we started what is going on now and probably will be going on for years to come this massive chaos, killing, death, starvation, states failing and so forth. Syria, Libya, Iraq, and possibly Lebanon, maybe Jordan. […] What we have is chaos and we produce that chaos. Just as sure as we produce the chaos, we produced ISIS. […] We produced all this by that really unwise decision in 2003 to invade Iraq. […] The campaign to convince the American people to support the war in Iraq which is quite effective and when you consider it was built on a house of lies, it was quite effective.
Lets not forget the NZ context of the time …. national all but calling helen clarke a traitor … ie
John Key : We need to get some guts …. and partake in three white eyes illegal invasion /war …. leading to millions dead …. and tens of millions refugees'
Wayne mapp: we could be missing out on trade deals …. if we don't partake in three white eyes illegal war / invasion …. leading to millions dead …. and tens of millions refugees'
fast forward 16 years
A masterstroke of dirty politics …. blame the victims of your actions …. gain votes from racist retards …
Getting two ticks support from racist white inbreeds to stupid to see the cause of their 'invasion'
It takes a seriously degenerative , dim witted, low grade form of supremacy …. to not see cause and effect.
… The usa alone had used 100,000 bombs and missiles on the people of Iraq and syria ….over the period of2014-2017 ….two or three years worth from memory
others can feel free to google search this 100,000 bombs and missiles count
I've been conservative … and our collective ignorance of it speaks to 5 white eyes lynch club mentality.
Indifference is a true barometer of our western racism … ie if you don’t give a fuck , what motivates that
we started what is going on now and probably will be going on for years to come this massive chaos, killing, death, starvation, states failing and so forth.
That's not only ignorant, it grossly overestimates the significance of your own culture. The peoples of the Middle East are as capable of slaughtering each other for ridiculous reasons as the people of Europe or any other region, and their history shows that quite clearly if you bother to look at it.
"We" as in western liberal democracies certainly bear some responsibility for conflicts that are happening at the moment, but let's not pretend locals have no agency over their own countries' affairs.
Thanks chris This is very important ….We should all take offense …. that much is obvious … ….ffs indeed
99 out of 100 real life white supremacist inbreeds …. would see PMs logo and go "Brother".
And having 99 out of a 100 racist inbreeds thinking he is one of them ….
Is out of PMs control.
Crass, crass ,crass ….. to even bring up that 99 out of 100 neo nazi fuckwits would identify PM as being one of them.
How could we blame PM for the stupidity of 99 out of 100 inbreed fascists.
TS members should educate these illiterate neo nazis … the moron white pride idiots who think they are 'european knights' …. spelt nights to some of them.
It shows the stupidity PM is up against ….. as they identify him … as one of their own.
Nazi bastards …
[Please do not use double spacing in your long comments; I have removed them in this comment. Please dial back the aggressive language and personal insults directed at commenters here – Incognito]
99 out of 100 real life white supremacist inbreeds …. would see PMs logo and go "Brother".
They would? I guess it must be true, because you've asserted it, right? Still, it's odd how no right-wingers who've seen my comments have felt like calling me "brother" afterwards – perhaps they actually read the comments…
99 out of 100 real life white supremacist inbreeds …. would see PMs logo and go "Brother".
But you're only saying that because of the assumption that you leapt to. So all your imaginary survey says is that you believe that 99% of fascist-adjacents would share your instinctive assumption in this regard.
The conflict in the middle East is entirely a creation of the Western powers, dating from the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent division into States, with puppet rulers, subservient to Western oil interests.
Toppling the Democratic Government in Iran, in the 1950's, was just one of very many, ignorant and self serving interventions by the West.
To say that conflict was inevitable, without Western influence, shows a profound ignorance of history.
A united and peaceful middle East, with control over much of the worlds oil, has never been in Western interests.
All the Western economies are dependent on both cheap oil, controlled by Western oil companies, and arms sales to the perpetual wars.
Politically, the USA needs a WestAsia, or EastAsia. A perpetual enemy to prevent revolt, and keep the war driven economic stimulus, at home.
And the Empire didn't spend the thick end of 700 years putting entire populations to the sword and installing rulers, subservient to Ottoman interests?
To say that conflict was inevitable, without Western influence, shows a profound ignorance of history.
Oh right, a Sunni empire run by Turks would have just lived happily ever after, united and peaceful, if it hadn't been for those duplicitous westerners. Foolishly imagining that there are major ethnic, cultural and religious divisions between peoples in the Middle East shows a "profound ignorance of history." How could I have been so stupid?
See, there's another fine example. You pretend that "the West" deposed your beloved dictator Gaddafi, as though the people who rebelled against him had no agency and were mere dupes of the liberal democracies. It can be argued that western goverments shouldn't have helped the rebels, but if the rebels had lost there would have been a bloodbath afterwards, with resulting blood feuds to go down through the generations, pretty much like there have been since the rebels won. Sometimes it doesn't make any sense to try and make a good guys vs bad guys story out of real-world events.
Your telling of history is more self serving than wayne mapp ….
And do you think if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes true ??
Before the 2011 NATO bombing, on the other hand, Libya had been the wealthiest nation in Africa, with the highest life expectancy and GDP per capita. In his book "Perilous Interventions," former Indian representative to the U.N. Hardeep Singh Puri notes that, before the war, Libya had less of its population in poverty than the Netherlands. Libyans had access to free health care, education, electricity and interest-free loans, and women had great freedoms that had been applauded by the U.N. Human Rights Council in January 2011, on the eve of the war that destroyed the government.
Its becoming crystal clear you have as much care for the victims of our illegal wars based on bullshit …. as Alwyn does for the pike river miners.
Him blaming Andrew little for pike river … and your racist dishonest hand washing over our western and NATO slaughter wars …. tell us the truth about both your honesty ….. and how you really think.
I can believe you do feel better off ….
According to the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL; 2016), the majority of migrants that it interviewed in Libya were from the sub-Saharan African countries, namely, Eritrea, Somalia, Guinea, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Sudan. The migrants reported to UNSMIL that they had been regularly subjected to beatings, starvation, denial of food and water, gang rapes, and the renting out of women to armed men for sexual abuse.
Then Secretary of State Clinton understood in early 2011 what was happening concerning the rebel genocidal targeting of black Libyans and African migrants, yet pushed to arm the rebels and overthrow Gaddafi anyway.
International human rights groups documented countless incidents of targeted mass murders, incitements to violence, arson, sexual assaults, evictions and banishments against black Libyans and African immigrants.
a study by a U.N. panel of experts, which found the former Libyan government's weapons in Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Gaza, Mali, Niger, Tunisia and Syria. The U.N. panel noted that "arms originating from Libya have significantly reinforced the military capacity of terrorist groups operating in Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Tunisia."
Again, it's not clear who you think you're arguing with here or what it is that you're arguing. It seems to be addressed to be me, but not in any way that makes sense.
His education deconstructs a lot of PMs … 'english' history
Trustworthy information … and if some details are incorrect …. Its not through a lack of honesty
A hundred years ago, they reported back to Washington with a series of recommendations which would cast dark shadows for us, even today.
not a single American or European or Arab soul – not a remotely interested Muslim, not one Israeli – has remembered that this is the 100th anniversary of the most intensive western enquiry ever made into what the people who actually live in the Middle East want for their future. Isn’t this worth just a small commemoration in this grubby year of betrayal and danger in the Middle East?
vast number of Muslims, Maronite (Catholics), Druze and other Christian sects whose families had emigrated to America “were intensely loyal” to the US and thus had “made the people of Syria and Palestine trust America”. The existence of what is now the American University of Beirut added to the lustre of the US. Only the Zionist Jews, about a tenth of the population, favoured the establishment of the Jewish national home; the Arabs said they “owned … the land … the Arabs were there before the Jews came …
Was it all for nothing? There had come from the commission one other warning. “Not only you as president,” it told Wilson, “but the American people as a whole should realise that if the American government decided to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, they are committing the American people to the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained.”
What makes no sense is some one like yourself claiming Arabs just like to blow things up … and 100,000 bombs and missiles dropped by the yanks on the people in Syria and Iraq ,,, and in only a small fraction of the time they have been destroying these people ….. stirs you …..to nothing
Wars built on lies ….. to you … mean nothing.
Libya
a 31 year old women's rights defender who wishes to remain
anonymous due to her fear of reprisal, told Amnesty International that she receives constant threats on Twitter. She said she abandoned Facebook because of the intensity ofthe abuse she experienced there. … On my social
media accounts, people send private messages [through fake accounts]: lots of threats saying things like, ‘If we get our hands on you, we will rape you, show you what women’s rights are, beat you.’”
Online threats of violence and smear campaigns have forced many women human rights defenders to keep a low profile
In 2013, Libya’s Supreme Court ruled to authorize polygamy without the first wife’s consent or a court’s authorization,
According to testimony by a Save the Children representative
in 2016, 50 percent of the unaccompanied children treated by the organization’s doctors in Italy presented with a sexually transmitted infection (STI), which the medical personnel attributed to sexual exploitation during transit.
40
And although you think Gaddafi getting a NATO lynch mob death was good stuff …. "better off " in your words … it was both symbolic, and the prelude to what was about to happen to their whole society.
Others can reflect on the children and other victims..,. while you make bullshit excuses…. and show your racist stripes.
A devious liar telling lies to justify wars based on lies … Any outrage over Assange by you …. shows huge hypocrisy … stretched so thin even a blind man could see through you
Reason you have put up a lot of thoughtful stuff about war, world politics etc. I hope you have noted the way that the moderator has tidied up your comments. The present program gives double spacing when Enter is used and your comments got really spaced-out. And at the end it tends to add lots of spacing so you need to come up to just after your last full stop to limit that. That should make it easier to follow your thinking without extra mod work.
100% reason 🙂 war crime after war crime after war crime. The Nuremburg declaration that hung the nazis for aggressive war doesn't apply to our WAR CRIMS.
Thanks, john. Whichever way, I'm looking forward to this news item, circa 2031…
AP/CNN. The former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, was hanged/hung in Baghdad at 5:30 this morning. His accomplices in the rape of Iraq, George W. Bush and John Howard, will be hanged/hung in the coming week.
Don't hang out for that news re Blair Morrissey. I wonder what will be happening in 2031 – how many years away – 12. Would you like to list present problems and where the solutions have got to?
I will ignore any wrong syntax? as I like people to express their ideas without having preachy or prosy others jumping in to raise diversions. A welcome distraction no doubt, but f..k annoying to people who want to see discussion on the immense and dramatic themes of the day. (I went to a Pop-up Globe production of Hamlet yesterday, couldn't hear or understand some of the language but kept watching and listening of course, and followed the story ok. It seemed very contemporary except for the clothing! Those famous speeches were powerful; What a piece of work is man, How noble his reason…)
To sleep perchance to dream. Hal asked if he would dream in Space Odyssey 2001. Perhaps the machines will be quoting our human Shakespeare to us, showing us the workings of their compassion circuits. (They were the basis of a SF short story I have read recently that has perverse results that the machine had not the imagination to comprehend. However that could be covered by better programming no doubt.) Sorry, I can't help thinking of the likely future when I look at the present posture.
Psycho Milt using the Crass logo as his avatar is a insult to their legacy and most of what they stood for..but then Milt wouldn't get that….it’s like when I am out riding and see fat guys wearing the Yellow jersey of the Tour de France…no respect.
I/we rarely delete (whole) comments unless they are obvious duplicates and technical or ‘thick finger’ glitches. Please leave to sockpoppet guesses to the moderators as it tends to distract and inflame.
The Great Noam Chomsky talks to Democracy now. The rise of fascism in the '30s and its echos with the rise of ultra nationalism now. Plus the positive popular movements against it.
Hmm, yes – mockery from the likes of us is one thing, mockery from other nationalist authoritarian leaders you'd like the approval of is quite another.
It was a rubbish parade, disjointed, lacklustre. And the music was worse. Then, the speech.
My Fellow Americans; in 1886 our indomitable navy and its nuclear submarines had managed to surround and subdue the evil Martian forces attempting a beachhead on the dark side of the moon…
Taihape's gumboot throwing competition had more excitement than Trumps parade.
