But it seems all the discussions and debates or disagreements, yeah…potty time.
Actually Jill Stein said that Clinton’s actions could lead to NUCLEAR war with Russia.
I thought I was being quite reserved in how I interpreted Stein’s comments.
ffs CV. The important word – the one you threw away in your haste to get all wavy armed was could.
Everybody knows that Clinton has spouted shit about having a no-fly zone. And everybody knows what that’d likely entail…which is why she probably won’t get her way (assuming she hasn’t already changed her mind through taking a reality check).
And sure, even if there’s no ‘no-fly’ zone, I’m pretty sure a Clinton administration will find 1001 other stupid and highly risky ways to impress on Russia that the US means business and means to rule.
You weren’t reserved on how you interpretated Steins comments – you misrepresented them, and worse,you obliterated the far more important message she was imparting with all your pointless fucking arm waving.
Well people could have read past the title of my post to read the exact quotation from Stein which I included for everyone to see.
But since you raised this point, and have returned to it, I’ve gone back to edit the title of my post to
“Jill Stein: a Clinton Presidency could mean nuclear war with Russia”
which exactly reflects what the Green Candidate said. You may think this reflects a great improvement now that it doesn’t “misrepresent” what Stein said.
Pretty sure the US deliberately bombed that Syrian military outpost in Eastern Syria killing over 80 Syrian soldiers (final death toll, initial death toll was ~62) as well as killing a few Russian military advisors (reading between the lines) during up to an hour of aerial bombing.
So don’t over estimate the level of common sense and cool headedness in the Pentagon at the moment.
Pretty sure??? Is their evidence you can quote?
I’m pretty sure they deliberately bombed the position as well.
I just don’t know whether they thought it was an Isis position or a Syrian one when they decided to bomb it.
I’d agree those bombing runs were probably deliberate. And I’d say the risk of dead Syrian army regulars escalating into a confrontation with Russia was about 5/8ths of zero. Totally different ball game to a direct attack on Russian military.
And yes, I know Turkey got away with it, but then, if Russia had retaliated militarily, they’d have found themselves at war with NATO. Who knows? Maybe the whole Turkish downing of a Russian bomber was to gauge Russian reactions?
US and Russia are working together in Syria, both Asad and Isis are losing every day, and the EU having to deal with a few refugees, like wtf, who cares.
Lets run it by. Should Asad win, more than half of all Syriams want him gone, or worse. Isis would be gone. So why would the US waste time on Russia, especially since Russia for the most part is stable, and eventually will be a muslim nation, so Putin is just create a legacy, not a good one.
Syria is what happens when both Asad and Isis are loathed by the world.
The US has never ,in it’s eye’s, wasted time on Russia. It is paranoid on Russia. They have shat on Russia at every opportunity since Roosevelt died.
USSR was its own karma. AS for post wall. Russia weakness in grafting on the profit motive, meant going straight to a few rent seeking oligarchs, was its own decision. Russia has China, the Artic, Islam and Europe, each requires a different strategy, its past, present and future are all different. So of course the world needs Putin in charge, not only to stablize, or to take potshots at, but to hold back Islam entering Europe, provide a backdoor to moderate China, to burn off oil adventures in the Arctic, the EU helps by being a incentive to keep a militrary up to scratch, Ukraine would be good fit to keep Russia Christian…
Look Russia needs all the enemies it can get, since nobody wants to invade, climate change will decimate it in a hundred years.
There’s some truth in that, some on the Left anticipated a thawing after the war – but Russia had cheerfully allied with Hitler before WWII – they or at least their leadership were by no means innocent.
There’s an interesting parallel with the end of the Cold War – when, given the absence of a credible enemy there was some expectation of a universal move to moderate centrism. I imagine the same forces that drove the US remorselessly to the Right are to blame for both events.
Trump is merely symptomatic of this – the US Right are now so extreme they can no longer find anyone credible to represent them. The pendulum cannot move indefinitely in the same direction.
“They have shat on Russia at every opportunity since Roosevelt died.”
Winston Churchill could see what was coming, and felt Roosevelt did not fully comprehend that all the West was doing was replacing one madman (Hitler) with another (Stalin).
Churchill was proven correct.
To say the US was paranoid with Russia (USSR), you would also have to say Russia (USSR) was paranoid with the USA.
A question…would you rather that the USSR was the dominant world power or the USA?
I say the USSR because if they had “won the cold war” there would have been no break up of the USSR…
Assad would win any internationally monitored election by a landslide. 60% plus of the votes, at a guess.
Asad headed a dictatorial state, they always had massive majorities, duh.
So 40% living under a new syria, all with network access gathering intel for the next civil war. No. No nation could survive with such poor weak leadership like Asad. A nation that does not fear ts population isnt long for overthrow. In a time of pre internet the terrorizing dicator held the upper hand. Remember Bush juniors axis of evil, its was just the report of the inevitable overthrow of dictators by network enhanced peoples. Syria was just unfortuae in being a first mover and has to learn how to threaten its elites properly, i.e midle classes rule.
Trouble at mill.
Of course John Pilger would think that.
He has opposed just about everything the US has done for decades, including opposing the international effort to get Iraq out of Kuwait in 1990. I guess he is also opposed to the anti-ISIS coalition. I suspect Jill Stein would be of the same persuasion. Pilger makes Robert Fisk look like a moderate.
