On the contrary, it is in ALL our interests to keep the border secure. A timeline cannot be given because we cannot know when other countries will get their shit together and get this virus under control. Australia's daily new cases for the last 17 days were: 14, 11, 3, 9, 15, 6, 11, 23, 12, 10, 9, 17, 8, 11, 4, 5, 5 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=australia+new+covid+cases
We have all put the hard work in but now some are putting their self interest first.
Australia's daily new cases for the last 17 days were
And the mass BLM protests, held against all official advice, is going to help how?
In reality I'm optimistic that events like this held outdoors are relatively low risk. Still I'm left to wonder that if even a single new COVID case and avoidable death arises as a consequence of these protests, whether anyone will be held accountable.
Still in principle it's pretty damned galling to see smug left wingers patting themselves on the back for NZ's remarkable achievement (and we should be bloody proud of it), while at the same time cheering on mass protests elsewhere.
One week it's 'lockdowns are good', the next week it's 'lockdowns are irrelevant get out and protest'. Does anyone else here have a really sore neck from this?
Look, covid exists, but there's no way to link an individual death to a systemic problem. Any protestors who spread the infection were just a few bad apples, right? Besides, you haven't presented any alternative to the protest, so obviously that must mean that every non-protestor supports the worst possible course of action of actively applauding murders by racist police officers. And lots of protestors were distant from other protestors, so that means all the protestors were distant from each other. Oh, and identity politics causes covid anyway.
Oh, and I still find it funny that you think “defund the police” must mean some sort of mad max dystopia.
Well I just produced solid real life evidence, you by contrast can't even begin to explain what you really mean by 'defund the police' even though I challenged you to do that numerous times last night.
Given you have completely rejected any political reform process, and despise 'incrementalism', then what exactly do you have in mind? Because it had better be damned good, the people most at risk here are the vulnerable and dispossessed you profess to care about.
I already said, several times and in several ways, that it's not for me to determine what system other communities choose to replace their obviously broken law enforcement services.
Your "does not compute" loop needs to throw a specific error type if you genuinely want me to help resolve the bug in your cognitive processing.
that it's not for me to determine what system other communities choose to replace their obviously broken law enforcement services.
Well the loudest voices at the moment are making it clear they want police forces to be abolished. I produced the links, that made the demand clear …. zero police.
Now you damn well know that's an insane demand, it's an invitation to revert to local warlordism.
The only rational path forward is to increase police funding and pay, reform training and build professionalism. Merge and eliminate most of the 18,000 separate highly localised agencies that exist today and get coherence and consistency across the whole nation. Eradicate places for bad cops to hide, get the police union on board and engage heavily with the diverse communities they serve. Start with a recognition that at least 95% of cops are good people who serve their communities to the best of their ability.
Well the loudest voices at the moment are making it clear they want police forces to be abolished. I produced the links, that made the demand clear …. zero police.
Elimination of the current paramilitary police does not necessarily mean "zero police" (e.g. camden), and "zero police" does not necessarily mean "local warlordism" (e.g. whatever anarchists come up with).
As for your idea that the way out is to increase police funding, much lols.
As for consolidating police forces with the current paramilitary crowd, state police are often also paramilitary thugs. So that likely won't work in the way you hope.
Start with a recognition that at least 95% of cops are good people who serve their communities to the best of their ability.
Elimination of the current paramilitary police does not necessarily mean "zero police" (e.g. camden), and "zero police" does not necessarily mean "local warlordism" (e.g. whatever anarchists come up with).
Sorry but that is what the BLM links demand. Crystal clear. Zero police. Vaguely implying that 'local communities' can replace them with 'something else' is pretty much the definition of local warlordism.
And what if white communities decide they want their own special armed gangs to return to full segregation and dismantle all progress toward multiculturalism. Return to the Jim Crowe laws, etc? It's a miserable, disgusting prospect, but you could have no possible argument against it.
Vaguely implying that 'local communities' can replace them with 'something else' is pretty much the definition of local warlordism.