It's sad to note that Taihape gumboot contest was on 23rd March this year. Next year let's be there and show the usa how a reverential day out for the masses can shine. Fred Dagg noted the importance of gumboots to the nation (and was on the nail with that). He was my hero and represented good people doing the mahi in an honest way, who will always eclipse town boys, out of condition, with hairpieces.
The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser. He shocked a high-level Saudi delegation earlier this month when he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
Pressured to finalize a massive $100-plus billion arms deal in the two weeks leading up to Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Kushner hoped to maneuver a discount on Lockheed's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system during the Saudis' visit to the White House on May 1 — a request that Hewson said she would look into at the time.
The World Bank plans to announce Sunday at an event with Ivanka Trump, the U.S. president’s daughter and senior White House adviser, that Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have pledged $100 million collectively toward a fund for women who own or want to start businesses, according to people familiar with the announcement.
But to be fair, the Russians have a long history of serious Russian military parades..some of them rightfully celebrating their pivotal role in defeating European fascism…
The quote from his speech gives sufficient context. “The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do."
The Trump regime is full of deniers, recruited by the denier-in-chief, but if they try to deny this evidence they will just destroy whatever reputation they have. Even conservatives will replay the video and prove it to themselves!
As I suggested last night, this will rapidly become a national security issue for the US administration, and a Wall St run can be expected promptly. Only fair to acknowledge that one swallow does not make a summer, so a pattern of such behaviour will have to be established before a team of experts confirms the diagnosis. However, rumour destroys a reputation real fast, and as soon as Trump + dementia achieves contagion in the US media it will be all over for him.
Pence will go into a crisis cabinet meeting in an extremely strong position, and the other key players will watch Trump's bluster in increasing scepticism. Then it's just a matter of time before they accept the inevitability of the transition…
They'll find it easier and safer to just do Weekend at Bernie's with him.
If they try to remove him by the 25th Amendment, Donny Dotard is sure to fight it. Then it goes to Congress, where a 2/3 supermajority in both the Senate and the House is needed to remove him. That ain't gonna happen.
It ain't gonna happen because I doubt I even need my second hand, let alone take my shoes off, to count up the total number of Repugs with enough spine to vote to remove Twitterfinger J. Tantrump. They'll be too scared to risk having him go Drumpfzilla on their asses and they'll get primaried by wrathful Drumpfkins. Or hell, spurned Drumpfkins might even be vengeful enough to vote for a Dem in the general election out of sheer spite towards anyone that acted against their fake-bronze idol.
He's only three weeks into the job of acting Secretary of Defense, but he's heartland establishment. "Esper was chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, from 1996 to 1998."
"He was policy director for the House Armed Services Committee from 2001 to 2002. From 2002 to 2004, Esper served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy, where he was responsible for a broad range of nonproliferation, arms control, and international security issues. He was director for national security affairs for the U.S. Senate"… He served as the 23rd United States Secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019. Prior to his current position, he served as Vice President of government relations at Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor."
But it will require a consensus of the Trump cabinet to control the president, and today they will be waking up to the new reality and wondering how to harness an increasingly loose cannon…
Seriously, how is this any different to him being a compulsive bullshitter? Symptomatically, they're identical.
For Dolt45's bullshit about airports to be a sign of dementia, facts would have to be relevant to his existance. They never have been. Not just in the last few years, but ever. He's cultivated an image of success while being incapable of running a casino. He called reporters pretending to be other people to be his own character reference. His claims of wealth were based on lies. Buildings and businesses paid to use his name when he had nothing to do with them.
For seventy years the fool has simply said whatever sounded good at the time. The only people who give a serious shit about this speech are people who think that facts have some shred of relevance to his behaviour.
His followers will remember it sounded good at the time, and explain it away as trolling liberal elites if people point out the absurdity of what he actually said.
What's symptomatically different about now compared to his lifelong history of bullshit is once upon a time he could string together complete sentences into paragraphs that were consistent with a coherent train of thought, even when the thought itself was objectively nonsense. He simply can't do that anymore. And even just during his time in office there's been a noticeable decline in what comes out of his mouth bearing any resemblance to trying to convey a coherent idea.
In interviews in the 1980s and '90s, according to Stat News, Trump "spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print."
Yeah, but assuming a decline, is that dementia or just the result of decades of putting as little as possible effort into bullshit?
When I was a bouncer, a colleague mentioned that before he'd started the work he'd been a chill and mellow dude, after five years he was a sour bastard. Having pushed a keyboard for ten years, that's shaped my personality in another way.
I just think that if you've never had to persuade anyone, engage with anyone, share yourself with anyone, remember anything about anyone, had anyone be critical about your conversation (or had to measure your speech with them), none of it for decades… that's gotta screw up your handle on reality.
I'm seeing a substantive difference. If it isn't early onset dementia, he can gloss it by saying he studied real estate at university, not history, but it's still an awful stretch for him. It's more the effect on the other key rightists that will be decisive. If the establishment decides that non-conformist rebellion has actually been replaced by irrational decision-making, they'll pull the plug. Too much at stake.
The examples made of Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, John McCain, Mark Sanford, Justin Amash and even Dean Heller are sufficient to ensure very few Repugs will ever significantly cross Tyrannosaurus Arse.
If you mean the top dog theory (dominance hierarchy) then I don't see it applying. Were you here when Muldoon was in charge? Sure as hell applied then. But you know all them checks & balances designed into the US political structure by the Constitution that we only have a semblance of. Add to that the immense array of powers behind the scenes in the US that we lack. I expect his cabinet to assume control at some point.
That said, I don't discount Trump's survival skills. It hinges on whether dementia is actually a happening thing…
Of course the the other possibility is that he's so totally out of his depth, he’s suffering from cerebral stress which he covers up with his over the top bouts of bullying and bravado.
What I mean is that Darth Hater has already demonstrated he will take an intense personal interest in trying to destroy the political career and personal reputation of anyone who demonstrates insufficient loyalty. And usually succeeds. Even when it's detrimental to his actual personal interests and his ability to impose his personal whim on the government.
Note that the cabinet and Pence do not have the ability to remove the genital-grabbing golem from from office if he chooses to fight it. Read up on the 25th Amendment for the process. It would be astonishing if he didn't fight it.
If he is actually successfully removed from office, he won't even have the notional restraint of needing to keep some support in the House and Senate. He would be completely unleashed to go on whatever kind of rampage he wanted on the asses of the Repugs from the House and Senate that voted against him. Even the Kraken would be impressed with the result.
Even in the unlikely event that they manage to fit him with an orange jumpsuit, he could still do an awful lot of damage from behind bars.
Hmm. If dementia is in onset mode, incidences of irrationality will gradually increase. Public concern will increase in proportion. Powers that be will already be seeking to act – yet if you're right they will realise they are confined by a constitutional strait-jacket. In that scenario, everyone ends up in uncharted territory.
National security is the bottom line. If Trump becomes a threat to it, congress/senate will have to agree to an amendment to the constitution to remove the threat, right? Can he veto it if it happens?
A constitutional amendment has to be passed by 2/3 supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, then it goes out to the states where 3/4 of the states have to ratify it before it comes into force. As far as I can tell, the president has no part in constitutional amendments. But the process takes years even for the fastest ones.
The lowest bar to clear for removing the president is impeachment – that only requires a simple majority in the House and 2/3 in the Senate. So if somehow Pence and the cabinet felt an immediate need to remove him, they could immediately get him out using the 25th, then as I understand it, they can keep him out for about a month until it has to go to a vote in the House and Senate. If it looked like they might get 2/3 in the Senate, but not in the House, they could use that month to ram through an emergency impeachment.
But 2/3 in the Senate means all Dems plus 20 Repugs to get to the 67 required. At the moment, the only Repugs that even look like possibles are Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Rand Paul. At a massive stretch you might get Joni Ernst, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rob Portman. Get all of those and it's still 9 short.
Okay, that seems workable. Think beyond the current reality. You know how the market is driven by greed & fear? Fear of Trump losing the plot will suffice to ebb the market once people absorb George Washington taking over the airports.
Then they start wondering what next. Loss of confidence is all it takes to send business into caution mode. Once Wall St shifts, politicians will realise they must follow. Can't make America great again if a premature geriatric is pretending to lead while dropping random irrationalities at times. Not a good look.
Beyond climate tipping points Greenhouse gas levels exceed the stability limit of the
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
by Andrew Glikson
The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton of CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂-equivalent, namely when methane and nitrous oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change” is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension, threatening nature and human civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity.
As conveyed by leading scientists “Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences” (Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber) …“We’ve reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don’t know that … There’s a big gap between what’s understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers” (Prof. James Hansen). http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Global greenhouse gases have reached a level exceeding the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, melting at an accelerated rate.
The current growth rate of atmospheric greenhouse gas of 3.42 ppm CO₂/year is the fastest recorded for the last 55 million years.
Allowing for the transient albedo enhancing effects of sulphur dioxide and other aerosols, mean global temperature has reached about 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
Due to hysteresis the large ice sheets outlast their melting temperatures.
Cold ice melt water flowing from the ice sheets at an accelerated rate will reduce the temperature of large ocean tracts in the North Atlantic and circum-Antarctic. Strong temperature contrasts between cold polar-derived air and water masses and tropical air and water masses would result in extreme weather events, retarding agriculture in large parts of the world.
Humans will survive in relatively favorable parts of Earth, such as sub-polar regions and sheltered mountain valleys, where hunting of surviving fauna may be possible.
In the wake of partial melting of the large ice sheets, the Earth climate would shift to polarized conditions including reduced polar ice sheets and tropical to super-tropical regions such as existed in the Miocene (5.3 – 23 million years ago) (Figure 5). http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
"Looming crisis: nearly 500,000 unpaid carers and a rapid ageing population"
This afternoon the Government is expected to make an announcement about a disability law that has been described as a "shame on society" and overhaul its policy on paying families who care for their disabled loved ones. Health reporter Emma Russell looks at the reason for change.
Every morning Geoff Wales would wake at the crack of dawn – often distressed."
The rest is behind the paywall…and I'm disinclined to spend even a dollar on what is likely to be wispy and watered down policy that will confuse the issue taken to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and a ridiculous number of High and Appeal Courts who all decided that those of us providing a high level of care to disabled family members should be paid as any other carer providing the same supports.
Fingers crossed for you and all the caregivers and disabled subject to callous disregard. I've barely spoken on all this as I'm out of my depth. I do think you've been minimised and treated poorly and it is a sad indictment on NZ where our most vulnerable get a shit deal.
Fingers crossed on both hands, rabbits foot, four leaf clover…
What really concerns me is already the headlines are talking about 500,000 unpaid carers which is bullshit in the context of Ministry of Health Disability Support Services clients which the Family Carer cases were about. No time to dig right now but at the last count, MOH;DSS barely had 40,000 clients in total, for the whole country. Most of those with very high support needs are reciveing funding for their care. There are only a few who are entirely cared for by unpaid family carers.
This is the kind of alarmist crap that Ryall pumped out back in 2012/2013. The Herald can only have got wind of this announcement from…someone in government?
The concern from risk-averse government has always been the precedent broader than DSS budgets – the 500k total would be across all government portfolios and life situations. Still easy enough to address the scope and repeal this bullshit law, you'd think.
The neolib influenced government agencies were advised in the 1980’s that vulnerable people should be given less services designed specially to help them, and that they should be integrated into and supported by the community.
This would take the responsibility of providing funding for care and support being a charge on the taxation system which could then be reduced to allow the already wealthy and c-off to keep more of 'their well-earned money resulting from their hard work'. When they had problems themselves, they would be able to access help from the state and supplement it with spending to suit their own individual standards.
The rest who just wanted good basic help as needed for their particular condition could take part in a lolly scramble of grants to be applied for, and which would be available for a finite time and then stopped to ensure that the aid group did not develop 'institutional helplessness' Any help would be given on a temporary basis, even if the conditions and the problems arising from them were chronic, permanent.
The whole neolib idea is that people should not get too comfortable as that makes them lazy and dependent; everybody should be kept on their toes, striving and be made to feel that they are unworthy to expect more. Those who succeeded to have a good lifestyle had achieved that through working hard, and making good financial decisions. Those who aren't socially and financially upwardly mobile are lesser beings, and are a drag on society.