Now if that is your benchmark, fine, but in my view it does not define Clinton as a warmonger, unless for instance you think resisting ISIS makes one a warmonger. On that basis, most if not all, western and other leaders are warmongers since the anti-ISIS coalition has about 60 countries in it (including Russia).
maybe the US should not have signalled to Saddam that it would look the other way if Iraq moved against Kuwait.
If you think about it real hard, you might be able to figure out why blaming the US for Saddam Hussein ordering the invasion of Kuwait is completely moronic. This may come as a great shock, but not everything bad that happens in the world is the work of the US government.
Wayne. Iraq and Kuwait. You’ve heard of the road to Basra, yes? A huge military and civilian convoy heading out of Kuwait that was bombed to shit for no fucking good reason at all. Oh yeah. And the non-existent babies in incubators that weren’t actually thrown out of hospital windows by Iraqi troops that was used as a pretext to go all gung ho on the situation….
Syria. ISIS and Al Nusra, or whatever name change either adopts, are being directly funded by both the UK and the US through the ‘white helmets’. The Syrian government, with the aid of Russia (that it requested) is resisting ISIS and AL Nusra. Oddly, ‘our’ media says that makes the Syrian government and Russia the (irredeemable) bad guys. Go figure.
Same goes for the peoples in Rojava. Branded as terrorists, yet on the front line in the war against religious extremism.
And Turkey? Who gives save haven to Al Nusra and others while bombing the crap out of any and all Kurds? Good guys.
Saudi Arabia? Bombing the crap out of Yemen and funding every ‘religious’ lunatic in the middle east? Good guyss.
Same goes for Qatar. Good guys.
And Bahrain. “US resuming arms sales” Sept 2015
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-resuming-arms-sales-to-bahrains-military-1435618872
Meanwhile in Mosul 1.2 million civilians face death from coalition bombing,a factor of 4 greater then aleppo.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37674693
This makes sense. A horrible sense, but still.
Militants have banned civilians from leaving the city have set up checkpoints on outwards roads and have blown up the homes of those who do flee.
While leaving can mean trekking through minefields and the risk of discovery and punishment by Isis, those who stay know they face airstrikes, street battles, a potential siege by the Iraqi security forces and the grim possibility of being used as human shields by Isis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/iraqi-forces-begin-assault-on-isis-stronghold-mosul
Now why the fuck is that same basic understanding not on display in reports about Eastern Aleppo?
Guess who makes the reports from east aleppo,we have not had such factual reporting since chemical ali.
Have you guys figured out why the Americans have given ISIS weeks and weeks of warning about the coming Mosul assault?
Ans: to convince as many ISIS fighters as possible to leave Mosul before the fighting starts so they can head west to reinforce ISIS in Syria.
Your source ?
Just the logic of it. Why else would you advertise all over the corporate mainstream media that you are going to launch a huge offensive on Mosul weeks ahead of time.
That and the US effort to build a Salafist principality in eastern Syria where they bombed the Syrian military outpost.
‘cept the city is apparently surrounded and the offensive was announced early on Monday morning …
So, notification of some hours, not weeks.
sourceGuardian.
Read and weep
You should know better than to trust The Guardian.
Wall St Journal Sept 8, 2016
U.S. Gets Ready to Assist Offensive to Retake Key Iraqi City From Islamic State
BTW I heard about this because Trump has been saying in his speeches that it is total incompetence to let the enemy know in advance what your plans and timing are.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mosul-offensive-to-begin-within-a-month-u-s-general-says-1473339951
To be fair to the Guardian (not because i think it should be trusted you understand) but the piece said that “The start of the offensive, which has been months in the planning, was announced in an address on state television by Iraq’s prime minister in the early hours of Monday morning.”
Stupid me just assumed that was the, well….announcement. Not an announcement in a long trail of announcements 😉
Heh! They coudn’t have telegraphed their plans any louder and further ahead if they had tried (which I believe was the point…but that’s “conspiracy theory” stuff.)
If you have complete air dominance, and the city is in a state of siege, then please tell me how it is incompetent to let the population of the city know what your plans are? And it would not take a genius to work them out anyway. Besides it is not the US who are the dominant force in this instance.
The dropping of thousands of leaflets on the city advising the population of the impending offensive I see as a humanitarian gesture not one of incompetence.
ISIS got at least 6 weeks warning from the Wall St Journal and other news sources that Americans were sending in extra help for a big push which was going to happen in October.
You think that’s a humanitarian move?
I do not think that ISIS allowed any significant evacuations from the city.
Seen this weird ‘Boys Own’ fucking Adventure’ sickness?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/oct/17/mosul-battle-iraq-isis-islamic-state-peshmerga-latest
And boom. From that sick inducing Guardian feed….
Sounds about right Bill. Why fight a massive US backed Iraqi military assault when you can go west and cause hell for al-Assad instead.
And why not strike a deal with your enemy’s enemy that will cause your enemy a heap of trouble? Hell, throw in a bit of armament for the inconvenience you’re causing them.
And then, hey….do a photo-op Boys Own military advance on….nothing.?
And even get to show how you took a city in ‘no time’ with ‘only acceptable’ civilian casualties!
And then back to finger pointing and condemning the Russians and the Syrian government…
So, basically, while the ISIS leadership would have noticed a massing of something like 45000 troops, telling them the volume (and maybe even overegging the actual numbers) has shifted ISIS from conventional warfare in a city to leaving some smaller forces to hold out forlornly (then asymmetrically), while most ISIS forces leave the city (probably in convoys easily observable from the air if they want to take heavy equipment with them)?