No, it's not.
And what if white communities decide they want their own special armed gangs to return to full segregation and dismantle all progress toward multiculturalism.
You're conflating legislative change and the current US police system. Specifically:
And what if white communities decide they want their own special armed gangs
basically the current system; and
to return to full segregation and dismantle all progress toward multiculturalism.
Legislative change, nothing to do with actually how laws and societal norms are upheld.
In any real world society, outside of left wing fantasy land, you understand from your work as a bouncer, that someone has to impose a physical security reality.
That means an agency capable of kicking down doors, taking down violent and threatening offenders, taking meth dealers off the streets, protecting the vulnerable in domestic incidents, tracking down exploiters, fraudsters, thugs and criminals of every kind. You know this perfectly well.
And in the USA where the crims are all armed that means your hypothetical 'something else' must be armed too.
And if blacks can have their own armed gang, then so can the hispanics, the asians, the whites … well here is a list with at least 97 entries. And that's just the dimension of ethnicity. How about all women have their own police (except that these days there is no such thing as sex apparently) and then all catholics, every rich gated community can build it's wall's higher and employ their own heavily armed mercenaries. Every town and hamlet can do their own thing, all 18,000 of them.
Hell you are right, there are elements of this all through the current system. That's precisely what is wrong with it.
See, where you have a complete lack of imagination is that you can only see a standing army or warlords as options.
There's actually a full continuum of options of community involvement in law and order. What situations we need "bouncers" for, and where other services would be more appropriate, and where a variety of other historical options could be used instead of a standing army of paranoid bouncers. As long as the other options work within the legal system, cool. Read up on societies before what we know as police. Not all of them were warlord hellscapes.
Having a non-representative paramilitary force whose members mostly live separate from the citizens it controls has been an abject failure at working within the legal system. Defund those units. If communities want to try something different, they probably won't do too much worse than the current system.
You ask me to imagine something different, yet you cannot even explain what you alternative would look like. You just weakly resort to saying 'it's up to the locals'.
Dude, I'm not your social policy teacher and I'm not the official spokesperson for BLM or defund the police..
You can say it's "not good enough" all you want, but it's still a fuckload better than defending the current regime. It's pathetic to be whining about nobody liking the 95% of cops who aren't racist murderers. They don't deserve a medal for doing their fucking job without braining 75 year olds, and they're not doing their job if they're not immediately arresting the other 5%.
Fire them, and let the communities develop some new ideas, because your ossified perspective ain't working.
It's par for the course really. Hating on business and making it difficult for them then expressing outrage that they dare to ask for certainty about when travel can start again or that their revenue doesn't match expenses and there fore jobs have to go. The right might be coldly calculating, but the outraged naivety expressed by the vocal left is what allows parties like National back into power.
If international film workers are essential, why not any other form of international business person? is the arts somehow more essential than representatives of exporting companies
Inconsistencies create uncertainty.
Which was the point of my comment, and i believe i can speak for redlogix in this instance when i say that it was a point he was making too.
Screen industry workers are only about a quarter of the 200 let in so far. Construction is another obvious sector where (re)importing one foreign specialist can allow restarting dozens of local jobs.
I still don’t know what your comment had to do with 1.2.1.1. Never mind, I’m no mind reader like you.
You seem to be confusing the opening of our borders for the general public with the exemptions that can be and are granted. To manage the risk, the borders will remain closed for the wider public. A simple binary. When they will open depends on the virus in other countries. How long is a piece of string? What are the Lotto numbers this week?
One can apply for an exemption, e.g. as an essential worker. There are eligibility criteria and the decision allows for some discretion AFAIK. The apparent inconsistencies are based on our ignorance about the decision-making process and ignorance leads to uncertainty in some cases. Life is not always a nice binary situation. Tough.
Capitalists justify their lopsided share of profits on the basis that they take more risks than workers do. Yet just watch business owners put their hands out for the state to reduce that risk. Bludgers.