That is the viewpoint of this economic and social culture we now have. Once you understand this, you will also understand recent history, and why so many things negative to the citizens have been done, questioned as negative, but then repeated, or carried out in a different form.
If you want to change anything, you need to understand what you are up against and find a way to go around, get leverage into, the fortress mentality that is around the pump-houses for this neolib economy. To the denizens rewarded by the neo-lib economy the problems of the 'outsiders' are a bit remote, the mouthings of the street dwellers separated by thick glass windows from the warm interior with everything conducive to enjoyment. For many, our societal divide and the real problems of nearly 50% are similar to many computer games of aimless attacks and defence.
I think Rosemary would know all this, and it illuminates the background to her efforts and her feelings of anger at the refusal to respect her work and assist her when she and others in similar circumstances, need more practical support and funding to enable them to have a simple life that can be enjoyed.
You know what has been the saddest part of this GWS?
That honesty and transparency have been sacrificed by so many players. Back in 2013 when National/Maori/Act rushed through the Part 4 amendment I dived down a rabbit hole determined to find out the why and the how and the who of this sorry saga.
I already knew from reading decisions and sitting in Courtrooms that 'truth' was a variable concept and that the Ministry of Health Disability Support Services struggled with accurate descriptions of of what services they were funding and how they managed to meet the support needs of eligible disabled clients who required advanced personal cares that they, MOH DSS, were not funding the contracted providers enough $$$ to provide. They never once admitted that this was the case, and that for many the only option other than institutional care was care from a family member. This very probably accounts for some of the at least 244 family carers who were being paid. Through dodgy back door deals that the Ministry claimed no knowledge of.
Yet the contracted providers were happy to do these deals because if no one was paid to provide the care they didn't get to clip the ticket.
So I followed that stream of $$$.
Then I followed the $$$ that both Labour then National were more than happy for the Ministry of Health to send to 'advocacy' organisations, 'charities,' who purported to represent disabled people and family carers. $$$ that flowed providing they either kept quite about the Atkinson case, or in the case of Carers NZ actively spoke out against the policy that this Current Mob has promised today to initiate.
Prior to the legislative outrage that was the amendment to the Public Health and Disability Act (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0022/latest/whole.html) there was very little in the way of support from these MOH funded advocacy groups. These group were funded under the provisions in the 2000 PHDAct because that Act demanded consumer advisory groups. Helps enormously to push through shit policies if your 'advisors' are dependent on your largesse to survive.
All very messy and all very incestuous and I'll be closer to content if these deceptions and misrepresentations are admitted to and apologised for.
I fear I'll sit below contentment for some time yet.
It has been hard to follow your journey Rosemary for me reading it. Your dogged efforts have been much harder and I do hope you have received the assistance that you and other carers deserve. The prosy goings on of MPs going for a successful career rather than serving the people is sickening. And the contrast I read some years ago, between one well-known female's negative opinion of citizens medical needs and what she accepted as her right when her own child needed treatment because of neglecting her health regime, was startling.
It's amazing how people can just be chopped off the list if the list is too long. That is basically how government agencies manage their work. Not satisfactory when looking after a family member with limited mobility etc. My sister is doing some part-time teaching which the agency refuses to pay her for because she didn't tick the right box. She has decided to give that claim away but do it differently next time so it fits. You have to be nimble to keep up with the players in government these days, they never were perfect, but the old-style government didn't employ thousands of PR people to smooth out wrinkles.
Here is hoping for smooth unfolding of the proper system. I look forward to the fat lady singing; used to think that was sexist, now I think it is a declaration of strength and purpose.
SPC. Back in 2008 when the Atkinson "Family Carer Case" was being heard at the Human Rights Review Tribunal the Ministry of Health's expert numbers guy came up with a projected costing for paying family carers of between $17 to 593 million.
So the very big and scary numbers swirling around this issue are nothing new.
And bless him, the numbers guy for the plaintiffs, the family carers, put his estimated costs at $32-64 million.
Guess what this Government have budgeted to rectify this injustice?
Yes. I just heard that. Works out at about 9 hours care per week for someone with high/very/complex needs. Hmmmm….you trying to piss on our parade Sacha?
Yes. Big shout out to Catherine (we miss you in the Greens) Delahunty.
To say she was a staunch supporter would be an understatement. They broke the mould.
Paula Tesoriero stepped firmly into Paul Gibson's very large shoes and nailed how the insecurity of vital supports could easily provide disabled fodder for the EOLC Bill.
Yes! She has been very involved in this from the get go as you know. I was speaking to Catherine today. She is happy that they have finally got there. But she is happy to be writing and enjoying life at the moment. Still lots of advocacy work being done.
I’m very pleased for you, that this has finally come through, and I let Catherine know that you have been looking anxiously for something like this.
Parents and spouses will be paid up to $25.50 an hour to look after ill or disabled family members under new changes announced today by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
The changes will come into effect in 2020 once legislation has gone through a select committee process which will include public consultation.
…
They confirmed that the Government would repeal part 4A of the NZ Public Health and Disability Act…
Indeed. And I took great delight in thanking Jo for her work so far on these issues…she co authored the Spinal Cord Impairment Strategy Situation Analysis Paper back in 2012.
(I see it is still available via some weird Public Address thingy…I remember when it got totally lost and we had to Wayback it. Happens to some of the good stuff. )
Thanks Patricia…still a little suspicious (hey, its been 20years in the borning…I'm allowed a little cynicism ) but reading the links that Sacha has put up it does seem that this is something ALL the Current Mob agree on.
I'm asking why now, and why not even a hint at Budget time?
So this was inevitable. The decision would be over payment anount and budget inclusion – this would involve the who and consistency with other decisions (such as ending younger spouse qualifying).
Perhaps having to prove to Winston/et al the money is available? Or perhaps the legislation wasn't ready? Or they wanted to do it properly and keep control rather than Treasury or others? Time will tell.
You have every right to be cynical, but I'm more hopeful than any time in 20 years. I do believe they care and are trying to undo some pretty entrenched attitudes and bad legislation.
I just hope they get in again and continue with the work.
About 400 people currently claim funded family care and with the $32 million cash injection the government estimates another 640 families will take up the scheme.
It sounds very encouraging, and hopefully that is how it plays out for the assistance to all those impacted by such circumstances…
Do you know when the finer details might be available for someone such as yourself to assess and comment on?
From the stuff article linked to by Sacha (cheers), the high level reads as encouraging and positive…but that would need to be assessed against the present restrictions and inequalities such as you have regularly posted on at this site…
If you get the opportunity to comment on the details over time, that would be appreciated….
Hey One Two. No one will be searching and eventually scrutinising the finer details closer than myself when they are revealed.
It appears there will be Select Committee hearings and a chance to make submissions.
Even though we have thrown so much of ourselves over the years into this and have become almost permanently cynical about the whole issue, Peter and I will endeavour to participate in good faith in this process.
Good faith generally means to discuss with each other any matter which affects the delivery of the disability support services in an open way so that all matters are "on the table", to be active and constructive in establishing and maintaining a good relationship, being responsive, providing information, and not doing anything that might mislead or deceive each other .
Law changes, announced by the Government on Sunday, would also remove the requirement for an "employment relationship between a disabled person and their family member.
Associate Minister of Health Julie-Ann Genter said the Government would be considering "alternative options" for the employment arrangement…
Really pleased to see Carers Alliance stalwart John Forman at the do at Government House. Unlike the secretariat of Carers NZ, John was always outspoken about the need for better recognition of the work families do for those with very high support needs. He was positively spewing when the Part 4 amendment to the PHD Act was passed.
I was speaking with another family carer earlier and we were trying to guess at what the finer details might be.
Got to thinking that perhaps the way round the issue with some parent carers not happy being employees of their children might be to have the carers as employees of a contracted provider, who then accepts the contract to provide care for the client.
This was one of the mechanisms whereby the 244 family carers who were being paid a wage that the HRRT heard about in 2008 were able to be paid.
The other mechanism was through Individualised Funding.
What still sticks in my craw is that none of those contracted providers who were clipping the funding ticket by enabling the back door payment of a family carer ever fronted up in the submissions or the consultation workshops in 2012…and even worse the NZDSN came over all hand wringlingly concerned at the risk of having family carers paid….when their own professional staff were doing such a fine job.
Moreover none, and I repeat absolutely none, of the family carers who were being paid despite the discriminatory policy ever fronted up to either the media or in a publicly accessible submission before or after those arseholes in the National, Maori and Act parties rushed through that legislation.
Their reward was to have a sizable extension to the period set out in that legislation that they could continue to enjoy the financial benefits of having the dignity of paid work.
Shit.
So much of it has flowed from this issue over the years it will take more than happy clappy announcements. An inquiry? At least an apology from the Ministry of Health Disability Support Services?
Thanks Sacha for putting up those links. (We were out earlier and I can't do the link thing from my phone.)
This may be part of the trend to individualism in support – so those unable to work because of their care role, themselves receive support.
We can see steps to this, in PL, in continuing support for those with young children (including WFF).
There is only limited access to the JSB (old UB) for those with partners (heavily means tested) and unpaid “voluntary” workers are not yet entitled to the JSB (while they are unavailable to work).
The sort of smart targeted UI to those unable to be part of the paid workforce economy.
In that regard eventually focus will have to fall on the 90,000 on SLP and its amount adequacy – this is lower than Super and to people who may never own property and or develop private savings.
The 'Supported' Living Payment is a joke. An absolute insult and contemptuous of those who would work if they could work but they can't. It's as if its been set at a level that drives you so low you lose the will to live.
Living as a couple on the SLP was hard…year after year…and the final straw was having to remortgage our home to pay for vital repairs in 2010. Then having extra $$$ to pay per week from the same amount of benefit because we only borrowed the barest minimum and this was not enough to qualify for even a dollar of Accommodation Allowance.
When Peter graduated to the National Super and we went into the local office to sort it out, we were invited to sit in a special 'Seniors' waiting area….separate from the rank and file on the Jobseekers, SLP and DPB.
We said no thanks to their 'special' seats.
The few dollars extra per week on the Super made an enormous amount of difference and living most of the time in the Bus we could actually save a few $$$ per week.
Dershowitz trying to bury his misdeeds, again. Of course the vile Epstein gets a mention as does tRumps labour secretary, Alexander Acosta.
It’s a high-stakes war between two of the country’s most powerful lawyers. Their feud, simmering for years, involves accusations of extortion, surreptitious recordings, unethical conduct and underage sex trafficking.
Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz has filed four bar complaints in three states — all of which have been dismissed — in a quest to disqualify lawyer David Boies and one of his partners who represent a woman accusing Dershowitz of sexually abusing her when she was underage, newly filed court records show.
[…]
In the lawsuit, two of Epstein’s victims claimed that federal prosecutors in Florida had improperly brokered a non-prosecution agreement in 2008 with Epstein and his lawyers without informing them, as was required by law. The deal, negotiated by then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, was signed and sealed in secret, and by the time Epstein’s victims learned about the deal — months later — it was too late for them to object.
Epstein was allowed to plead guilty in state court to two prostitution charges and served 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal work release, including permission to use his own valet to pick him up at the jail every day and take him to his office in downtown Palm Beach.
Edwards and Cassell argued that the deal was illegal, and in February, a federal judge agreed, affirming that Acosta and other prosecutors violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by misleading Epstein’s victims into believing that prosecutors and the FBI were still investigating the case when they had quietly disposed of it.
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.
Well, NZ prisoners have a 70% recidivism rate within two years, so these imports are actually bucking the trend. Though, if the real figures of those committing crimes were known, they might compete handily with the 'locals'.
The campaign of Big Pharma to crack our effective Pharmac goes on, helped by Guyon Espiner's expose' of how cancer patients can't access every latest medicine at no matter what the cost. And there are numerous examples of people afflicted, who have families and good lives, and don't want to die. It wrenches the heart to think of them. Cancer takes so many these days, and it's not good enough. Everyone who dies from cancer is said to have battled with it in their death notices. The fact that cancer is so widespread and cuts into people's lives is a major disgrace, worse than rheumatoid arthritis in NZ children, rotting teeth etc.
