Daily Review 22/02/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, February 22nd, 2016 - 42 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

John key Malcolm Turnbull

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

42 comments on “Daily Review 22/02/2016 ”

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  1. joe90 1
    22 February 2016 at 6:42 pm

    Surprise surprise …

    However, the most stunning admission of failure is this:

    “We keep saying we have to run government like a business. But government isn’t a business. You can’t run it like a business,” one said. Turning briefly to the presidential campaign, the person said, “We’re real good at being the party of ‘no,’ but we have to show we can govern.”

    http://www.eclectablog.com/2016/02/michigan-republicans-are-secretly-admitting-that-running-state-like-a-business-has-failed-has-killed-people.html#.Vsn98EXbkcE.twitter

  2. Ant 2
    22 February 2016 at 7:49 pm

    7 Sharp this evening (approx. time coverage on flag issue)

    Richie Mc Caw wants a new flag (5 sec)
    Dan carter wants a new flag (2 sec)
    Mahe Drysdale wants a new flag (3 sec)
    Brendan Mc Callum wants a new flag (2 sec)
    Peter Williams waves the new flag (8 sec)
    Mike Hosking wants a new flag (60 sec)
    Sam Neill does not want a new flag (1 sec)

    Sheesh!

    • Pasupial 3.1
      22 February 2016 at 9:29 pm

      Dislike father, dislike son:

      I suppose
      Old Man Trump knows
      Just how much
      Racial Hate
      he stirred up
      In the bloodpot of human hearts
      When he drawed
      That color line
      Here at his
      Eighteen hundred family project

      Beach Haven ain’t my home!
      I just cain’t pay this rent!
      My money’s down the drain!
      And my soul is badly bent!
      Beach Haven looks like heaven
      Where no black ones come to roam!
      No, no, no! Old Man Trump!
      Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!

      • greywarshark 3.1.1
        23 February 2016 at 1:59 pm

        More on Donald Trump. I just saw the cover of the New Yorker for Feb. Trump was in colour on TV and looking on with horrified expressions were past USA Presidents,
        I recognised Washington with his hand over his eyes, Roosevelt (I think) with his cigar falling from his lips, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, and one with a round face and red handlebar moustache. Shows how informed I am about the USA don’t it? Better than some reeal Amerykans are I bet.

    • joe90 3.2
      22 February 2016 at 9:30 pm

      Oh dear.

      ECPS
      ‏@EmersonPolling

      New #Massachusetts Poll
      #GOP
      @realDonaldTrump- 50%
      @marcorubio- 16%
      @JohnKasich- 13%
      @tedcruz- 10%
      @RealBenCarson- 2%

      https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/701597982194540544

    • miravox 3.3
      22 February 2016 at 9:42 pm

      …over the course of the past few months, I’ve learned something else that goes beyond Arendt’s ideas about the banality of evil and feelings of impotence in the face of danger.

      Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our ideological divides…

      A call for Republicans to produce some leadership to deny this racist bigot (also for journalists to refuse to reproduce the bile).

      I’m not sure the Republicans as an organisation can do it – too wedded to the competitive model for everything that gives them power. A whole bunch of them probably don’t see the problem either.

      • Draco T Bastard 3.3.1
        22 February 2016 at 10:06 pm

        I’m not sure the Republicans as an organisation can do it – too wedded to the competitive model for everything that gives them power. A whole bunch of them probably don’t see the problem either.

        Thing is, that seems to apply to Labour here in NZ as well. Too much sipping on the Kool-aid of individualism and competition.

        • miravox 3.3.1.1
          23 February 2016 at 1:15 am

          The left in general, I think. They don’t seem to have reached the place where the parties a joint strategy is feasible – and that will never be NAct-lite, so the majority of the responsibility lies with Labour.

          • Colonial Viper 3.3.1.1.1
            23 February 2016 at 4:34 am

            What makes you think that Labour doesnt qualify as NACT-lite?