Would that be the situation?
I love these win-win-win scenarios. The Americans look good. The Baghdad government looks good. And Assad/the Ruskies get heartburn from a few thousand more ISIS fighters.
(Shame about those Syrian civilians who will get torn apart.)
A great days work at the Pentagon.
A huge military and civilian convoy heading out of Kuwait that was bombed to shit for no fucking good reason at all.
Meh. Same thing happened to the retreating German forces at the Falaise pocket – if you have a large force trying to escape along a single route, and the enemy has 100% air superiority, your people are going to die like flies. That’s a given, and it doesn’t happen for “no fucking good reason at all,” it happens because competent military commanders don’t allow the enemy to withdraw intact with their heavy weaponry. It was horrifying to us because we didn’t live through WW2 – in the first half of the 1940s, this kind of thing happened multiple times.
I visited the junk pile in 2005 – 14 years later there were still wrecked Iraqi military vehicles there being cut up and put into containers for scrap. The Kuwaitis weren’t shedding any tears over it and neither was I.
Oh yeah. And the non-existent babies in incubators that weren’t actually thrown out of hospital windows by Iraqi troops that was used as a pretext to go all gung ho on the situation…
Again, meh. First casualty of war is truth, and the Kuwaitis were willing to lie in their propaganda, although probably not to the extent Saddam Hussein was. The fact remains that Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, and the rest of the world had an obligation to kick the Iraqis back out of the place. Responsibility for any and all ugly shit that resulted lay with the Iraqi government and no-one else.
PM ,you conveniently leave out the complete US support Saddam had up until then.
The whole Middle East cock up since WW1 can be blamed on the West. Their treatment and attitude towards them has been, and still is ,appalling (and that is over and above religious and oil concerns). We have practiced extreme levels of deceit and hypocrisy in our dealings with them.
“First casualty of war is truth”
Yet you karp on about certain issues as if you have ‘truth’
You don’t, no-one does!
The flexibility in your comments is comical
I guess Pilger doesn’t support illegal invasions and coups.
You I sense have a moral blind spot to US actions, as long as your own world is fine.
Isis came into existasnce in Iraq out of the rubble, destroyed society, and secular cleansing that Bush and Blairs illegal invasion and war brought to that country …..
Wayne supported this illegal war and alongside ‘get some guts johnny’ urged New Zealand to join it ……….. based on WMD bullshit and lies…….
Apart from supporting war crimes……. wayne badmapp is the closest NZ has had to an official minister of propaganda ….. when the nutty nats put him in charge of the very important “Political Correctness Eradication” ministry …. http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/search?q=mapp%2Bpolitically
And then he went a bit like this ……….. http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.453744.1314603807!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/alg-resize-klu-klux-klan-jpg.jpg
Wayne cares not for the ethics of a man like John Pilger …. as racist warmongers like him look even worse and more disgusting after watching a Pilger doco
http://johnpilger.com/videos/paying-the-price-killing-the-children-of-iraq
http://johnpilger.com/videos/war-by-other-means
I thought someone was going to create a separate Trump thread? Let’s not have the same meandering conversation day after day.
There’s a bit of work involved. I think it’s worth trying I’m just trying to decide if it’s a good use of time, or if I even have the time. Encouragement in the comments makes it more likely to happen 🙂
Good read this
http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/too-many-pakeha-dont-know-our-history
Not happy about this
https://www.thenation.com/article/amy-goodman-is-facing-prison-for-reporting-on-the-dakota-access-pipeline-that-should-scare-us-all/
“Trump is not running a presidential campaign, he is running a cult.”
Here are a few signs of a cult:
Submission: Complete, almost unquestioned trust in leadership.
Persecution complex: Us against them mentality.
Control: Manipulate members actions and thinking through repetitive indoctrination.
Indoctrination: Teachings of the group are repeated and drilled into members.
Salvation: The belief that what your hopes and dreams can only be accomplished by following this group.
Cognitive dissonance: Avoidance of critical thinking, maintaining illogical or impossible beliefs, while denying any facts that contradict your beliefs.
Sunning: Those who are not like us are the enemy. All of that (plus racism, bigotry, fear-mongering, and more) is exactly what Trump has done throughout his campaign.
Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/donald-trumps-running-cult-not-presidential-campaign/
https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/immigration-and-changing-your-mind/
Makes some good points
Not really.
They exclude economic arguments as not being “left wing”. Ok, let’s go with that: what are the non-economic arguments for and against immigration? Not considered, and no explanation as to why “left wing economics” isn’t a thing according to the author.
The article doesn’t say why the author “changed their mind” on immigration. House prices? It’s not immigrants who are the problem, but more likely foreign absentee owners and years of increasing government mismanagement. Besides, that’s economic. Schools demand? More jobs for teachers. Infrastructure? What, are immigrants the cause of auckland’s traffic woes? Come on.
Seems to me to be just a bullshit piece that tries to turn dunnokeyo’s flipflops and waffle into a positive factor, rather than the vacancy that results when you substitute apparent amiability for leadership.
Well dimpost isn’t the normal Key cheerleader or has he/she changed recently?
dunno, don’t read it regularly.
It just seemed to me that the thing about key was the only firm statement in the post.