The ailments that particularly affect the poor are not so well-publicised with fewer, less glamorous people giving anecdotes of their pain and suffering and need. The well-heeled provide the target ammunition of choice for Big Pharma to aim at us. Big Pharma have chosen cancer as the problem of the wealthy, and there is potential big money in selling NZ their wonder drugs, at as high profit as possible. (By the way I think NZ is the only other country besides the USA to allow medicines to be advertised on television.) The sufferers and their specialists, would like to win another year or so at the expense of the nation's sufferers of other diseases and ailments, maybe some of them will work. The idea seems to be 'Let us try them, we may be able to alleviate the symptoms.' Note, not cure them.
I think it would be most reasonable, that the people who wish to try these drugs should have tax relief on the payments they make. That would be fair. But hearing that one person lived for ten years, not the one-year which had been the reckon of the specialist, doesn't mean that the public system can or should shell out huge sums for those considering themselves deserving. We can't afford it. Please note that, and that we are about to be hit by tropical diseases, are being hit by stress diseases, stronger influenzas, resurgence of tricky tuberculosis and others not thought about much – ebola? Our government can't even fund proper, modern conditions for all women for childbirth, our time of life creation which requires real hard work for a number of people, plus facilities better than the fields, and huts of third world countries. Let's get real, treat sick and terminally ill people well, but don't allow the monolithic greed of Profit to take precedence.
Pharmac are not satisfied with the cost-effectiveness of most of the new drugs, but that doesn't count to the protesters because other countries have bowed to them like Australia, and the UK and no doubt the USA where all are rich and the government helps every citizen!? So why can't we be like those other countries and just follow foreign precedent like we usually do?
An unofficial information campaign as to how Kiwis can cross the Tasman and access their health care treatments for cancer would be a nice balance to their deportation policy.
It is the nature of modern media to thrive on a battle a day somewhat but..
From the outside, it seems the EU is using a representative democracy system, not first past the post or direct democracy, with it's proportioned parliament body of the citizen vote.
So it seems quite reasonable that the Who is the How, & the how is not direct but representational in what works ( & in this case the experts are respective govt. ministers which seems fair), that is in enabling a package that can incorporate a majority block in providing legitimacy of the citizen vote.
So there seems like a lot of common sense interest is built into the system to respect but work together with the differences resulting from the citizen vote(s), along with clear enough lines of accountability the EU citizen voter could follow in system negligence. Seems pretty good all things considered.
"Britain’s ambassador in the United States has described President Donald Trump and his administration as “inept” and “uniquely dysfunctional”, according to ‘leaked’ diplomatic memos published by the Mail on Sunday. Ambassador Kim Darroch reportedly said Trump’s presidency could “crash and burn” and “end in disgrace”, in the cache of secret cables and briefing notes sent back to Britain and seen by the newspaper."
Providing such advice to the British govt seems unusual for a tory diplomat. No rightist solidarity in sight. Things must be grim for him to be so blunt!
"Darroch is one of Britain’s most experienced diplomats whose posting in Washington DC began in January 2016, prior to Trump winning the presidency. The Mail on Sunday said the memos, likely leaked by someone within Britain’s sprawling civil service, cover a period beginning in 2017."
Yeah Trump's in bed with the whole Brexit Party sideshow. Carving up Britain for privatisation is the end goal. NHS firmly in their sights. The Tories would like to do that for themselves, not American upstarts.
joe90 linked to a map with all the ties: climate denial, big oil, PR companies, loads of journalists and industrialists, Trump and Boris smack bang in the middle of it.
A simultaneous siphoning of government (public) funds offshore also taking place through layers of shell companies, many of which trace back to this network of nincompoops. Which side which is on (Tory/Brexiteer) is likely all smoke and mirrors too.
Meanwhile, the NYT has despatches from the front in the American Revolutionary War (in Trump's alternate reality). Here's one from Philadelphia International Airport:
The Washington Post is featuring President Trump’s Revolutionary War quiz. "5. True or false?: When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he deliberately did not mention lesbian soccer stars, Muslim mayors of London or kneeling NFL players."
From a commenter: "More evidence, which people will only acknowledge in hindsight, that Trump has early stage dementia." Another: "Pence rushed back from NH because Trump went completely mental and he was needed to help talk him down from the ceiling, or take over as President if the strong anti-psychotics didn’t work."
Sorry, guys, I know the RNZ National listeners amongst you have already had an unpleasant up-close-and-personal with that nasty propagandist Simon Schama yesterday, but here's another right wing Labourite to ruin what's left of your Sunday. It's my duty to inform you that the ethical vacuum that is Gordon Brown has predictably joined the McCarthyite chorus.
Talk on LBC about possible thoughts of Queen on a proroguing parliament.
LBC is a talk-back radio which was called London Broadcast Company owned by Global (It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions,). I just include that for people who don't talk in acronym language.
They're talking in the UK about trying to get May's November? agreement through as things get worse with the Conservatives so screwed up they can't find a suitable leader for their Party, never mind someone suitable to lead the country. The people in prominence seem oblivious to their responsibilities to the people, and the Irish agreements could fizzle away; the Brits seem to be like those who were irresponsible for the Potato Famine there. What a pigsmuddle, pigs are relatively clean, despite their brown noses, compared to the UK. Should we start organising food parcels to the people as in WW2?
Stephen Kinnock spells out the bottom line – no time for wishing-and-hoping and standing on soapboxes.
6 July 2019 In a move that further exposes bitter divisions between Labour MPs over Brexit, Stephen Kinnock says supporting the withdrawal agreement bill (WAB) is now the only realistic way out of the impasse for those who want to leave with a deal, while offering hope to those supporting another referendum….
Kinnock, the MP for Aberavon, says that with a Boris Johnson premiership looking increasingly likely, the country is “staring down the barrel” of a no-deal exit, which would harm fragile communities, compromise national security and endanger the Irish peace process.
He argues that because MPs have effectively run out of parliamentary options to prevent no deal, it is time for Labour to face reality and for Corbyn to order his MPs to get an admittedly imperfect but far from disastrous Brexit agreement through, in the national interest. The alternative, he warns, could be a general election before Brexit has been delivered that would be just as damaging to Labour as it would be to the Tories, and a gift to “single issue” parties including Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
“The WAB is far from ideal. Yet because of concessions to demands made by Labour during cross-party talks it does provide the only feasible means of preventing no deal,” Kinnock says.
There seems to be a confusion between examining the suggestions and the basic situation, and whether the suggested move is to benefit the MP's electorate and its steel works. It is a pity that there is no ability to actually look at the scenarios that exist and choose the least hurtful one. Could we expect in supposed democracies that there would be set ways of making decisions where there are cross-arguments tripping up reasoned thinking??
Horse racing pundit, broadcaster and journalist John McCririck has passed away. A quintessentially English eccentric and all round loon, McCririck was as funny AF and always worth the watch.
Will Hutton at The Guardian considers that Labour has temporised for so long over Brexit and 'What to do? – Hold the line!' that tempus fugit has almost past the finishing line.
By refusing to take up arms, the Labour party has colluded with the Brexit right, created the opening for the Lib Dems and Greens and thus permitted the emergence of a new multi-party system. If Labour continues to temporise, the first past the post electoral system will fell it. The Lib Dems, unapologetic Remainers who are beginning to recognise that their Keynesian tradition offers better policies for the times than soft Thatcherism, have the opportunity to become the new anchor of British progressive politics – strengthened, if they are sufficiently strategic, by working closely with the Greens.
We know coal is bad for the climate but our jobs are at stake here.
We all have mortgages to pay.
If we didn't do it someone else would.
I know people are dying, but that’s somewhere else, not here.
I'm really with you Greenies, The pay is good, I just need the money. When I have saved enough, I am going to quit this coal mining job, buy a lifestyle block and go completely off grid live a sustainable lifestyle. See if I don't.
"Mizutori said the time for such arguments had ran out. “We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive,” she told the Guardian. “We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience.”
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
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David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
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Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
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TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
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we started what is going on now and probably will be going on for years to come this massive chaos, killing, death, starvation, states failing and so forth. Syria, Libya, Iraq, and possibly Lebanon, maybe Jordan. […] What we have is chaos and we produce that chaos. Just as sure as we produce the chaos, we produced ISIS. […] We produced all this by that really unwise decision in 2003 to invade Iraq. […] The campaign to convince the American people to support the war in Iraq which is quite effective and when you consider it was built on a house of lies, it was quite effective.
Lets not forget the NZ context of the time …. national all but calling helen clarke a traitor … ie
John Key : We need to get some guts …. and partake in three white eyes illegal invasion /war …. leading to millions dead …. and tens of millions refugees'
Wayne mapp: we could be missing out on trade deals …. if we don't partake in three white eyes illegal war / invasion …. leading to millions dead …. and tens of millions refugees'
fast forward 16 years
A masterstroke of dirty politics …. blame the victims of your actions …. gain votes from racist retards …
Getting two ticks support from racist white inbreeds to stupid to see the cause of their 'invasion'
It takes a seriously degenerative , dim witted, low grade form of supremacy …. to not see cause and effect.
… The usa alone had used 100,000 bombs and missiles on the people of Iraq and syria ….over the period of2014-2017 ….two or three years worth from memory
others can feel free to google search this 100,000 bombs and missiles count
I've been conservative … and our collective ignorance of it speaks to 5 white eyes lynch club mentality.
Indifference is a true barometer of our western racism … ie if you don’t give a fuck , what motivates that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB3B-SSXKII
[Removed double spacing to improve readability]
we started what is going on now and probably will be going on for years to come this massive chaos, killing, death, starvation, states failing and so forth.
That's not only ignorant, it grossly overestimates the significance of your own culture. The peoples of the Middle East are as capable of slaughtering each other for ridiculous reasons as the people of Europe or any other region, and their history shows that quite clearly if you bother to look at it.
"We" as in western liberal democracies certainly bear some responsibility for conflicts that are happening at the moment, but let's not pretend locals have no agency over their own countries' affairs.
Wayne mapp asks if you will also clean his feet …. after washing his hands
I've noted your racist slurs about 'explosive' muslims before …. where your mouth and sterotype smears seemed to line up with your avatar…. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/images/combating-hate/hate-on-display/c/ss-divisional-insignia-2.jpg?itok=H0isQ_UW
100,000 bombs and missiles rained down on Iraq and syrian people …. is a culture you couldn't give a fuck about PM … or so your comment appears.
But moving on ….. and in the interests of education…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Bsxd4EMpo
[Removed double spacing to improve readability]
I see you're as ignorant of the meaning of my avatar as you are about the history of the Middle East.
+1000 Well said.
Was going to post this link – but decided it was better to just ignore such crass ignorance/incoherence.
https://theartofcrass.uk/
oh touche
How crass would be the misrepresentation of a dead three year old girl … as a Taliban fighter.
Although I appreciate it's not the sort of thing …. that offends you as much as bad manners ………..
Eliot Abrams shares your kindred views …. your rude and ridiculous is the important issue ….
For petty spankers lost without a moral compass ,,,,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm-DThEYyiE
[Removed double spacing to improve readability]
You completely missed why I used the word "Crass" and its connection to Psycho Milt's avatar, which is not a Nazi symbol – it is an anti-war symbol.
See 1.3 below.
Whoosh lol
The clue was in the link 😆
poooooh.
"I've noted your racist slurs about 'explosive' muslims before …. where your mouth and sterotype smears seemed to line up with your avatar…. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/images/combating-hate/hate-on-display/c/ss-divisional-insignia-2.jpg?itok=H0isQ_UW "
WTF?
(Shakes head)
It is a symbol of an anti-war band and record label ffs
Thanks chris This is very important ….We should all take offense …. that much is obvious … ….ffs indeed
99 out of 100 real life white supremacist inbreeds …. would see PMs logo and go "Brother".
And having 99 out of a 100 racist inbreeds thinking he is one of them ….
Is out of PMs control.
Crass, crass ,crass ….. to even bring up that 99 out of 100 neo nazi fuckwits would identify PM as being one of them.
How could we blame PM for the stupidity of 99 out of 100 inbreed fascists.