            Or that Labour is any better at listening to their core constituencies than National is to theirs?

            • miravox 3.3.1.1.1.1
              23 February 2016 at 6:53 am

              I didn’t say Labour wasn’t NAct-lite. I said there will be no NAct-lite agreement on the Left.

              Suggests I think Lab should move left, don’t you think?

              How big is that chip you have cv?

      • Andre 3.3.2
        22 February 2016 at 10:10 pm

        The problem remains, when you get down to the real people under the facade, the rest of the Republican candidates are even nastier than Trump is. They just try to gloss it over, while Trump seems to enjoy letting it all hang out.

        • miravox 3.3.2.1
          22 February 2016 at 11:42 pm

          Agree – there’s more than one demagogue in the Republican party.

          • Colonial Viper 3.3.2.1.1
            23 February 2016 at 4:36 am

            Trump may celebrate bombing entire peoples back to the stone age, but the Clintons actually did it.

            • miravox 3.3.2.1.1.1
              23 February 2016 at 7:59 am

              Jeez – the Clintons are Republican? That’s news to me!

              I don’t know why you feel the need to educate me. Do I come across as stupid or naive or something?

      • Olwyn 3.3.3
        22 February 2016 at 11:10 pm

        I thought that article came from an elitist perspective – it is a plea for someone to save business-as-usual from the barbarian, without acknowledging that the failure of business-as-usual gave him his platform in the first place. No mention whatsoever of Saunders – who presents a more sober response to the same situation.

        • miravox 3.3.3.1
          22 February 2016 at 11:41 pm

          Yes, it is elitist, it was squarely aimed at the Republicans – hence no mention of Saunders – because of a fear the Republicans will not be able to defeat the Democrats with Trump, nor have business as usual with him there – he’s too disruptive.

          What I thought interesting was how the author seemed well-versed in Hannah Ardent’s work on the rise of totalitarianism and added to it with the current state of affairs in the Republican party, which is allowing demagogue(s) to flourish.

          • Olwyn 3.3.3.1.1
            23 February 2016 at 12:07 am

            The writer said he intended to vote for Hillary Clinton, who he is not sure can beat Trump. He is pleading with the Republicans not to let the guy get through for the good of everyone. I also found his calling on Arendt interesting, and it was the failure of the system that allowed a maverick to get through then too. But he does not seem to see that such unpredictable “saviours”arise when people feel abandoned, excluded and forced to look outside of the system for solutions. He just wants things to get back to normal when the current normal is made up of the very conditions that have elevated Trump.

            • miravox 3.3.3.1.1.1
              23 February 2016 at 1:11 am

              – oops – missed the bit where she’s voting Hilary. But yes, the point still stands – she doesn’t seem to think the Democrats can stop him, the subtext might be she doesn’t want the Dems to win if it’s not Clinton – therefore the Republicans must get their act together to stop Trump. I agree that she is for business as usual.

              I don’t know that she doesn’t seem to see why unpredictable ‘saviours’ arise – she doesn’t really address it. She could simply be one of they many who believe the societal problems in the US can be worked through within the political system as it is. I’m not sure I’d agree with that either. If I was in the US, as it stands now, I’d be supporting Sanders.

              Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see the discussion moving forward to talking about options for Republican strategy, because the Republican elite certainly don’t want Trump, and they have to do something about it.

      • greywarshark 3.3.4
        23 February 2016 at 2:16 pm

        miravox reading your comment makes me think of a piece I put up yesterday from a book I’m reading. The social history of Brit in the 1800s seems so relevant to today.
        My comment with extracts – http://thestandard.org.nz/business-as-usual/#comment-1137368

        You marvel at Trump’s following, and talk about a divided country, with people wanting something, turning to somebody different, almost grasping at something, somebody new. This is one of the extracts from the book describing what the writers considered drove the British in their search for better policies.