The exemptions at the border have long been in place, as the Prime Minister pointed out on that same RNZ interview.
Once you generate exceptions, there will always be pressure applied at the edges of that criteria.
There's a helluva lot more integration required between the Immigration part of MBIE, and the Business part of MBIE, to ensure that these rules get stretched. Twyford should have long since had the AC36 applications on his desk – and Lees-Galloway should have had the via applications for the same long since processed.
Otherwise we can expect a whole bunch more businesses that rely on specialist overseas inputs to start failing. Thankfully the PM got this immediately this morning when she talked of "knock-on effects" being an evaluative criteria. The lack of internal coordination is pretty stark.
If they can't get this kind of stuff sorted then business including the whole of the APEC visit is in serious doubt.
So yes, business should keep up the pressure on the exceptions for visits. They are in all our interests.
Do you think the government is keeping the border closed for the hell of it? And a bit of pressure might change their mind? This ‘pressure’ is more political than economic it seems to me.
Sod business–from self employed to SME to corporates, a number of flaws and myths have been well exposed for all to see. There is indeed a layer that viewed Alert Levels and Lockdown as little more than a barrier to “increased shareholder value” and profits–viewed of course from the safety of leafy suburbs and air conditioned rural spreads and boltholes.
Small operators and contractors are in reality closer to workers by another name. The corporates like Graham Hart’s Carter Holt Harvey have been amongst the worst exploiters of the Govt. bailouts. CHH wood division took over 7 million in wage subsidies, trousered it, and made workers take enforced leave entitlements, and now are making substantial numbers redundant (70% for example is proposed for the Marsden Pt LVL plant). Some workers are in “negative leave balance” so they may need to forgo portions of any redundancy payments.
The Govt. did the right thing per immediate bailouts on the “high trust” model to get buy in from the employing class and aspirational petit bourgeois sectors–it would likely had been anarchy, or patchy Lockdown buy-in without the wage subsidies.
I should add that CHH closed their saw mill in Whangarei earlier in the year, 111 jobs gone. They were restructuring their business before C19, but took the Govt. bailout anyway. That is the morality of business.
Does anyone have a handle on how much the big name corporates are putting into the high profile sports events that are about to resume. Nationwide golf tournaments appear to be back on the calendar and the big names are there boots and all. How many of these companies took bailouts over the last few months while making redundancies. The money-go-round starts again.
What business need to be aware of is that there is a risk to their business and their health were Covid -19 to take a hold in NZ. No government can be held to be responsible for the downturn in business which a virus causes.
With more unemployment and the uncertainty of the impact of the virus, people will be more careful with their money.
I don't think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out there are powerful right wing business interests that are a) furious at the lockdown b) deeply alarmed at the prospect of a landslide labour victory and c) really, really pissed off that their unfettered right to profit has been circumscribed. They are not so stupid as to break cover against such an overwhelmingly popular PM and empirical evidence of success. From Steven Joyce to Gareth Morgan to the corporate management of Auckland University they've got a shit ton of egg on their faces and their credibility is badly dented. But you can be sure their proxies in politics and the media are being left in no doubt as to what is expected of them. Think of the ridiculous (but well funded) Plan B group, or the incoherent and sullen recent columns from Fran O'Sullivan or hear the sneering and surly tone of voice used by the likes of Barry Soper when questioning the PM to get some idea of what certain business interests have in mind as a "reward" for the government over the next three months.
The sneering and surly tone of voice used by the likes of Barry Soper when questioning the PM started the day after Ardern became PM in 2017.
Fury and resentment was written all over his face and Ardern was well aware of it. I recall her neatly passing over his loaded questioning and on to the next questioner before he could respond. It used to infuriate him further.
One thing I am curious about is whether there is any transparency about things like redundancy and business branch closures. Do we know why they are happening in each case? Or is that confidential to businesses? Protecting shareholder profits? Business was overextended and will collapse if it doesn't scale down? Does anyone know?