“It’s not immigrants who are the problem”
Perhaps not, but immigrants add to infrastructure demand. And with us largely playing catch up, the extra demand does become problematic.
Any system that can’t deal with a 1% increase in demand over a year is already fucked.
Indeed. Hence, it’s problematic encouraging and allowing more to enter.
Piling on extra demand makes it more difficult to get on top of the problem.
Bollocks.
If the system is broken after a 1% increase, it’s probably solidly broken before the 1% increase. And any solution, to be a solution, would have to be able to handle a 1% fluctuation or the system is still broken.
Our level of immigration doesn’t break infrastucture, or make it more difficult to solve. If it did, an unexpected home semi-final or any particularly rainy day would drive the transport system into dispair. Or an outbreak of gastroenteritis would overflow the sewers.
Immigration is a distraction, at the current levels. It would have to increase markedly to be an economic or infrastructure problem.
Our current level of immigration does make the problem of our lacking infrastructure more difficult to solve.
Take housing for example, while immigration isn’t the only factor driving demand, it is still largely adding to it.
And as you well know, this also drives up the cost of housing.
Therefore, not only do we need to build more homes to make up for the extra demand, but we are also going to require a larger correction (due to the extra demand further increasing prices) to bring house prices back into line with incomes or increases at the rate of inflation. Making the challenge more difficult.
Weasel words. 60000 immigrants a year. Same as the birth rate. What rate do you think they increase the pressure on infrastructures by?
Stuff all is my bet.
While the percentage of immigrants may be low in comparison to the population, new homes being built can’t keep up with the extra demand they add.
Moreover, as a number of them may become property investors themselves, it’s difficult to put a percentage on the total impact they have.
At 60 odd thousand we are looking at close to the population of New Plymouth entering the country annually.
New homes being built can’t keep up with demand without immigrants, and hasn’t for years.
And yet the number of vacant homes in Auckland in the 2013 census was 33,000, about 6%, similar to the rest of the main centres (although regions have higher rates), and similar to preceding census.
The problem, therefore, isn’t a shortage of homes. It’s a shortage of availability, for whatever reason. And immigrants are too small in number to be that reason.
We have plenty of vacant homes, and yet the number of homeless has increased. This points to a sick system, not a problem with immigration.
“New homes being built can’t keep up with demand without immigrants, and hasn’t for years”
Therefore, adding more immigrants into the mix is akin to pouring fuel onto the fire.
We require to get our own house in order before we encourage and allow more immigrants to enter.
An irrelevant amout of fuel.
To the point you’re effectively saying “don’t throw that thimle of fuel on the house fire, it’ll make it worse” while the fire department (government) just stands by and watch the house burn down.
Immigration is a distraction when it comes to the inequity and hardship in this country. An historically tried and true distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. We are not in hardship because of immigrants, they don’t make the problem detectably worse compared to normal social fluctuations, and bitching about it does nothing to address the real problems in our society.
Immigration isn’t a distraction. I’ve yet to see anyone blaming all our ills on immigration alone.
Nonetheless, the high number entering is compounding the problem.
“Compounding” by what proportion?
Unless they occupy homes at six times the rate of those already here, their contribution to any of our problems is indistinguishable from the background noise that is the general systemic clusterfuck in our country at the moment.
Their negative impact is unnoticed. An unnoticed impact compounds nothing.
Well, that’s where you’re wrong.
It is noticed and even if it wasn’t it’s impact would still compound the issues that we have.
Really? An increase of 1% is noticed by whom? assumed, maybe, but things like transport and electricity use fluctuate many more times than 1% every day, and longer term things like housing and education are significantly worse off than 1%.
Logically, yes, an increase of 1% would increase the burden by 1%, give or take some population differences. But no, we don’t notice a 1% increase in discomfort, or even a 1% delay in our typical daily commute. Or are you one of these people who consistently arrives at work in the same level of relaxed punctuality, within a couple of minutes of the same time every single day? Never 5 mins early or even five mins late?
At close to the population of New Plymouth entering the country annually, it’s far from a unnoticed impact.
But they don’t all go to New Plymouth, do they?
Hell, given many are in families you’d be lucky if they could fill up all the vacant homes in Auckland.
How have you, personally, been noticably negatively impacted by immigration? Because I sure haven’t.
They mostly end up in Auckland.
And given the population of New Plymouth also contains families, we’d be looking at requiring around the same number of homes (as New Plymouth) to house them.
And yes, I’ve been personally impacted.
Mostly? Got a source for that?
But I suspect about half of permanent and long term migrants settle in auckland these days. If that. Most recent report on regions vs nationally I could find was data 2010.
But, yes you’re right, 74,000 people and 31,000-odd dwellings in New Plymouth. 33,000 unoccupied dwellings in Auckland. So everyone in New Plymouth could move to Auckland and fill up the empty houses, while all the 69,000 net migrants can live in New Plymouth and have slightly more vacant dwellings there.
So how were you negatively impacted by immigration?
I agree with Dimpost and Puckish Rogue
and liked some of the comments too… in particular Setting your moral sights on the globe is a complete non-starter if you can’t keep your own society healthy and flourishing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-tweet-storm-that-should-terrify-the-republican-party/503771/
Some bigwig conservative Marybeth Glenn is outraged at her fellow Republicans, interesting stuff.
