making shit up

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The Big Lie in action

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 5th, 2014 - 13 comments

This morning Rob Salmond did a great post about the “big lie” – the spin coming from the Right that Labour hasn’t concentrated on policy, just dirty politics.

Like clockwork, David Farrar has a post up about the latest polls, suggesting “Their focus on hacked e-mails instead of policy  is backfiring.”

Judith Collins raises doubt about which dimension she occupies

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, August 27th, 2014 - 39 comments

Judith Collins claims to have been exonerated of claims that she breached the rights of privacy of a public servant by giving his details to Cameron Slater. There is one problem with her claim. She is totally wrong. Update: RNZ is now reporting she is backing away from her claim.

Newspeak

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, August 22nd, 2014 - 54 comments

John Key’s reaction to the revelations in “Dirty Politics” is straight out of Orwell’s classic 1984. 

The moral low ground

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 18th, 2014 - 45 comments

Revulsion. That’s what’s coming out from a range of people who have ploughed through the inner thoughts of Slater, Farrar, Ede, Collins, Lusk, Odgers, Jordan Williams – they’re all repulsive. It’s the strength of that gut feeling in response that will sink their plot. Despite all John Key’s efforts to move as quickly as possible to the end of the day, …it’s still not ok.  Key’s try at cover up is pathetic, and doomed to be futile. But what it shows is that he has chosen the moral low ground with the rest of them. TeamKey indeed.

Naming and Shaming

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, August 16th, 2014 - 11 comments

Judith Collins naming the eponymous Simon Pleasants to Cameron Slater as the suspect in a document leak is unconscionable.  She cannot remain a Minister, otherwise Key’s claim to a high standard when it comes to Ministerial behaviour is in tatters. This time the John Banks  defence “I haven’t read it” and “I have taken his/her word” will not do.

Pagani and the Straw People

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 pm, August 15th, 2014 - 41 comments

I don’t like listening to talkback radio, it’s not my thing.  But I was prompted to listen today to a clip of Josie Pagani as she apparently named 3 regular ‘anonymous’ Standard bloggers.  More on that in a bit. Whilst I’ve got as frustrated as others who have posted, I’ve not had an anti-Pagani post […]

Naming the game

Written By: - Date published: 6:34 pm, August 12th, 2014 - 78 comments

It’s been interesting to watch the nats and their busy little helpers working away at branding the election campaign as a nasty one.

It’s been disappointing to watch the media falling for it so hard.

Typical misrepresentation from Farrar

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, August 12th, 2014 - 97 comments

Sociologist Dr Jarrod Gilbert takes everybody’s favourite right-wing spinster to task for misrepresentation and spin on gangs.

Armstrong’s gotchas

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, July 28th, 2014 - 19 comments

It’s only “gotcha” politics when the left wing does it.

NRT: Docs or its bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 pm, July 18th, 2014 - 5 comments

Over the weekend we learned that police had been juking the stats, recoding burglaries as “incidents” to make themselves and their Minister look good. But its all fine now, supposedly – the police claim they’ve instituted a series of spot audits to ensure it can never happen again. Except when they’re asked for information about these supposed safeguards and whether they’ve uncovered any problems, they suddenly can’t find anything… Sounds like bullshit and spin.

Jon Stephenson vs NZDF retrial

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, July 11th, 2014 - 9 comments

The NZ Defense Force have been defending themselves in a defamation case against some grossly inaccurate claims that they made about reporter Jon Stephenson back in 2011 (and that John Key recklessly and foolishly chimed in on). They have been forced to concede that their claims were inaccurate. But a hung jury about how defamatory the claims were is causing it to proceeding to second trial. It looks like legal maneuvering by the NZDF has failed. My view is that the NZDF are being completely stupid about owning up to their screwup.

We men do need to own the violence problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, July 5th, 2014 - 246 comments

Yesterday saw a social media attack on David Cunliffe based on six words taken out of context in a speech given on an important subject.  The debate needs to be about the subject and not on right wing framing of the six words.  And yes us men need to own the domestic violence problem and work towards solutions.

Polity: Today’s Herald editorial

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, July 2nd, 2014 - 33 comments

The NZ Herald has been particularly stupid recently, especially in its editorials. Now some of the anonymous editorial writers appear to have descended to not even reading their own paper. Today whoever wrote the editorial are suggesting that Labour release a particular policy, one that their political gallery writers wrote about on Wednesday. I guess that ‘anonymous’ couldn’t stand to read their own paper when it refers to Labour? Now that is really being biased.

Bryan Gould: An impartial press

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, June 29th, 2014 - 34 comments

Ed Miliband is competent, has the support of his party, but has abysmal poll ratings. The right-wing British press has played a significant role. For instance a messy bacon sandwich. In New Zealand, we all know that the British press is notoriously biased and that our own press may have their own allegiances but are reasonably  impartial. Which is why there are some disturbing features about the press treatment of the supposed “scandal” (as it is regularly referred to) of Donghua Liu and David Cunliffe.