TS members should educate these illiterate neo nazis … the moron white pride idiots who think they are 'european knights' …. spelt nights to some of them.
https://youtu.be/6dj71ywmuOY
It shows the stupidity PM is up against ….. as they identify him … as one of their own.
Nazi bastards …
[Please do not use double spacing in your long comments; I have removed them in this comment. Please dial back the aggressive language and personal insults directed at commenters here – Incognito]
99 out of 100 real life white supremacist inbreeds …. would see PMs logo and go "Brother".
They would? I guess it must be true, because you've asserted it, right? Still, it's odd how no right-wingers who've seen my comments have felt like calling me "brother" afterwards – perhaps they actually read the comments…
But you're only saying that because of the assumption that you leapt to. So all your imaginary survey says is that you believe that 99% of fascist-adjacents would share your instinctive assumption in this regard.
See my Moderation note @ 3:52 PM.
Tony Blair scoffs at the Iraqi people's "imaginary grievances."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_politics/4773124.stm
The conflict in the middle East is entirely a creation of the Western powers, dating from the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent division into States, with puppet rulers, subservient to Western oil interests.
Toppling the Democratic Government in Iran, in the 1950's, was just one of very many, ignorant and self serving interventions by the West.
To say that conflict was inevitable, without Western influence, shows a profound ignorance of history.
A united and peaceful middle East, with control over much of the worlds oil, has never been in Western interests.
All the Western economies are dependent on both cheap oil, controlled by Western oil companies, and arms sales to the perpetual wars.
Politically, the USA needs a WestAsia, or EastAsia. A perpetual enemy to prevent revolt, and keep the war driven economic stimulus, at home.
And the Empire didn't spend the thick end of 700 years putting entire populations to the sword and installing rulers, subservient to Ottoman interests?
Of course.
"They did it too" is not a justification.
And all the despots, artificial borders, wars and "regime changes" since then have been imposed by first, the WW1 allies and later by the USA.
Fatalistic I know, but the waxing and waning of empire is the human condition. Everything is temporary.
https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace#global-war-deaths-between-1400-and-today-the-size-of-the-bubble-shows-the-percentage-of-world-population-killed-the-hague-centre-for-strategic-studiesref
To say that conflict was inevitable, without Western influence, shows a profound ignorance of history.
Oh right, a Sunni empire run by Turks would have just lived happily ever after, united and peaceful, if it hadn't been for those duplicitous westerners. Foolishly imagining that there are major ethnic, cultural and religious divisions between peoples in the Middle East shows a "profound ignorance of history." How could I have been so stupid?
Devious …. not stupid
don't sell yourself short PM
Why don't you sing your Libya is better off … thanks to NATO …song for me and TS again….
Better off you claimed ….
Which it is for slave traders , radical Isis type jihadists … war-lords and criminals .
Fuck the genocide treatment towards black libya citizens … with slavery and sex trafficking …
Fuck Libya women …. with their treatment under jihadi … welcome back child brides and servitude to men in the saudi style.
Fuck the citizens who have lost all the gains of a modern society …
According to PM they are all better off …. If we keep sight of the important issues
Which you can explain to us again …
It sounded like bullshit last time PM said it….but perhaps you'll vomit it up better this time …
Give us your white eyes twisted warmongers view of how the Libyan people are better off … forget about being Waynes little hand washer
Sing PM…. Wayne may provide organ grinder music …. because he's a great guy and knows your NATO song sheets inside out.
[Removed double spacing to improve readability]
See, there's another fine example. You pretend that "the West" deposed your beloved dictator Gaddafi, as though the people who rebelled against him had no agency and were mere dupes of the liberal democracies. It can be argued that western goverments shouldn't have helped the rebels, but if the rebels had lost there would have been a bloodbath afterwards, with resulting blood feuds to go down through the generations, pretty much like there have been since the rebels won. Sometimes it doesn't make any sense to try and make a good guys vs bad guys story out of real-world events.
Your telling of history is more self serving than wayne mapp ….
And do you think if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes true ??
Its becoming crystal clear you have as much care for the victims of our illegal wars based on bullshit …. as Alwyn does for the pike river miners.
Him blaming Andrew little for pike river … and your racist dishonest hand washing over our western and NATO slaughter wars …. tell us the truth about both your honesty ….. and how you really think.
I can believe you do feel better off ….
Again, it's not clear who you think you're arguing with here or what it is that you're arguing. It seems to be addressed to be me, but not in any way that makes sense.
100% KJT – read Robert Fisk's "Great War For Civilisation" and weep
Fisk is perhaps more relevant than ever ….
His education deconstructs a lot of PMs … 'english' history
Trustworthy information … and if some details are incorrect …. Its not through a lack of honesty
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jared-kushner-middle-east-peace-solution-deal-syria-trump-a8988136.html
And a video about culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZM7-ICS90w
[Removed double spacing to improve readability]
[Also deleted duplicate video clip]
His education deconstructs a lot of PMs … 'english' history
It reads like "PM" is intended to be me, but in that case the comment makes no sense.
Wars built on lies ….. to you … mean nothing.
Libya
And although you think Gaddafi getting a NATO lynch mob death was good stuff …. "better off " in your words … it was both symbolic, and the prelude to what was about to happen to their whole society.
Others can reflect on the children and other victims..,. while you make bullshit excuses…. and show your racist stripes.
A devious liar telling lies to justify wars based on lies … Any outrage over Assange by you …. shows huge hypocrisy … stretched so thin even a blind man could see through you
https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/images/zdocs/Libya-Italy-Report-03-2019.pdf
Reason you have put up a lot of thoughtful stuff about war, world politics etc. I hope you have noted the way that the moderator has tidied up your comments. The present program gives double spacing when Enter is used and your comments got really spaced-out. And at the end it tends to add lots of spacing so you need to come up to just after your last full stop to limit that. That should make it easier to follow your thinking without extra mod work.
100% reason 🙂 war crime after war crime after war crime. The Nuremburg declaration that hung the nazis for aggressive war doesn't apply to our WAR CRIMS.
The Nuremburg declaration that hung [sic] the nazis….
The word is "hanged."
Interesting! Morrissey. apparently both are legit usage.
Simple past
I
hanged; hung
you
hanged; hung
he/she/it
hanged; hung
we
hanged; hung
you
hanged; hung
they
hanged; hung
https://en.bab.la/conjugation/english/hang
Thanks, john. Whichever way, I'm looking forward to this news item, circa 2031…
Don't hang out for that news re Blair Morrissey. I wonder what will be happening in 2031 – how many years away – 12. Would you like to list present problems and where the solutions have got to?
I will ignore any wrong syntax? as I like people to express their ideas without having preachy or prosy others jumping in to raise diversions. A welcome distraction no doubt, but f..k annoying to people who want to see discussion on the immense and dramatic themes of the day. (I went to a Pop-up Globe production of Hamlet yesterday, couldn't hear or understand some of the language but kept watching and listening of course, and followed the story ok. It seemed very contemporary except for the clothing! Those famous speeches were powerful; What a piece of work is man, How noble his reason…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLAzfQDS3M
To sleep perchance to dream. Hal asked if he would dream in Space Odyssey 2001. Perhaps the machines will be quoting our human Shakespeare to us, showing us the workings of their compassion circuits. (They were the basis of a SF short story I have read recently that has perverse results that the machine had not the imagination to comprehend. However that could be covered by better programming no doubt.) Sorry, I can't help thinking of the likely future when I look at the present posture.
Thank you Morrissey, I was taught that too.
Psycho Milt using the Crass logo as his avatar is a insult to their legacy and most of what they stood for..but then Milt wouldn't get that….it’s like when I am out riding and see fat guys wearing the Yellow jersey of the Tour de France…no respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jce4-CXTXzA
No it isn't
yes it is…
No it isn't plus infinity and 1
Phil, can you please stop double-spacing your lines.
More than enough to read already.
Cheers.
@incognito – thank you. feel free to delete my comment.
I/we rarely delete (whole) comments unless they are obvious duplicates and technical or ‘thick finger’ glitches. Please leave to sockpoppet guesses to the moderators as it tends to distract and inflame.
Sorry, had a reply from that handle previously confirming identity but I take your point.
The Great Noam Chomsky talks to Democracy now. The rise of fascism in the '30s and its echos with the rise of ultra nationalism now. Plus the positive popular movements against it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIHZZ6qlgI
Oooooh, that's gonna sting. Rooskies are laughing at Grand Marshal Bonespurs "low energy" "weak" parade.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/russia-state-media-mocks-trump-july-4-parade.html?via=homepage_taps_top
To be fair, pretty much everything about the Trump presidency looks like a fat, slow-moving blimp to people seeking targets for mockery.
Yeah, but very little of it penetrates that awesome ego-shield the BLOTUS has around him. That one might do it, tho.
Yep Julius Prawnhead will be upside himself on this one. He'll be hurting alright. Weak and low energy are not what he wants to project.
Hmm, yes – mockery from the likes of us is one thing, mockery from other nationalist authoritarian leaders you'd like the approval of is quite another.
It was a rubbish parade, disjointed, lacklustre. And the music was worse. Then, the speech.
My Fellow Americans; in 1886 our indomitable navy and its nuclear submarines had managed to surround and subdue the evil Martian forces attempting a beachhead on the dark side of the moon…
Taihape's gumboot throwing competition had more excitement than Trumps parade.
It's sad to note that Taihape gumboot contest was on 23rd March this year. Next year let's be there and show the usa how a reverential day out for the masses can shine. Fred Dagg noted the importance of gumboots to the nation (and was on the nail with that). He was my hero and represented good people doing the mahi in an honest way, who will always eclipse town boys, out of condition, with hairpieces.
Nah, he won't mind a bit.
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1147183957571702785
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/07/05/trump-used-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-to-film-a-campaign-ad.html
And neither will Javanka Inc.
Over the weekend, Jared Kushner was credited with negotiating a $110 billion arms deal to the Saudis, the largest arms deal in U.S. history:
Coincidentally, the Saudis have also agreed to donate a whopping $100 million to the recently announced women's fund inspired by Jared Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/5/21/1664578/-On-same-weekend-as-record-breaking-arms-deal-Saudis-announced-100-million-donation-to-Ivanka-fund
But to be fair, the Russians have a long history of serious Russian military parades..some of them rightfully celebrating their pivotal role in defeating European fascism…
like this one..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSmuAofFpSM
Looks like the Trump presidency is now dead in the water. As Joe90 suggested last night, seems he's provided evidence of dementia. Here's the proof: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-revolutionary-war-airports/
The quote from his speech gives sufficient context. “The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do."
The Trump regime is full of deniers, recruited by the denier-in-chief, but if they try to deny this evidence they will just destroy whatever reputation they have. Even conservatives will replay the video and prove it to themselves!
As I suggested last night, this will rapidly become a national security issue for the US administration, and a Wall St run can be expected promptly. Only fair to acknowledge that one swallow does not make a summer, so a pattern of such behaviour will have to be established before a team of experts confirms the diagnosis. However, rumour destroys a reputation real fast, and as soon as Trump + dementia achieves contagion in the US media it will be all over for him.
Pence will go into a crisis cabinet meeting in an extremely strong position, and the other key players will watch Trump's bluster in increasing scepticism. Then it's just a matter of time before they accept the inevitability of the transition…
What is also telling is that the 'world leader'? in technology can't work a teleprompter in the rain.
Geeez
Neither can he work an umbrella in the rain. It's an untenable position, but that's never stopped him before.
They'll find it easier and safer to just do Weekend at Bernie's with him.
If they try to remove him by the 25th Amendment, Donny Dotard is sure to fight it. Then it goes to Congress, where a 2/3 supermajority in both the Senate and the House is needed to remove him. That ain't gonna happen.
It ain't gonna happen because I doubt I even need my second hand, let alone take my shoes off, to count up the total number of Repugs with enough spine to vote to remove Twitterfinger J. Tantrump. They'll be too scared to risk having him go Drumpfzilla on their asses and they'll get primaried by wrathful Drumpfkins. Or hell, spurned Drumpfkins might even be vengeful enough to vote for a Dem in the general election out of sheer spite towards anyone that acted against their fake-bronze idol.