Well the PM can be as angry as she wants to be, if she thought that was not going to happen then she needs more 'reality based' advisors. Besides these guys had the 'restructuring' already going on before Covid. Why should they stop now, its not as if they got more demand or customers with money thanks to Covid.
Also neither the tax payer nor the government is 'taking a hit' as the money the government has to spend is provided by the tax payer – which would be people in work paying PAYE. We all know that rich people pay accountants to 'avoid paying taxes' or at least pay no more then someone on 70.000 before tax a year.. So in essence the government just literally gave the tax payer of this country a refund. So if she feels that the country is a bit short on cash she can start instructing her cabinet / beige suits to start looking at preventing rich people from getting away with tax avoidance. After all the Country may not have enough workers left to pay for the upkeep of the country. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/latest-edition/7549236/Half-NZs-super-rich-dodge-tax
So in essence she should be happy as the Wage subsidy did what it was supposed to do, pay workers who would other wise be claiming unemployment. It was known that at some stage many of these workers will end up on the unemployment benefit. It was known so much that they Government decided to pay the wage subsidy to people who claimed unemployment cause Covid.
As of the women in her 'late fifties' who is afraid of not finding a job in this economy or any other due to age? I feel ya sister. I do.
Now the government could allow for people like her to go onto 'early' retirement…might even give them a decent deal to do so, as this would also take pressure of a dead employment market. But hey, it appears the government and the PM is just not angry enough just yet.
With Covid-19 and a lot of people losing jobs other places it's hard to look somewhere else."
Gray, in her late 50s, said if any job did come up at The Warehouse she would have to reapply, and though she planned to look elsewhere she feared companies would not take on older workers.
Fact is that demand is down, mind, there is only so much crap one can buy and then demand is down. I would also assume that the businesses listed in this article – Warehouse, Noel Leeming, Warehouse Stationary – etc have now hard competition with KMART and all those two dollar shops, and all the other trash shops that we are happy to build big malls for.
But heck, people buckle up, the ride ain't over, heck it is just beginning.
Yep – it's the psychic shock of having it rammed in their face that a society is more than just a place where 'business' occurs. They are very vengeful right now.
Having said that with Oz covid cases having a rolling average of 9/day now I would support borders being open to Oz when this is 2/day and with strict testing/symptom analysis etc
While Democrats are expected to swiftly approve the legislation this month, it does not go as far as some activists want to “defund the police." The outlook for passing the package in the Republican-held Senate is slim.
Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD since 1993, that didn't help Eric Garner.
For all that energy, seems like more noise than light.
There is already a system to take care of the police indiscretions, but the justice system in the US, is as broken, corrupt and not for for purpose as their many police forces.
Kneeling in general is also commonly an act of submission. Whereas in American football, taking a knee is an assertive act of control, and often also used out of respect for an injured player.
I was peripherally aware that the Flynn case was shonky to say the least, but this is new information. I've never listened to Ted before, man is he articulate.
Setting aside all partisanship, if the facts he is speaking to are even vaguely correct, then yes partisan law enforcement …. no matter which administration does it …. is incredibly dangerous. If nothing else it ensures that no-one in an administration trusts anyone else, and no-one will speak the truth without paying a terrible price.
It's a piece of public political masturbation Cruz posted to ingratiate himself with MADAmorons who might be still concerned he might still possess some remnant of spine and principle sufficient to squeak up against their Dear Leader.
I've scanned that Mother Jones reference. It's little more than a bunch of reckons flying in very loose formation.
As for the CNN so called fact check, yes it checks of a list of events, but none seem to directly address what Cruz is saying. Anything to do with this affair seems to vanish down endless rabbit holes very quickly.
In the early days of the Trump administration there seems to have been a genuine effort to reach out to both the Chinese and Russian governments in order to reopen and reset the terms of engagement with them. Whether this was a good idea or not, it's clear there were factions in Washington who have determined nothing like this was going to happen.