NRT: Our misogynistic political media

Written By: - Date published: 6:25 pm, June 23rd, 2014 - 44 comments

In previous elections, the major parties have submitted lists heavily dominated by men, and this passes without comment. This year, Labour has submitted one with a slight imbalance (53:47) towards women. The reaction is sadly predictable. Misogynist reporting. Also incorrect, there is no gender rule. Not mentioned: Labour’s list is gender-balanced up to position 40; that slight imbalance comes from the bottom, unelectable end of the list and will not translate into caucus places.

John Key: a tale of two ‘truths’

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, June 23rd, 2014 - 34 comments

John Key claimed he didn’t know about the big shift in the US-NZ surveillance relationship in 2009.  Now he claims he always likes to be fully briefed on intelligence matters. Robert David Steele points the way from  such anti-democratic governance & misinformation, to an open source everything revolution.

Farrar lies again

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, June 9th, 2014 - 61 comments

For the second time in as many weeks, David Farrar has lied to his readers over at kiwiblog.

NRT: Hoist by her own petard?

Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, June 3rd, 2014 - 20 comments

One should defend the right of a politician and anyone else to be a complete dork on the net. Even Judith Collins doesn’t need two years in jail for lying to a reporter about another reporter or tweeting bullying abusive rubbish. However many would see Collins’ tweets as “part of the cut and thrust between politicians and journalists”, and they’d be right. But the fact that they would be illegal under her law shows just how awful that law is

Gower’s immigration beat-up

Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, May 28th, 2014 - 16 comments

There’s been a lot of heat on Labour from the usual beat-up suspects and not a lot of light until now.

The desperation of the National’s sockpuppets

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 pm, May 14th, 2014 - 77 comments

National Party pollster David Farrar must be seeing some numbers he really doesn’t like because he is claiming that David Cunliffe photoshopped himself into a rally that he was really at!  Yeah right – a doyen of the local net governing body failed to use google before making a complete dick of himself on the net. I expect we will see a lot more of National’s paid for bloggers acting like fools heading into this election because National only being good at putting us heavily into debt (again!) rather limits the good news they can write.

The week that was

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 37 comments

The highs and lows and the good and bad of what was a fascinating week in Politics.

Well Done Paddy

Written By: - Date published: 1:12 pm, March 6th, 2014 - 55 comments

For anyone who’s had enough of the media being footloose and fancy free with their reporting.

Polity: Three ramshackle PR fiascos and you’re out

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, March 4th, 2014 - 33 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity points to the right wing publicists who pose as independents, set up publicity shells for nutters, and who seem to make outright lying their hallmark. Perhaps it is time that journalists start describing them as they are rather than quoting them as they prefer. They should be “blogger and National’s pollster” or “part-time lawyer and ACT supporter.”

How short are memories?

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 216 comments

John Key is attacking David Cunliffe for using a trust to obscure some donations – whilst repeating the word ‘tricky’ about Cunliffe as many times in one sound-bite as humanly possible. It’s an astonishingly brazen stone to throw given National’s glass house. Do no reporters remember John Key, Hollow Man, or anything about National’s funding […]

Shooting Messengers with Wonky Long Bows.

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 5 comments

Looks like Mark Ames really has lost the plot viz a viz Glen Greenwald and ‘The Intercept’

Polity: National hypocrisy about hypocrisy

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, February 3rd, 2014 - 38 comments

Somehow questions about how Metiria Turei wearing clothes from expensively ravaged visage of Judith Collins seem somewhat hypocritical. But Polity politely asks the second obvious question…

No details, please, we’re gallery hacks

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, January 31st, 2014 - 175 comments

Blue has a look at the the gallery hacks and what they’re looking for from a politician. The answer is – not much. Political journalists do not require any special qualifications. They go to journalism school to learn how to structure an article and avoid being sued. There is no test you must pass to become a Gallery hack proving that you understand policy, economics or statistics. Their job is write ‘colour’ pieces about the ‘cut and thrust’ of politics….

Imperator Fish – The State of the Nation: an interview with David Cunliffe

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, January 28th, 2014 - 8 comments

Scott gets an exclusive interview with David Cunliffe… and then goes Paddy Gower on his a#$e. Always good to be fair and balanced on the 2 sides of the House.

Useless and venal

Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, January 28th, 2014 - 197 comments

Following David Cunliffe’s announcement of Best Start New Zealand’s right wing took it upon themselves to show how useless and venal they are. It started with Jordon “the new Cameron Slater” Williams and the National front group Taxpayers’ Union’s eviscerating attack on “Middleclass Welfare” (honestly guys that line’s so 2007) only to blame it on” “Labour […]

Polity: Taxpayers Union on wine

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, January 16th, 2014 - 28 comments

Polity had this post up this morning. The only problem with it was that Rob Salmond missed out on the correct title. For complete accuracy it should have been “Jordan Williams on whine”

Update: Looks like the Herald has a retraction coming.

Right Thinking: just another lawbreaking socialist villain

Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, December 30th, 2013 - 8 comments

Normally we’d put “ImperatorFish: ” because, well, the post come from that site and from the fertile satirical mind of Scott Yorke. But in this case it is clear that someone else must have written the post. They couldn’t get the sequence of events right and they admitted to an act that a lawyer (such a fine upstanding and moral part of community) would never admit to. Has Scott has been hacked? And why does it sound like actual Cameron Slater writing on one of his better days.