I'm hoping Dave turns up to save the day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_(film)
Dave's too late. The Penguin is in the White House, unfortunately.
"Well, Commissioner, I think we should discard the theory about the Penguin going straight."—Batman.
Trump is safe, so long as he keeps giving millionaires their, tax cuts!
Whereas Pence & Pompeo will have primary leverage on the situation, watch what this guy says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Esper
He's only three weeks into the job of acting Secretary of Defense, but he's heartland establishment. "Esper was chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, from 1996 to 1998."
"He was policy director for the House Armed Services Committee from 2001 to 2002. From 2002 to 2004, Esper served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy, where he was responsible for a broad range of nonproliferation, arms control, and international security issues. He was director for national security affairs for the U.S. Senate"… He served as the 23rd United States Secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019. Prior to his current position, he served as Vice President of government relations at Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor."
But it will require a consensus of the Trump cabinet to control the president, and today they will be waking up to the new reality and wondering how to harness an increasingly loose cannon…
Seriously, how is this any different to him being a compulsive bullshitter? Symptomatically, they're identical.
For Dolt45's bullshit about airports to be a sign of dementia, facts would have to be relevant to his existance. They never have been. Not just in the last few years, but ever. He's cultivated an image of success while being incapable of running a casino. He called reporters pretending to be other people to be his own character reference. His claims of wealth were based on lies. Buildings and businesses paid to use his name when he had nothing to do with them.
For seventy years the fool has simply said whatever sounded good at the time. The only people who give a serious shit about this speech are people who think that facts have some shred of relevance to his behaviour.
His followers will remember it sounded good at the time, and explain it away as trolling liberal elites if people point out the absurdity of what he actually said.
What's symptomatically different about now compared to his lifelong history of bullshit is once upon a time he could string together complete sentences into paragraphs that were consistent with a coherent train of thought, even when the thought itself was objectively nonsense. He simply can't do that anymore. And even just during his time in office there's been a noticeable decline in what comes out of his mouth bearing any resemblance to trying to convey a coherent idea.
and:
Yeah, but assuming a decline, is that dementia or just the result of decades of putting as little as possible effort into bullshit?
When I was a bouncer, a colleague mentioned that before he'd started the work he'd been a chill and mellow dude, after five years he was a sour bastard. Having pushed a keyboard for ten years, that's shaped my personality in another way.
I just think that if you've never had to persuade anyone, engage with anyone, share yourself with anyone, remember anything about anyone, had anyone be critical about your conversation (or had to measure your speech with them), none of it for decades… that's gotta screw up your handle on reality.
Yep – it's a dicey game calling reduced mental functionality – often one thing looks like another.
I'm seeing a substantive difference. If it isn't early onset dementia, he can gloss it by saying he studied real estate at university, not history, but it's still an awful stretch for him. It's more the effect on the other key rightists that will be decisive. If the establishment decides that non-conformist rebellion has actually been replaced by irrational decision-making, they'll pull the plug. Too much at stake.
The examples made of Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, John McCain, Mark Sanford, Justin Amash and even Dean Heller are sufficient to ensure very few Repugs will ever significantly cross Tyrannosaurus Arse.
If you mean the top dog theory (dominance hierarchy) then I don't see it applying. Were you here when Muldoon was in charge? Sure as hell applied then. But you know all them checks & balances designed into the US political structure by the Constitution that we only have a semblance of. Add to that the immense array of powers behind the scenes in the US that we lack. I expect his cabinet to assume control at some point.
That said, I don't discount Trump's survival skills. It hinges on whether dementia is actually a happening thing…
@ DF and Andre
Of course the the other possibility is that he's so totally out of his depth, he’s suffering from cerebral stress which he covers up with his over the top bouts of bullying and bravado.
Then again that might be a form of dementia too.
It might not be actual dementia, but from the outside it's functionally indistinguishable from dementia.
What I mean is that Darth Hater has already demonstrated he will take an intense personal interest in trying to destroy the political career and personal reputation of anyone who demonstrates insufficient loyalty. And usually succeeds. Even when it's detrimental to his actual personal interests and his ability to impose his personal whim on the government.
Note that the cabinet and Pence do not have the ability to remove the genital-grabbing golem from from office if he chooses to fight it. Read up on the 25th Amendment for the process. It would be astonishing if he didn't fight it.
If he is actually successfully removed from office, he won't even have the notional restraint of needing to keep some support in the House and Senate. He would be completely unleashed to go on whatever kind of rampage he wanted on the asses of the Repugs from the House and Senate that voted against him. Even the Kraken would be impressed with the result.
Even in the unlikely event that they manage to fit him with an orange jumpsuit, he could still do an awful lot of damage from behind bars.
A cheeseburger will take him out.
They've been sacrificing themselves by the thousands for decades and haven't succeeded yet.
'The final burger'
Its memory would be revered forever.
monuments erected, etc
Hmm. If dementia is in onset mode, incidences of irrationality will gradually increase. Public concern will increase in proportion. Powers that be will already be seeking to act – yet if you're right they will realise they are confined by a constitutional strait-jacket. In that scenario, everyone ends up in uncharted territory.
National security is the bottom line. If Trump becomes a threat to it, congress/senate will have to agree to an amendment to the constitution to remove the threat, right? Can he veto it if it happens?
A constitutional amendment has to be passed by 2/3 supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, then it goes out to the states where 3/4 of the states have to ratify it before it comes into force. As far as I can tell, the president has no part in constitutional amendments. But the process takes years even for the fastest ones.
The lowest bar to clear for removing the president is impeachment – that only requires a simple majority in the House and 2/3 in the Senate. So if somehow Pence and the cabinet felt an immediate need to remove him, they could immediately get him out using the 25th, then as I understand it, they can keep him out for about a month until it has to go to a vote in the House and Senate. If it looked like they might get 2/3 in the Senate, but not in the House, they could use that month to ram through an emergency impeachment.
But 2/3 in the Senate means all Dems plus 20 Repugs to get to the 67 required. At the moment, the only Repugs that even look like possibles are Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Rand Paul. At a massive stretch you might get Joni Ernst, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rob Portman. Get all of those and it's still 9 short.
Okay, that seems workable. Think beyond the current reality. You know how the market is driven by greed & fear? Fear of Trump losing the plot will suffice to ebb the market once people absorb George Washington taking over the airports.
Then they start wondering what next. Loss of confidence is all it takes to send business into caution mode. Once Wall St shifts, politicians will realise they must follow. Can't make America great again if a premature geriatric is pretending to lead while dropping random irrationalities at times. Not a good look.
A psychiatrist rings the bell about tRump lacking the capacity to make rational decisions.
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1146537257463091201
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/14/yale-psychiatrist-bandy-lee-trumps-mental-health-is-now-a-national-and-global-emergency/
https://dangerouscase.org/
Donald Trump has a more than even chance of being re-elected President of the United States.
Yup. Of the last 7 sitting presidents going for another term, 4 of them got it.
Nancy, I'm worried, should a pre-teen girl like myself feel so disoriented?
(Secret serviceman dives on microphone)
Beyond climate tipping points
Greenhouse gas levels exceed the stability limit of the
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
by Andrew Glikson
The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton of CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂-equivalent, namely when methane and nitrous oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change” is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension, threatening nature and human civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity.
As conveyed by leading scientists “Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences” (Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber) … “We’ve reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don’t know that … There’s a big gap between what’s understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers” (Prof. James Hansen). http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Summary and conclusions
Don't worry.
The US Republican party says it is not happening!
And, our National party agrees it is happening, except when meeting with Fed farmers, but opposes bitterly, any attempt to do anything about it.
Labour will declare a climate emergency, but won't change the RMA, to require anthropogenic global warming to be a factor in decisions.
NZ first will oppose anything, which affects geriatric Queen Street capital gains tax farmers.
The Greens, do not have enough votes yet, to change anything, and our media will rubbish anything they do try.
KJT
Thank you and Goodnight!
Hapu trap Minister's motorcade on bridge, serve trespass notice in a WTF moment for security
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/07/02/tdb-exclusive-nz-spy-minister-motorcade-detained-on-bridge-and-served-trespass-notice-east-coast-maori-refuse-to-allow-crown-to-steal-land-the-way-they-are-stealing-babies/
Let's hope the necessary $10,000 worth of security doesn't become mandatory in NZ for every festival.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/murwillumbah-banana-festival-forced-to-cancel-annual-street-parade-due-to-cost-of-anti-terror-rules/ar-AADqlcF?li=AAgfLCP
Well. This is going to be interesting.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12235325
"Looming crisis: nearly 500,000 unpaid carers and a rapid ageing population"
This afternoon the Government is expected to make an announcement about a disability law that has been described as a "shame on society" and overhaul its policy on paying families who care for their disabled loved ones. Health reporter Emma Russell looks at the reason for change.
Every morning Geoff Wales would wake at the crack of dawn – often distressed."
The rest is behind the paywall…and I'm disinclined to spend even a dollar on what is likely to be wispy and watered down policy that will confuse the issue taken to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and a ridiculous number of High and Appeal Courts who all decided that those of us providing a high level of care to disabled family members should be paid as any other carer providing the same supports.
Please god let me be proven wrong.
I hope they pay you and others for the support you all give to your loved ones. This just has to be fixed – it is a blight on our society.
Fingers crossed for you and all the caregivers and disabled subject to callous disregard. I've barely spoken on all this as I'm out of my depth. I do think you've been minimised and treated poorly and it is a sad indictment on NZ where our most vulnerable get a shit deal.
Fingers crossed on both hands, rabbits foot, four leaf clover…
Good Luck!
The support is appreciated, and I'd just like to say that is not only jaded and cynical moi that has few hopes the the kind of policy 900 of us discussed last year for this piece of work ( https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/targeted_engagement_on_funded_family_care_and_paid_family_care_20_november_2018.pdf
will actually come to fruition.
What really concerns me is already the headlines are talking about 500,000 unpaid carers which is bullshit in the context of Ministry of Health Disability Support Services clients which the Family Carer cases were about. No time to dig right now but at the last count, MOH;DSS barely had 40,000 clients in total, for the whole country. Most of those with very high support needs are reciveing funding for their care. There are only a few who are entirely cared for by unpaid family carers.
This is the kind of alarmist crap that Ryall pumped out back in 2012/2013. The Herald can only have got wind of this announcement from…someone in government?
SSDD.
[Removed white space]
The concern from risk-averse government has always been the precedent broader than DSS budgets – the 500k total would be across all government portfolios and life situations. Still easy enough to address the scope and repeal this bullshit law, you'd think.
The neolib influenced government agencies were advised in the 1980’s that vulnerable people should be given less services designed specially to help them, and that they should be integrated into and supported by the community.
This would take the responsibility of providing funding for care and support being a charge on the taxation system which could then be reduced to allow the already wealthy and c-off to keep more of 'their well-earned money resulting from their hard work'. When they had problems themselves, they would be able to access help from the state and supplement it with spending to suit their own individual standards.
The rest who just wanted good basic help as needed for their particular condition could take part in a lolly scramble of grants to be applied for, and which would be available for a finite time and then stopped to ensure that the aid group did not develop 'institutional helplessness' Any help would be given on a temporary basis, even if the conditions and the problems arising from them were chronic, permanent.
The whole neolib idea is that people should not get too comfortable as that makes them lazy and dependent; everybody should be kept on their toes, striving and be made to feel that they are unworthy to expect more. Those who succeeded to have a good lifestyle had achieved that through working hard, and making good financial decisions. Those who aren't socially and financially upwardly mobile are lesser beings, and are a drag on society.
That is the viewpoint of this economic and social culture we now have. Once you understand this, you will also understand recent history, and why so many things negative to the citizens have been done, questioned as negative, but then repeated, or carried out in a different form.
If you want to change anything, you need to understand what you are up against and find a way to go around, get leverage into, the fortress mentality that is around the pump-houses for this neolib economy. To the denizens rewarded by the neo-lib economy the problems of the 'outsiders' are a bit remote, the mouthings of the street dwellers separated by thick glass windows from the warm interior with everything conducive to enjoyment. For many, our societal divide and the real problems of nearly 50% are similar to many computer games of aimless attacks and defence.