As I've repeatedly said, the USA has determined to abandon it's role as the global guarantor of security. And regardless of whether Trump's connections with Russia can be considered legitimate or not, this entire 'Russiagate' debacle only ensures that at least a generation of Presidents will never attempt a negotiation with Russia ever again. The domestic risk is now too high; talking to them in any terms other than sanctions and military posturing are the only modes allowed.
The fundamental premise of the US led post WW2 security order was that nations who trade beneficially with each other are less motivated to go to war. It's an imperfect, but also reasonably effective idea. Combined with the deterrent of nuclear weapons, the past 75 years has seen no major power kinetic conflict, and a general trend towards far less violence than any other time in our history.
Trump's background is a business man, and he would have no doubt framed his approach to Russia as a business opportunity. Whether he understood 'conflict of interest or not' is beside the point, the idea of normalising relations with Russia is essentially a good one. And now an idea that is dead and buried largely at the hands of the Democrats.
In the early days of the Trump administration there seems to have been a genuine effort to reach out to both the Chinese and Russian governments in order to reopen and reset the terms of engagement with them.
You still haven't worked out that any efforts along those lines were merely looking for openings to further personally enrich Odious Maximus and his shoats? Ivanka's trademarks, Moscow hotels and on and on and on and on? I guess some people really can be fooled all of the time.
As for further negotiations with Russia, I doubt there will be a problem for any administration that attempts to conduct negotiations openly, transparently, and with the interests of the American people foremost. All of which were lacking in the events of 2016 and 2017 at issue.
You still haven't worked out that any efforts along those lines were merely looking for openings to further personally enrich Odious Maximus and his shoats?
Maybe it was where I said this:
" Whether he understood 'conflict of interest or not' is beside the point,"
Was that it?
I doubt there will be a problem for any administration that attempts to conduct negotiations openly, transparently, and with the interests of the American people foremost.
Hilarious. Do you really imagine the Repugs sitting quietly by while Joe Biden opens up channels to Russia. And what makes you imagine that anything about such contacts, at least initially while each side explores it's positions, is ever held openly and transparently?
That "reopen and reset the terms of engagement" made it look like you were claiming there was a good faith effort to act in the interests of the US as a whole, when there plainly wasn't. The conflict of interest wasn’t a minor nuance, strictly personal benefit was the entire effort.
As far as initial approaches to open up channels, sure, historically there have always been hush-hush back channel negotiations, conducted by the State Department. It may be that CovidCamacho and his minions have so thoroughly fucked things up with respect to Russia that in the future there will need to be some very public positioning before anything substantial can actually happen. As a new way of managing relations, that might not be a bad thing.
historically there have always been hush-hush back channel negotiations, conducted by the State Department.
And going nowhere under Obama, or pretty much any other President since the end of the Cold War. No vision, no wider goals … strategic drift at it's worst.
I've made it clear elsewhere, Trump's foreign policy has been nothing but the inelegant charge of a psychopathic bull into a wobbly china shop.
But here's the thing, of the several million fine people who stood for the Democrat nominee, they all agreed on one thing, that Trump was being too soft on trade.
Whether layered over with a gentile veneer of 'legality' (like Hunter Biden's antics) or Trump's crass self interest, Washington's approach to Russia and foreign policy points in one direction only … inwards.
Given what Obama achieved with Iran and Cuba among others, I'm inclined to attribute lack of progress in Russia-US relations much more to Pootee being a colossal arse rather than Obama's failings. An impression that Pootee's actions since 2016 have only substantially reinforced.
Foreign policy is the one area that a President can act in with relatively little pushback from Congress or the Senate. Obama had two whole terms to implement a wholesale refresh and opening up of US foreign policy, to reset the mistakes of the past and reinvigorate the global trade order on a sustainable basis.
And it's fair to say he got some things done, but in hindsight it hasn't amounted to much. Much like John Key, heaps of political capital, mainly a bunch of very nice cycleways to show for it.
There is a large part of me that thinks the statue and others like it should stay in some form. With this proviso, an accompanying dominant sculpture or structure should pair it, informing those who pause to look, about the true nature and efforts of the original person, and how long it has stood as a reminder of corrupted power and historical ignorance.