So everything was just fucking peachy when her party was flat out gerrymandering and suppressing voters to disadvantage other communities for their own political gain, attacking African Americans, women’s reproductive rights, WOC, solo mothers,Hispanics, immigrants trade unions, the poor, the working poor, Muslims…..but sexually assaulting in the main wealthy white women was a step too far so she had to speak up……really?.
//
It is a wee bit Niemöllerish…
Ha! Indeed.
Once she’s finished clutching her pearls in shock, she could reflect that the Republicans are fully on track to retain control of both the Senate and Congress.
The Republican Party is going to do just fine out of this election.
“The problem with this approach is that it reduces the incentive for tenants to take good care of the property they rent. It also reduces the landlord’s incentive to have insurance as it lessens tenants’ responsibilities.”
Hence, the Government is looking at a law change.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/govt-looking-to-change-law-for-renters-2016101510
Anyone know anything concrete about the Assange death rumours?
Nonsense from the usual suspects it seems.
http://archive.li/Kkusn
http://archive.li/9Pk36
Finally.
The 50/500 campaign
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/85412536/bosses-call-for-businesses-to-make-jobs-available-to-young-people
“As I’ve said to others. Either comment (honestly) on the substance of the post (preferably intelligently) or take yourself away to the fuck somewhere else.”
you abuse your responsibility and the power it confers
you accuse the poster of dishonesty…… (honestly)
you dismiss ad hominum their arguments….. (preferably intelligently)
you do not hold yourself to the standard you impose on others
Ironic in thread discussing the abuse of power
[Happy to oblige you with your call to martyrdom. Two days. Longer if I forget…on second thoughts…] – Bill
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
What women? The majority of these stories currently exist at the same level of tabloid heresay and have not been established as fact with any independent witnesses or evidence.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Assuming tabloid level allegations against Trump as fact is on topic and relevant, but pointing out that those allegations are at this stage poorly substantiated is off topic and irrelevant???
Well, he told “bushy” he did it. Was recorded doing so.
A dozen women have agreed with him, claiming that he assaulted them on separate occasions.
How many before you believe it about Trump? Three was enough for Bill Clinton. Two is too few for Assange. Your judgementalism seems to be a bit erratic.
Which is precisely why we need everything everyone does recorded 24/7/365. Then put it all in the public domain. Stop sex crimes absolutely in their tracks.
That wouldn’t stop sex crimes, and its extremely abusive to take away humans’ privacy absolutely.
Why not? It would remove all this ‘he said, she said’ malarkey. No abusive court cross-examinations, no faulty memories, no quibble about the facts.
Here is the thing; in recent days we have seen an avalanche of women telling of their millions of rapes and assaults that happen to them every day. They live in constant fear. But in my daily life I see none of this; so I conclude that all these sex crimes occur in private, when other people are not around to witness them. Removing all privacy would logically immediately stop all sex crimes.
Besides we really only have a selective privacy for the very wealthy and powerful; the rest of us can have anything we do recorded and made public at any time with complete impunity.
100% transparency for everyone. Totally fair and even handed.
Rape is not logical. That’s why we have a very powerful man admitting to sexual assault and still being able to become president. It’s in the public domain, and people are still arguing that it didn’t happen or it wasn’t assault. And that’s not even getting to the issues of tech and how criminals can stay ahead of that.
That you don’t see sexual assault going on is in part to do with you not looking in the right place. Women see it all the time.
Privacy is an intrinsic human need. It varies culturally, but in generally it exists across all societies. That we have lost a lot of privacy doesn’t make that benign. And even though in limited circumstances we can have things recorded and made public against our will, we are still a long way from the absolute loss of privacy you are advocating.
Privacy is an intrinsic human need.
Not really. One of the most striking things about the few remaining indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that is noticed by those privileged enough to live with them for a time, is the complete lack of personal privacy.
And the complete absence of sex crimes.
we are still a long way from the absolute loss of privacy you are advocating.
Not really … technology is ensuring that we are losing privacy at a very rapid rate. Within our lifetimes it will, for all practical purposes, be entirely gone.
Once everything is recorded, then it becomes a question of what is made public and what remains private … and who does the selecting?
So you are suggesting that humans in general are going to be ok with being recorded having sex or going to the toilet or giving birth or crying and for all of that to be made public?
“One of the most striking things about the few remaining indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that is noticed by those privileged enough to live with them for a time, is the complete lack of personal privacy.”
I don’t think that’s true. I think you are comparing their cultural privacy with your own and assuming that because theirs looks like no privacy to you, with your cultural lens, that there isn’t any. But there is, it just manifests in ways that work for that culture. That you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“Once everything is recorded, then it becomes a question of what is made public and what remains private … and who does the selecting?”
Which brings us neatly back to technology like this won’t solve rape.
So you are suggesting that humans in general are going to be ok with being recorded having sex or going to the toilet
Well yes. Aaron Smith may not be ok with it, but almost everyone else is. Donald Trump may well regret being recorded, but everyone else can only be grateful his vulgar gloating about his sexual crimes have been revealed.
I guess if women have a problem with being recorded having sex, the technology could be enhanced to ensure all females have their faces and bodies automatically pixelated or something.
I think you are comparing their cultural privacy with your own and assuming that because theirs looks like no privacy to you, with your cultural lens, that there isn’t any.
I don’t really understand this.
Which brings us neatly back to technology like this won’t solve rape.
Nor this.
I imagine this naturally turns into all women should wear body cameras. If the case goes to court the defence will say “Why was she not wearing her body camera!”