I think Rosemary would know all this, and it illuminates the background to her efforts and her feelings of anger at the refusal to respect her work and assist her when she and others in similar circumstances, need more practical support and funding to enable them to have a simple life that can be enjoyed.
You know what has been the saddest part of this GWS?
That honesty and transparency have been sacrificed by so many players. Back in 2013 when National/Maori/Act rushed through the Part 4 amendment I dived down a rabbit hole determined to find out the why and the how and the who of this sorry saga.
I already knew from reading decisions and sitting in Courtrooms that 'truth' was a variable concept and that the Ministry of Health Disability Support Services struggled with accurate descriptions of of what services they were funding and how they managed to meet the support needs of eligible disabled clients who required advanced personal cares that they, MOH DSS, were not funding the contracted providers enough $$$ to provide. They never once admitted that this was the case, and that for many the only option other than institutional care was care from a family member. This very probably accounts for some of the at least 244 family carers who were being paid. Through dodgy back door deals that the Ministry claimed no knowledge of.
Yet the contracted providers were happy to do these deals because if no one was paid to provide the care they didn't get to clip the ticket.
So I followed that stream of $$$.
Then I followed the $$$ that both Labour then National were more than happy for the Ministry of Health to send to 'advocacy' organisations, 'charities,' who purported to represent disabled people and family carers. $$$ that flowed providing they either kept quite about the Atkinson case, or in the case of Carers NZ actively spoke out against the policy that this Current Mob has promised today to initiate.
Prior to the legislative outrage that was the amendment to the Public Health and Disability Act (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0022/latest/whole.html) there was very little in the way of support from these MOH funded advocacy groups. These group were funded under the provisions in the 2000 PHDAct because that Act demanded consumer advisory groups. Helps enormously to push through shit policies if your 'advisors' are dependent on your largesse to survive.
All very messy and all very incestuous and I'll be closer to content if these deceptions and misrepresentations are admitted to and apologised for.
I fear I'll sit below contentment for some time yet.
It has been hard to follow your journey Rosemary for me reading it. Your dogged efforts have been much harder and I do hope you have received the assistance that you and other carers deserve. The prosy goings on of MPs going for a successful career rather than serving the people is sickening. And the contrast I read some years ago, between one well-known female's negative opinion of citizens medical needs and what she accepted as her right when her own child needed treatment because of neglecting her health regime, was startling.
It's amazing how people can just be chopped off the list if the list is too long. That is basically how government agencies manage their work. Not satisfactory when looking after a family member with limited mobility etc. My sister is doing some part-time teaching which the agency refuses to pay her for because she didn't tick the right box. She has decided to give that claim away but do it differently next time so it fits. You have to be nimble to keep up with the players in government these days, they never were perfect, but the old-style government didn't employ thousands of PR people to smooth out wrinkles.
Here is hoping for smooth unfolding of the proper system. I look forward to the fat lady singing; used to think that was sexist, now I think it is a declaration of strength and purpose.
500,000 carers would have to include (non working) mothers.
SPC. Back in 2008 when the Atkinson "Family Carer Case" was being heard at the Human Rights Review Tribunal the Ministry of Health's expert numbers guy came up with a projected costing for paying family carers of between $17 to 593 million.
So the very big and scary numbers swirling around this issue are nothing new.
And bless him, the numbers guy for the plaintiffs, the family carers, put his estimated costs at $32-64 million.
Guess what this Government have budgeted to rectify this injustice?
$32 million.
http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZHRRT/2010/1.html
Brian Easton still holds true.
And turns out it's only $32m over 4 years. Piffling.
Yes. I just heard that. Works out at about 9 hours care per week for someone with high/very/complex needs. Hmmmm….you trying to piss on our parade Sacha?
Here's me straining my Pollyanna muscle…
Some human responses on today's open mike: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-08-07-2019/#comment-1635065
At last. I will be interested to hear why it has taken them so long to get this through. Where was the resistance this time?
From stalking JAG's diary, it would seem the NZDSN has had her ear on more than one occasion.
They teamed up with the PSA a few years ago in a negative PR drive against IF…by far the best existing mechanism for enabling full client choice.
The timing, the narrative of the 500000, all bodes badly
Associate-Minister Genter on twitter:
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706188303228928
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706189725048832
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706191188881408
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706192589754368
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706194082926593
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1147706195538432001
I have to thank @taraforde, @greencatherine, @PaulaTesoriero for their mahi and advocacy on this important issue.
Yes. Big shout out to Catherine (we miss you in the Greens) Delahunty.
To say she was a staunch supporter would be an understatement. They broke the mould.
Paula Tesoriero stepped firmly into Paul Gibson's very large shoes and nailed how the insecurity of vital supports could easily provide disabled fodder for the EOLC Bill.
Yes! She has been very involved in this from the get go as you know. I was speaking to Catherine today. She is happy that they have finally got there. But she is happy to be writing and enjoying life at the moment. Still lots of advocacy work being done.
I’m very pleased for you, that this has finally come through, and I let Catherine know that you have been looking anxiously for something like this.
I imagine Gordon is happy with this progress as well.
Yes and he got a big slice of my chocolate cake* to help celebrate. 🙂
*Baked for me by my daughter.
onya
Announced: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12247372
Well. Bugger me dead.
I'll be more than happy to eat crow if it unfolds as the article states. More than happy.
Another who will no doubt be smiling is Jo Esplin from Sapare who engineered and facilitated the Targeted Engagement…
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/targeted_engagement_on_funded_family_care_and_paid_family_care_20_november_2018.pdf
…when we spoke with her last year she indicated she would not be pleased if yet another bit of work was ignored by the Powers That Be.
There will be a party at ours when that shitty little piece of legislative work gets repealed.
Good work this Current Mob.
Good people at Sapere.
Good people at Sapere.
Indeed. And I took great delight in thanking Jo for her work so far on these issues…she co authored the Spinal Cord Impairment Strategy Situation Analysis Paper back in 2012.
https://d3nd7i493f0o21.cloudfront.net/assets/upload/354346/1298337631/SCI%20Strategy%20Situation%20Analysis%20Paper%2027%20Feb%202013%20%28FINAL%29.pdf
(I see it is still available via some weird Public Address thingy…I remember when it got totally lost and we had to Wayback it. Happens to some of the good stuff. )
So looking forward to the finer details.
Rosemary, well done to all those who went as witnesses to tell of their pain and troubles.
We hope this is all you and we asked for. Will be watching hopefully.
Thanks Patricia…still a little suspicious (hey, its been 20years in the borning…I'm allowed a little cynicism ) but reading the links that Sacha has put up it does seem that this is something ALL the Current Mob agree on.
I'm asking why now, and why not even a hint at Budget time?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12132665
So this was inevitable. The decision would be over payment anount and budget inclusion – this would involve the who and consistency with other decisions (such as ending younger spouse qualifying).
Perhaps having to prove to Winston/et al the money is available? Or perhaps the legislation wasn't ready? Or they wanted to do it properly and keep control rather than Treasury or others? Time will tell.
You have every right to be cynical, but I'm more hopeful than any time in 20 years. I do believe they care and are trying to undo some pretty entrenched attitudes and bad legislation.
I just hope they get in again and continue with the work.
This specific programme was always going to be affordable given the small number of qualifying recipients. From the RNZ story https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393821/family-carers-to-be-paid-fairer-wage:
Hi Rosemary…
It sounds very encouraging, and hopefully that is how it plays out for the assistance to all those impacted by such circumstances…
Do you know when the finer details might be available for someone such as yourself to assess and comment on?
From the stuff article linked to by Sacha (cheers), the high level reads as encouraging and positive…but that would need to be assessed against the present restrictions and inequalities such as you have regularly posted on at this site…
If you get the opportunity to comment on the details over time, that would be appreciated….
Hey One Two. No one will be searching and eventually scrutinising the finer details closer than myself when they are revealed.
It appears there will be Select Committee hearings and a chance to make submissions.
Even though we have thrown so much of ourselves over the years into this and have become almost permanently cynical about the whole issue, Peter and I will endeavour to participate in good faith in this process.
Good faith generally means to discuss with each other any matter which affects the delivery of the disability support services in an open way so that all matters are "on the table", to be active and constructive in establishing and maintaining a good relationship, being responsive, providing information, and not doing anything that might mislead or deceive each other .
https://gazette.govt.nz/notice/id/2013-go6248
The Funded Family Care Notice 2013
Stuff story: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/114054666/caregiving-parents-and-partners-of-disabled-people-to-be-paid–govt
Govt media release: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1907/S00052/government-changes-funded-family-care-policy.htm
NZ First media release: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1907/S00053/greater-support-and-restoration-of-rights-for-family-carers.htm
Really pleased to see Carers Alliance stalwart John Forman at the do at Government House. Unlike the secretariat of Carers NZ, John was always outspoken about the need for better recognition of the work families do for those with very high support needs. He was positively spewing when the Part 4 amendment to the PHD Act was passed.
I was speaking with another family carer earlier and we were trying to guess at what the finer details might be.
Got to thinking that perhaps the way round the issue with some parent carers not happy being employees of their children might be to have the carers as employees of a contracted provider, who then accepts the contract to provide care for the client.
This was one of the mechanisms whereby the 244 family carers who were being paid a wage that the HRRT heard about in 2008 were able to be paid.
The other mechanism was through Individualised Funding.
What still sticks in my craw is that none of those contracted providers who were clipping the funding ticket by enabling the back door payment of a family carer ever fronted up in the submissions or the consultation workshops in 2012…and even worse the NZDSN came over all hand wringlingly concerned at the risk of having family carers paid….when their own professional staff were doing such a fine job.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8712453/Abuse-claims-at-seriously-dysfunctional-care-home
Moreover none, and I repeat absolutely none, of the family carers who were being paid despite the discriminatory policy ever fronted up to either the media or in a publicly accessible submission before or after those arseholes in the National, Maori and Act parties rushed through that legislation.
Their reward was to have a sizable extension to the period set out in that legislation that they could continue to enjoy the financial benefits of having the dignity of paid work.
Shit.
So much of it has flowed from this issue over the years it will take more than happy clappy announcements. An inquiry? At least an apology from the Ministry of Health Disability Support Services?
Thanks Sacha for putting up those links. (We were out earlier and I can't do the link thing from my phone.)
This may be part of the trend to individualism in support – so those unable to work because of their care role, themselves receive support.
We can see steps to this, in PL, in continuing support for those with young children (including WFF).
There is only limited access to the JSB (old UB) for those with partners (heavily means tested) and unpaid “voluntary” workers are not yet entitled to the JSB (while they are unavailable to work).
The sort of smart targeted UI to those unable to be part of the paid workforce economy.
In that regard eventually focus will have to fall on the 90,000 on SLP and its amount adequacy – this is lower than Super and to people who may never own property and or develop private savings.
The 'Supported' Living Payment is a joke. An absolute insult and contemptuous of those who would work if they could work but they can't. It's as if its been set at a level that drives you so low you lose the will to live.
Living as a couple on the SLP was hard…year after year…and the final straw was having to remortgage our home to pay for vital repairs in 2010. Then having extra $$$ to pay per week from the same amount of benefit because we only borrowed the barest minimum and this was not enough to qualify for even a dollar of Accommodation Allowance.
When Peter graduated to the National Super and we went into the local office to sort it out, we were invited to sit in a special 'Seniors' waiting area….separate from the rank and file on the Jobseekers, SLP and DPB.
We said no thanks to their 'special' seats.
The few dollars extra per week on the Super made an enormous amount of difference and living most of the time in the Bus we could actually save a few $$$ per week.
Dershowitz trying to bury his misdeeds, again. Of course the vile Epstein gets a mention as does tRumps labour secretary, Alexander Acosta.
It’s a high-stakes war between two of the country’s most powerful lawyers. Their feud, simmering for years, involves accusations of extortion, surreptitious recordings, unethical conduct and underage sex trafficking.
Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz has filed four bar complaints in three states — all of which have been dismissed — in a quest to disqualify lawyer David Boies and one of his partners who represent a woman accusing Dershowitz of sexually abusing her when she was underage, newly filed court records show.