I'm sure there are many other city assets named after Edward Coulston.
My opinion is, don't remove his statue and his name completely. People like him, who have been feted long after their death, despite the nature of their lives, need to be remembered truthfully. And their relationship with persistent power structures and the ongoing resistance to change should be recognised and recorded.
I'm sure there are a lot of activists and artists around that would come up with a diversity of ways to create paired sculptures – the original one (perhaps changed) to represent the failures of the past to address inequity and wrongdoing, and another to show – truth and progress.
I agree totally Molly. Human history is complex, nuanced, and deeply fascinating. There is much we can learn from it if we set aside our modern biases and look through the eyes of the people who lived through it.
I believe you'd need about 84,000 of them, Robert, to truly reflect his impact.
(Drilling 84 thousand holes into the original might have some impact, but I'm no creative.)
I just think that alongside the original atrocities committed by this man, there were accompanying ignorance and failure to recognise his harm by successive governments, councils and communities. The statue stood there for over a hundred years. That needs to be recognised and recorded in some way too.
nah, a cast bronze of a white slave holder raping his slave women for 'free slaves' that she will bear him….cause profit – cause that is what it was. Right?
Putting this one in a museum where the historical and contemporary contexts can be presented seems a reasonable compromise.
The site the statue was taken from seems a good place to do what you are suggesting, but my sense is it shouldn't involve this statue, because of the recent history.
That's a good idea. But does remove the discussion from a more visible public space, and that may sweep the reality away. In situations like this, the decision should lie with the local community on how to record and recognise not just the initial problem, but the systems that allowed it to stay prominently displayed for so long.
That would be true across many countries I would believe. It shows clearly the institutional racism, and the less able to be defined culture that allowed it to prevail for so long.
On a bit of a tangent, but on the same lines, I had discomfort about a local civic minded group who were funded to beautify the neighbourhood. Their idea, paid for by ratepayers, was to create a side garden on one of the main streets with pseudo gravestones commemorated selected deaths from WWI. We already have cemeteries and war memorial halls aplenty.
This infusion and constant repetition of what is considered important enough to commemorate, has an insidious effect on sharing knowledge and understanding. When I posted about an Auckland Transport (don't ask me..) project that signposted places around Auckland with tangata whenua links, I had several emails complaining that the land had been utilised by settlers for many years. Which is true. After it was confiscated.
Those very public – public spaces are important and should contain designs and sculpture that are constant reminders of the society we are aiming for.
Maybe the best thing that could be done is build a museums to the Slave traders, Slave holders, Slave Masters and their property and what they did with it. Make it free entrance and walk every child through it. Maybe that would change perception?
I'm glad Churchill's racism has been recognised. The neglect of the Bengal famine. His belief in conquest, despite his words for Britain. No Indian can respect him with full knowledge.
Hmm, few people attacking or at least suspicious of the SIS pod yesterday. I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I think I said I was wary of Espiner, but he is a capable journo who has done a lot of principled work.
Quote pulled out today and on the 10am RNZ news is 'anti-nuclear movement' was a gift to the USSR. Which considering the PM's referencing of that is interesting.
Also there are a lot more issues with the 5 eyes over the last 30 years. Not much use to democracy to only get the 30 year old stuff.
Detailed research on the NZSIS using a new “snout” and reactionaries such as Mr Hensley who was close to traitorous to David Lange during the Nuclear Free NZ period, will certainly be of historic interest–and–it seems as an angle to poke at the current Govt.
The question is whether that can be considered an attack or just opportunistic promotion for his podcast. There's some cheap shade thrown for sure, but it's also possible he's not responsible for how it's used and which angles are considered newsworthy.
Given that we are now far from a benign strategic environment do we still take such close cues from our five eyes partners? Our intelligence community seems to be more important than ever. There seems to be much more active work now that the public is mostly unaware of.