Did what? To whom? Do you imagine that recording of Trump trash talking like a frat boy on an illegally recorded conversation would be any kind of evidence in any kind of court – other than the court of Tabloid journalism?
What dozen women? Who are their independent witnesses? What due process has Trump been given to refute their claims, most of which would be totally inadmissable in court without substantially more evidence?
They found semen stains for Clinton. Where are the semen stains from Trump?
As for Assange – you want to go another round of that here? I’m game if you are. The only parallel Trump has with the Assange case is the insidious political motivation associated with each case.
You know perfectly well that the allegations are quite sufficient for conviction in the court of public opinion. This is all that matters.
Quite; my mistake. I thought people on the Left might actually be interested in things like evidence, corroboration, due process, and justice.
Not just tabloid slander 3 weeks out from an election.
You didn’t think that at all – dank mates having a mutual rug – so cute.
Actually no I was not being cute at all. Given that 99.9% of sexual allegations are true, Trump is almost certainly a serial rapist. I fully anticipate at least one of these women will put him into prison for the rest of his life.
So the court of public opinion ISN’T all that matters – I agree with that.
True. And crucially public opinion will also ensure he never becomes President in three weeks time. And that can only be a good thing.
Nice to be agreeing with you
“I fully anticipate at least one of these women will put him into prison for the rest of his life.”
really? I assume that it’s likely that he won’t (for any number of reasons despite guilt).
Why not? There would be enormous support for any one of Trump’s many victims to take this through to a conviction.
For a start there could be no question of a hostile cross-examination in such a high profile setting. The pressure on the court to ensure the process avoids the usual re-traumatising aspects of these cases would be immense.
Taking down Trump with a life-sentence would be massive and powerful message that women were no longer going to tolerate unwanted sexual aggression from men ever again.
When the two of you start agitating for justice for women that have been sexually assaulted (and men and children), then you might gain some credibility on this topic.
Pretty basic shit from you cv -discredit the women – soon you’ll have all sorts of backstory and trumpish bullshit from your trump fanboy sites. It is 101 stuff bur still dusgusting, demeaning and diminising but what happens to these women now doesnt bother you does it.
For someone making allegations about the evidence against Trump “what women” is a stupid question to ask. It shows that you’re either a blinkered fool or a callous, blinkered fool.
Similarly, your comment about semen stains shows that you still don’t understand the difference between a allegation of a consensual if unprofessional affair and an allegation of sexual assault. A bit like the NZRFU, I guess.
Illegally recorded? they were mic’d up for their own fucking TV appearance!
And if you think that what they joked about was typical “frat boy” conversation, he wasn’t a fucking frat boy when he said it. And I worry about the people you regularly associate with if you think that was normal conversation and boasting.
Apparently Trump was just acting like a man of his age and station.
Interesting that it’s frat boy though, given that in the US campus rape is a huge issue publicly now. I guess he can’t use locker room now that athletes have come out and said it’s not locker room talk.
poor trumpeters just can’t catch a break, trying to find groups of men who are willing to say that they boast privately about sexually assaulting women.
Nice to see how times change.
True!
No CV. Reasonably assuming that women who are speaking out are being honest is on topic. Suggesting it’s all just tabloid bullshit isn’t.
That and like many, many others I’m basically just sick and fucking tired of the constant casual misogyny you throw around the threads. Funnily enough, given that your usual line is a variation of ‘men too’, the piece in the posted article you completely missed…This is bigger than us. We know feminism isn’t just for women, but we need to keep saying this aloud until it’s crystal clear. The fortification of the gender binary hurts all of us. It’s about freeing everyone from the expectations and inequalities of each, and creating the freedom to be yourself – despite what society tells you you should be because of your assigned gender.
I’ll leave you to it now.
Nah fuck it Bill, what I am really sick and tired of is the hypocritical Left totally ignoring the stories of all the women who have come forward over DECADES describing how Hillary Clinton knew exactly what Bill Clinton was up to, enabled his predatory behaviour and in some cases organised to threaten and fuck up these womens lives in order to protect Bill.
While SIMULTANEOUSLY acting all pious about how we have to give strict credence and assign immediate credibility to all the women who have come forward and made lesser allegations against Trump.
And why this clear and blatant hypocrisy? Because of, as far as I can tell, nothing more than closed minded political tribalism masquerading as moral righteousness.
I’ve never said these women are lying. But it seems that independent witnesses, corroborating evidence and due process is too much to ask that the Left wait for nowadays before assuming and assigning guilt.
Well the Donald is certainly guilty and the Hillary you think is guilty of not protesting sufficiently loudly? Strange false equivalence
No idea what you said there but I will simplify my point:
-Bill Clinton’s female victims who claimed for years that Hillary enabled/protected Bill’s predatory behaviour while threatening them personally have no credibility with the Left.
-Donald Trump’s female victims who claimed for a week that they were assaulted and humiliated by Trump have full credibility with the Left.
You may consider that “false equivalence” but I think its pretty damn obvious tribal hypocrisy.
Actually, can you find any allegation of HRC’s complicity in any of WJC’s sexual misconduct allegations prior to 2016? Link pls.
And who “in the Left” has said that those allegations against HRC had no credibility?
A bit more than a week, but it has snowballed recently, I agree.
Well, plus the fact that he claimed he did it, on tape. Illegally recorded or not – you’re a fan of wikileaks aren’t you? Oh, and a lawsuit in 1997 filed by jill Harth. But whatever.