        The writers say beyond that, men and women in their thousands were ready to follow any leader who promised them a radical change,..(however he talked),,,whether he appealed to the…trade unionist…or the peasant, whether to go forward or back, to build a golden future or recall a glittering past.

        j.L. and Barbara Hammond The Bleak Age

        • miravox 3.3.4.1
          24 February 2016 at 2:40 am

          Yes, that quote could just as easily be made today.

          I don’t marvel at Trump’s following – I’m rather depressed that despite knowing so much about what leads to the rise of demagogues we continue along that path.

          One of the other points in the article that was touched on was the acculturation that makes the language of abuse that Trump uses become acceptable – it’s acceptable to abuse, denigrate, speak of violence. People may have similar thoughts to Trump (including the other nasties in the republican race) but these are often kept in check. It’s political leadership of the worst kind that gives ‘permission’ for the men and women who want radical change to vocalise them and act them out.

          For the US to come out of this a better place, if Trump is the winner of the republican race, they need Sanders in the run-off for president. Two people calling for radical change – one rabidly hate-filled and the other positive toward improving lives – and given that there are plenty of astute people in the US, Sanders wins.

    • joe90 3.4
      22 February 2016 at 9:53 pm

      Lighten things up a little – Winter Is Trumping

  4. Morrissey 4
    22 February 2016 at 9:01 pm

    Chomsky and his critics; or, Is there a wretched ninny
    anywhere in the world more wretched than Oliver Kamm?

    In recent months, the Henry Jackson Society has been exposed for its efforts to smear Noam Chomsky. What is . . .
    http://mondoweiss.net/2016/02/chomsky-and-his-critics/#sthash.otor1k5s

    • swordfish 4.1
      23 February 2016 at 11:41 am

      Great article, confirms long-standing suspicions/assumptions.

      Saw Finkelstein demolish Kamm in an interview / debate compered by Mehdi Hasan at Oxford Uni (on youtube) a year or two back (you’ve probably seen it, Morrissey). Suggested he placed about as much value on Kamm’s opinions as he did on those of a speck of dust, if I remember rightly.

      • Morrissey 4.1.1
        25 February 2016 at 6:38 pm

        Indeed I did see it, swordfish. I actually watched it live on television. I must say Mehdi Hasan does not impress me at all; his manner is bumptious and overbearing, and he doesn’t really seem to be that well read or thoughtful.

        Having said that, there is no doubt that compared to Oliver Kamm, Mehdi Hasan is an intellectual on the level of Bertrand Russell, Aristotle and Albert Einstein.

        Compared to Oliver Kamm, that is.

  6. repateet 6
    22 February 2016 at 10:54 pm

    Max Key uses my plane to ride with his father and uses social media to publicise the fact.

    Don’t any bastard tell me to leave him alone when I make comments about him and saying he deserves privacy and not be commented on because of who his father is.

    • Muttonbird 6.1
      22 February 2016 at 11:25 pm

      Yep. Max Key is putting himself out there as the prime minister’s son in order to further his ambitions so I think it’s fair the taxpaying public should be able to comment on such as they see fit.

      I notice the gnome at the bottom of the garden, David Farrar, has gone quiet on this all of a sudden.

      • Stuart Munro 6.1.1
        22 February 2016 at 11:31 pm

        No doubt he is hard at work fabricating a ‘Max hate antisemitist’ meme.

      • miravox 6.1.2
        23 February 2016 at 12:01 am

        “Max Key is putting himself out there as the prime minister’s son in order to further his ambitions”

        I hope that if he used the trip to further his career he’ll be reimbursing the taxpayer for the flight right away.

    • maui 6.2
      22 February 2016 at 11:55 pm

      While there’s people being kicked off benefits and put under undue life stress and solo mums being forced back to the factories, there goes our high flying beneficiary.

    • b waghorn 6.3
      23 February 2016 at 6:34 am

      Setting him self up as the “prince of auckland” is my take , our very own kayne. Humans in general seem to be no more intelligent than plants following the sun I’ve decided.