[…]
In the lawsuit, two of Epstein’s victims claimed that federal prosecutors in Florida had improperly brokered a non-prosecution agreement in 2008 with Epstein and his lawyers without informing them, as was required by law. The deal, negotiated by then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, was signed and sealed in secret, and by the time Epstein’s victims learned about the deal — months later — it was too late for them to object.
Epstein was allowed to plead guilty in state court to two prostitution charges and served 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal work release, including permission to use his own valet to pick him up at the jail every day and take him to his office in downtown Palm Beach.
Edwards and Cassell argued that the deal was illegal, and in February, a federal judge agreed, affirming that Acosta and other prosecutors violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by misleading Epstein’s victims into believing that prosecutors and the FBI were still investigating the case when they had quietly disposed of it.
https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article232312102.html
Wonder what's to come…
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-arrested-for-sex-trafficking-of-minors-source
I'm impressed by Phil Goff's blunt comments showing his understanding of likely criminal activity of deportees from Australian selective prejudice.
Goff notes they have no support and are not easily able to fit into NZ society and have been banished from their immediate family.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393810/it-s-inevitable-deportees-will-turn-to-crime-goff
Of the nearly 1700 people sent from Australia since the start of 2015, more than 40 percent have been charged with an offence in New Zealand.
Well, NZ prisoners have a 70% recidivism rate within two years, so these imports are actually bucking the trend. Though, if the real figures of those committing crimes were known, they might compete handily with the 'locals'.
The campaign of Big Pharma to crack our effective Pharmac goes on, helped by Guyon Espiner's expose' of how cancer patients can't access every latest medicine at no matter what the cost. And there are numerous examples of people afflicted, who have families and good lives, and don't want to die. It wrenches the heart to think of them. Cancer takes so many these days, and it's not good enough. Everyone who dies from cancer is said to have battled with it in their death notices. The fact that cancer is so widespread and cuts into people's lives is a major disgrace, worse than rheumatoid arthritis in NZ children, rotting teeth etc.
The ailments that particularly affect the poor are not so well-publicised with fewer, less glamorous people giving anecdotes of their pain and suffering and need. The well-heeled provide the target ammunition of choice for Big Pharma to aim at us. Big Pharma have chosen cancer as the problem of the wealthy, and there is potential big money in selling NZ their wonder drugs, at as high profit as possible. (By the way I think NZ is the only other country besides the USA to allow medicines to be advertised on television.) The sufferers and their specialists, would like to win another year or so at the expense of the nation's sufferers of other diseases and ailments, maybe some of them will work. The idea seems to be 'Let us try them, we may be able to alleviate the symptoms.' Note, not cure them.
I think it would be most reasonable, that the people who wish to try these drugs should have tax relief on the payments they make. That would be fair. But hearing that one person lived for ten years, not the one-year which had been the reckon of the specialist, doesn't mean that the public system can or should shell out huge sums for those considering themselves deserving. We can't afford it. Please note that, and that we are about to be hit by tropical diseases, are being hit by stress diseases, stronger influenzas, resurgence of tricky tuberculosis and others not thought about much – ebola? Our government can't even fund proper, modern conditions for all women for childbirth, our time of life creation which requires real hard work for a number of people, plus facilities better than the fields, and huts of third world countries. Let's get real, treat sick and terminally ill people well, but don't allow the monolithic greed of Profit to take precedence.
Pharmac are not satisfied with the cost-effectiveness of most of the new drugs, but that doesn't count to the protesters because other countries have bowed to them like Australia, and the UK and no doubt the USA where all are rich and the government helps every citizen!? So why can't we be like those other countries and just follow foreign precedent like we usually do?
Media Watch put up a brief summary of the situation this morning. I thought it was informative. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018702689/cancer-campaign-coverage-puts-heat-on-pharmac
An unofficial information campaign as to how Kiwis can cross the Tasman and access their health care treatments for cancer would be a nice balance to their deportation policy.
spc too right.
https://luxtimes.lu/european-union/37822-how-emmanuel-macron-won-the-battle-over-the-eu-s-top-jobs
It is the nature of modern media to thrive on a battle a day somewhat but..
From the outside, it seems the EU is using a representative democracy system, not first past the post or direct democracy, with it's proportioned parliament body of the citizen vote.
So it seems quite reasonable that the Who is the How, & the how is not direct but representational in what works ( & in this case the experts are respective govt. ministers which seems fair), that is in enabling a package that can incorporate a majority block in providing legitimacy of the citizen vote.
So there seems like a lot of common sense interest is built into the system to respect but work together with the differences resulting from the citizen vote(s), along with clear enough lines of accountability the EU citizen voter could follow in system negligence. Seems pretty good all things considered.
"Britain’s ambassador in the United States has described President Donald Trump and his administration as “inept” and “uniquely dysfunctional”, according to ‘leaked’ diplomatic memos published by the Mail on Sunday. Ambassador Kim Darroch reportedly said Trump’s presidency could “crash and burn” and “end in disgrace”, in the cache of secret cables and briefing notes sent back to Britain and seen by the newspaper."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/07/donald-trump-inept-and-dysfunctional-uk-ambassador-to-us-says
Providing such advice to the British govt seems unusual for a tory diplomat. No rightist solidarity in sight. Things must be grim for him to be so blunt!
"Darroch is one of Britain’s most experienced diplomats whose posting in Washington DC began in January 2016, prior to Trump winning the presidency. The Mail on Sunday said the memos, likely leaked by someone within Britain’s sprawling civil service, cover a period beginning in 2017."
Yeah Trump's in bed with the whole Brexit Party sideshow. Carving up Britain for privatisation is the end goal. NHS firmly in their sights. The Tories would like to do that for themselves, not American upstarts.
joe90 linked to a map with all the ties: climate denial, big oil, PR companies, loads of journalists and industrialists, Trump and Boris smack bang in the middle of it.
A simultaneous siphoning of government (public) funds offshore also taking place through layers of shell companies, many of which trace back to this network of nincompoops. Which side which is on (Tory/Brexiteer) is likely all smoke and mirrors too.
Meanwhile, the NYT has despatches from the front in the American Revolutionary War (in Trump's alternate reality). Here's one from Philadelphia International Airport:
“Washington and his men captured runways 27 Left, 27 Right, parts of Terminal F including the food court, baggage claim, and some bathrooms,” – quoted in The Redcoats Are in a Holding Pattern Over La Guardia: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/us/politics/trump-airports-revolutionary-war.html
The Washington Post is featuring President Trump’s Revolutionary War quiz. "5. True or false?: When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he deliberately did not mention lesbian soccer stars, Muslim mayors of London or kneeling NFL players."
From a commenter: "More evidence, which people will only acknowledge in hindsight, that Trump has early stage dementia." Another: "Pence rushed back from NH because Trump went completely mental and he was needed to help talk him down from the ceiling, or take over as President if the strong anti-psychotics didn’t work."
facebook poll says standardistas are fence sitting blatherers and irrelevant!
The social media they will say anything to get more clicks!
pacefook boll – a sort of weevil (Unreliable Word Pathologist)
That's the Combine at work Murph.
Kiwiblog is irrelevant now. ysb.co.nz is the new echo chamber for the right and hard-right.
Nice that someone has provided the beige badger's refugees with a sanctuary.
Mr. Brown's Ploys
Sorry, guys, I know the RNZ National listeners amongst you have already had an unpleasant up-close-and-personal with that nasty propagandist Simon Schama yesterday, but here's another right wing Labourite to ruin what's left of your Sunday. It's my duty to inform you that the ethical vacuum that is Gordon Brown has predictably joined the McCarthyite chorus.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-antisemitism-gordon-brown-expel-members-chris-williamson-jeremy-corbyn-a8990641.html
http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/thread/1562426351.html
Talk on LBC about possible thoughts of Queen on a proroguing parliament.
LBC is a talk-back radio which was called London Broadcast Company owned by Global (It is the owner of the largest commercial radio company in Europe having expanded through a number of historical acquisitions,). I just include that for people who don't talk in acronym language.
Don't know what was said but I like the Queen's hat. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8NgTt8ZWBI
Scots feeling sick from being shafted by sick English hard-toffee-nosed toffs.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/06/top-tory-warns-johnson-no-deal-brexit-would-be-gift-to-snp
Scottish secretary warns Johnson: no-deal Brexit could split UK
David Mundell says Nicola Sturgeon would use October exit to push for independence
They're talking in the UK about trying to get May's November? agreement through as things get worse with the Conservatives so screwed up they can't find a suitable leader for their Party, never mind someone suitable to lead the country. The people in prominence seem oblivious to their responsibilities to the people, and the Irish agreements could fizzle away; the Brits seem to be like those who were irresponsible for the Potato Famine there. What a pigsmuddle, pigs are relatively clean, despite their brown noses, compared to the UK. Should we start organising food parcels to the people as in WW2?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/06/kinnock-says-corbyn-should-order-labour-to-back-may-brexit-deal
Stephen Kinnock spells out the bottom line – no time for wishing-and-hoping and standing on soapboxes.
6 July 2019 In a move that further exposes bitter divisions between Labour MPs over Brexit, Stephen Kinnock says supporting the withdrawal agreement bill (WAB) is now the only realistic way out of the impasse for those who want to leave with a deal, while offering hope to those supporting another referendum….
Kinnock, the MP for Aberavon, says that with a Boris Johnson premiership looking increasingly likely, the country is “staring down the barrel” of a no-deal exit, which would harm fragile communities, compromise national security and endanger the Irish peace process.
He argues that because MPs have effectively run out of parliamentary options to prevent no deal, it is time for Labour to face reality and for Corbyn to order his MPs to get an admittedly imperfect but far from disastrous Brexit agreement through, in the national interest. The alternative, he warns, could be a general election before Brexit has been delivered that would be just as damaging to Labour as it would be to the Tories, and a gift to “single issue” parties including Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
“The WAB is far from ideal. Yet because of concessions to demands made by Labour during cross-party talks it does provide the only feasible means of preventing no deal,” Kinnock says.
There seems to be a confusion between examining the suggestions and the basic situation, and whether the suggested move is to benefit the MP's electorate and its steel works. It is a pity that there is no ability to actually look at the scenarios that exist and choose the least hurtful one. Could we expect in supposed democracies that there would be set ways of making decisions where there are cross-arguments tripping up reasoned thinking??
Horse racing pundit, broadcaster and journalist John McCririck has passed away. A quintessentially English eccentric and all round loon, McCririck was as funny AF and always worth the watch.
https://twitter.com/CorneliusRacing/status/1147082414738595846
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/john-mccririck-dead-horse-racing-celebrity-big-brother-died-dies-tv-a8989541.html
Will Hutton at The Guardian considers that Labour has temporised for so long over Brexit and 'What to do? – Hold the line!' that tempus fugit has almost past the finishing line.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/labour-remainers-must-seize-control
7 July 2019
By refusing to take up arms, the Labour party has colluded with the Brexit right, created the opening for the Lib Dems and Greens and thus permitted the emergence of a new multi-party system. If Labour continues to temporise, the first past the post electoral system will fell it. The Lib Dems, unapologetic Remainers who are beginning to recognise that their Keynesian tradition offers better policies for the times than soft Thatcherism, have the opportunity to become the new anchor of British progressive politics – strengthened, if they are sufficiently strategic, by working closely with the Greens.
FFS!
https://twitter.com/mtlgazette/status/1147512254264422400
Obviously never taught by nuns. As I was. Never questioned the habit of the habit then. Why now?
Crimes people wouldn't commit if it wasn't their job.
Nothing personal, just business. Makes it so much easier for normal people to commit the worst crimes possiblessible
To the above crimes I would add climatacide.
It's just a job.
We know coal is bad for the climate but our jobs are at stake here.
We all have mortgages to pay.
If we didn't do it someone else would.
I know people are dying, but that’s somewhere else, not here.
I'm really with you Greenies, The pay is good, I just need the money. When I have saved enough, I am going to quit this coal mining job, buy a lifestyle block and go completely off grid live a sustainable lifestyle. See if I don't.
sorry – I know the buzz is planting trees and I'm into that AND we must chopping them down.
"Mizutori said the time for such arguments had ran out. “We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive,” she told the Guardian. “We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/07/one-climate-crisis-disaster-happening-every-week-un-warns