Actually, it seems to be putting the “false” in “false equivalence”.
I don’t know who the Left is, but am wondering if we should form a club.
Then there is this (note the date)
An anonymous “Jane Doe” filed a federal lawsuit against GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump last week, accusing him of raping her in 1994 when she was thirteen years old. The mainstream media ignored the filing.
If the Bill Cosby case has taught us anything, it is to not disregard rape cases against famous men. Serious journalists have publicly apologized for turning a blind eye to the Cosby accusers for over a decade, notwithstanding the large number of women who had come forward with credible claims. And now history is repeating itself.
In covering a story, a media outlet is not finding guilt. It is simply reporting the news that a lawsuit has been filed against Mr. Trump, and ideally putting the complaint in context. Unproven allegations are just that – unproven, and should be identified that way. (Mr. Trump’s lawyer says the charges are “categorically untrue, completely fabricated and politically motivated.”) Proof comes later, at trial. But the November election will come well before any trial. And while Mr. Trump is presumed innocent, we are permitted – no, we are obligated — to analyze the case’s viability now.
No outsider can say whether Mr. Trump is innocent or guilty of these new rape charges. But we can look at his record, analyze the court filings here, and make a determination as to credibility – whether the allegations are believable enough for us to take them seriously and investigate them, keeping in mind his denial and reporting new facts as they develop.
I have done that. And the answer is a clear “yes.” These allegations are credible. They ought not be ignored. Mainstream media, I’m looking at you.
Legal analyst for NBC News and Avvo and attorney Lisa Bloom.
CONTENT WARNING FOR DESCRIPTIONS OF RAPE –
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/why-the-new-child-rape-ca_b_10619944.html
Seriously? Juanita Broderick speaks here in 2007
Leaving aside the weirdness of providing a Fox news reference, who on the left has said this allegation against HRC has no credibility?
Oh, that would be all the people who refuse to accept that HRC probably knew about, was complicit with, and helped protect Bill Clinton from the consequences of his long term ongoing predatory sexual behaviour.
Maybe pretend for a moment that Broderick has credibility as a rape victim despite the Fox News logo, and actually listen to what she says about both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“Oh, that would be all the people who refuse to accept that HRC probably knew about, was complicit with, and helped protect Bill Clinton from the consequences of his long term ongoing predatory sexual behaviour.”
Right. All those people that you can’t actually point out.
“Maybe pretend for a moment that Broderick has credibility as a rape victim despite the Fox News logo, and actually listen to what she says about both Bill and Hillary Clinton.”
I already watched the video and don’t see any reason to not believe her. The comment about Fox was a reflection on you, not her. But interesting that you conflated those two things (my thinking the Fox reference was weird, with my ability or not to listen to and believe someone’s story). Interesting slur-y attempt to undermine me though.
I know you struggle with this because you are so caught up in the false binary you have created, but you really are missing the fact that my criticism of your rape apology doesn’t stop me from seeing rape culture elsewhere in the world including with Bill Clinton.
When Hillary was starting to run for president then. see how that works, by your standards?
But thanks for finally providing a link to an actual sexual assault allegation against Bill Clinton. Feel free to focus on that instead of a consensual affair.
And yes, I do have reservations about WJC being back in the White House – but at least he’s not president. As for the clip, I believe the incident she described happened. I’ll even go so far as to say the inferred subject was probably implied. Whether that was intended as “threatening them personally” is unclear.
Unlike Trump’s tape and the explicit allegations against Trump and WJC.
Yeah, very early in the Democrats Primaries process, not 4 weeks before the Presidential election to try and throw the election.
lol
whatever, dude. She was still campaigning.
You really are obsessed with precise timing these days – going full tory, eh…
I mention the fact so that people know what the timing was, and so that they can check it out for themselves.
Furthermore, Broaddrick’s accusations of rape against Bill had been known and examined by many, and for many years by that time.
I reckon most people here know how electoral cycles work.
1999, ISTR. But the allegation against HRC of “threatening”(your word and attribution of intention ) her? When did that come out?
Your problem there CV is that you think Monica Lewinsky having an affair with Bill Clinton is the same as Donald Trump grabbing women’s crotches. That you don’t understand the difference is a large part of why no-one here takes what you say about the Clintons as meaningful. You are the one creating a false dichotomy, and you are doing it in a sick and manipulative way by conflating different kinds of behaviour of two men and then using that to try and minimise the one that women are most concerned about. And to push a political agenda.
“I’ve never said those women are lying. But it seems that independent witnesses, corroborating evidence and due process is too much to ask that the Left wait for nowadays before assuming guilt.”
If you think that justice for men is the most important thing, that makes sense. However women, and many men, want justice for women too. Those of us who have paid attention to rape culture (or who just care) know that the justice system is hugely biased against women who are victims of rape. We also know that rape culture in large part promotes and supports that by say not believing women. Trump will get his day in court and that’s the place where legal guilt or not will be established. Outside of that it’s not longer acceptable for rape culture to enable rape and for women to just put up with that. We’re done with that. You can make out that this is some kind of trial by public, but that’s just you distorting it again to suit your political agenda.
Of course your other big problem here is that the man who the accusations are being against, has just admitted to the behaviour.
Bill Clinton used the obscene differential in power, financial and experience differential between himself as President of the United States to ply sexual favours from the lowly paid/unpaid young temporary White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
It’s pretty clear there are direct parallels there with the alleged behaviour of money drunk power drunk billionaire Donald Trump.
I can see it straight away. You can too.
Even at a straight legal level there are differences between sexual harassment in the workplace, and sexual assault. I don’t know the exact laws in the US, you can look it up seeing as how you are so concerned about justice and due process.
What you are saying is that you have a problem with how the men are acting, because of how they are acting (is that a moral thing?). I have a problem with how they are acting because of how it affects the people being acted upon. That’s why I can tell the difference between sexual harassment in the workplace and sexual assault. It’s why I can tell the difference between consensual sex and rape. Because I listen to women.
It’s also why I don’t need to minimise Trump as a sexual predator in order to look at BC and his actions. You on the other hand…
My god, man, you can’t even bring up an actual sexual assault allegation against Clinton, you’re so fixated on a consensual affair. And yes, it was consensual. Not even the Republicans at the time alledged otherwise.
It’s like watching a crash in slow motion.
Firstly, it’s not “my problem.”
Secondly, Trump said a whole bunch of locker room trash talk. That means he’s guilty of having talked crass shit about women.
It doesn’t mean he confessed to sexually attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds, unless it is your position that what he said on that illegal recording is as good as a confession to attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds.
Yeah it is your problem. You are arguing that he’s not getting due process. That might have been true had he not said he sexually assaults women. He’s the one that lowered the bar so massively.
“It doesn’t mean he confessed to sexually attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds, unless it is your position that what he said on that illegal recording is as good as a confession to attacking Anderson, Zervos or Leeds.”
Strawman, I’m not conflating what Trump said with those allegations. I’m saying that for you to argue that Trump’s word that he didn’t sexually assault those women means no-one should be talking about him as if he did has bigger all credibility. The guy is a self-confessed sexual predator, of course people are going to talk about him as such when looking at the accusations.
That’s not what I argued. Please don’t lie about what I said or claimed people should do.
What are you saying then?
Come on CV, why don’t you give this a rest. Trump’s comments and excuses for those comments are defensible. You could argue if it’s frat boy talk or locker room talk (although lots of locker room people have already said its not), if it was confession or boast, whether women are confirming that behaviour or making unfounded allegations, but that’s the past and it’s not affecting his rating, apparently.
Why don’t you argue on policy – the future, that’s what counts if he becomes president, yes? There’s plenty there – immigration, tax, why the US doesn’t use nukes even though they have them, waterboarding, China as an economic threat, climate change, taking oil from countries that have it…. all things he could do something about – things that would make a difference if he were president.
Because it seems impossible, given attitudes of the defenders of Trump, to see how attitudes and behaviours could ever change in a way that would make a difference to the well-being of women if he was to become President.
Probably the clearest comment you have made to illustrate your frustration
The twisting of positions could be more apparant in the hypocrisy over reaction to the allegations against Trump versus the complete dissonance and denial over Bill Clinton
Frankly its bizarre
Probably the clearest expression of your frustration
The dissonance involved is incredibly high and the bullying is out of control
Bill v Donald (they are one and the same)
Some believe there is somehow a difference in what they are and some even perform mental gymnastics in efforts to illustrate a difference
There is no difference!
Chur
Although in fact it is Hillary vs Trump
Trump alleged to have sexually assaulted women
Hillary who is alleged to have covered up for and enabled Bill’s multiple rapes and affairs over many many years.
But yeah, the hypocritical political tribalism is fucking rampant.
Well yes there is the ‘covering up’ aspect which the ‘progressives’ disregard at the same rate as the ‘allegations’ against Bill. The abuse involved , is still abuse
So very limp on self discipline with regards to elementary rationale and reasoning
Quite why, is the interesting aspect
Perhaps bullying, denial and hipocrisy are considered ‘tools of empowerment’
“Some believe there is somehow a difference in what they are”
Citation needed. Or at least clarify if you are referring to people in this thread. You imply that you are, and if you are then you need to provide a reference. If not, then clarify that.
Yep make the women invisible – tried and true tactic for bigots.
These women have been featured on US TV networks 24/7 in order to slam Trump.
What do you mean they are “invisible”?
‘What women’ ring a bell?
Oh you mean the women who have made ALLEGATIONS that they were groped by Trump. Yes there are a few of those who have suddenly come out of the woodwork, all at once, and several using the same lawyer.
Your sneery tone just shows what a right wing hater you are.
Yep reach for the ad homs, marty mars, it gives you strength and feels good to let the dark side flow.
So much of what comes from you are just scenes and dialogue from movies – the funny thing is you think you’re being clever but I think you are like a parrot not even comprehending any depth in the syllables escaping your lips like a rapidly deflating balloon. Sunnyside up for me ta.
Yes more ad homs marty mars, keep it flowing
Many havent been visible for decades due to fear of not being believed and threats from going up against powerful figures. Do you not get this?
The only person I suspect to have definitively organised against women in this way is Hillary Clinton, in order to protect the political career of her husband, Bill Clinton. Do you not get this?
Ok, you’re baiting and switching now.
I know, cheap shot but I’m tired of arguing against people who believe Trump’s female accusers in a flat second, while simultaneously utterly dismissing the female accusers of Hillary Clinton who have been speaking out for years.
test
test 2
Are you trying to ban some people? God, I hope so.
lolz, I fucking wish.