The National Party has promised to scrap teacher registration fees if it wins the September election.
The party's new deputy leader and education spokeswoman Nikki Kaye says National would ask taxpayers to pick up the $16 million annual cost of abolishing the fees.
Teachers' unions have been campaigning against a Teaching Council decision to raise the fee from $220.80 every three years to $157 a year – roughly doubling the annual cost to teachers.
The months to the election are going to seem like years if this is to be the daily dross:
"Paul Goldsmith tells Prime Minister to 'stick to her knitting' after Ardern's outrage as mass job cuts." NZ Herald headline.
"I don't think it's helpful for the Prime Minister to be criticising struggling businesses, she should stick to her knitting," Goldsmith said. Rather than getting angry, Ardern should be "better focused" on the Government's plan to grow the economy, he said.
So she makes a remark, she should have used all of the time it took to make the observation and the time should have been used being focused on something else? She was 'outraged'?
Therefore Goldsmith believes that 'business' is above any form of democratic oversight, i.e. it's not a part of society, it is superior to it. Good to get such a clear, unambiguous demonstration of National's extremism and how unfit to govern they are.
I know a good way for politicians to raise funds and we can all have fun. There should be a Trust set up to run a book on who wins the election, split the funds up with most going to the smaller parties, but the threshhold has to stay at 4% or we'll have more prosperity church types seeing it as a good thing.
What a pragmatic way to raise funds from a sports-living nation where gambling is useful for funding from raffles at cake stalls, to lotteries of houses in Queensland. Under this veneer of rationality we all want to win something. If it is against the law, then change it. We want laws that help our society.
Here's your antifa – a wannabe cop who paraded in his flogged popo kit.
The Third Precinct was overrun during protests on May 28 and heavily damaged due to vandalism and arson, with investigators identifying multiple fires being started in the building.
On June 3, St. Paul police officers were called to a home improvement store in St. Paul about an individual, later identified as Wolfe, wearing body armor and a law enforcement duty belt and carrying a baton was trying to get into the store. Store employees said WOLFE had been working as a security guard at the store but was fired earlier that day over social media posts about stealing items from the Third Precinct.
Police arrested Wolfe and say they found him wearing multiple items stolen from the Third Precinct, including body armor, a police-issue duty belt with handcuffs, an earphone piece, baton, and knife. Officers say Wolfe’s name was handwritten in duct tape on the back of the body armor. Law enforcement says it recovered items belonging to the Minneapolis Police Department, including a riot helmet, 9mm pistol magazine, police radio, and police issue overdose kit, from Wolfe’s apartment.
a bit like how all those pallets of antifa bricks were actually for municipal works or acting as safety barriers, and had often been there for significant amounts of time before Floyd was killed..
edit: Rick Wilson’s original thread that started it really deserves a direct link here for those that might not otherwise find their way to it. Betcha can’t get through the first 20 replies without at least a half-dozen actual lols.
Politicians have been out on the campaign trail today.
Quality trolling from Ardern, going to a kiwifruit place in Muller's own electorate, getting a warm reception from the locals (sorry, "hard-working Kiwis").
A chorus of "the election should be delayed until November" (Paula Bennett, Winston Peters, various media mouths). File that one under Doom & Gloom During Lockdown, a long list, now shredded.
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Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
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So business wants clarity over the borders – https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/418557/nz-reaches-alert-level-1-but-businesses-want-clarity-over-borders
They are closed. Is that clear?
Lol. Business is the religion and profit the opium of the wealthy. Nothing shall stand in the way of it, especially not people.
Business need to keep the pressure on this.
It's in all our interests.
On the contrary, it is in ALL our interests to keep the border secure. A timeline cannot be given because we cannot know when other countries will get their shit together and get this virus under control. Australia's daily new cases for the last 17 days were: 14, 11, 3, 9, 15, 6, 11, 23, 12, 10, 9, 17, 8, 11, 4, 5, 5 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=australia+new+covid+cases
We have all put the hard work in but now some are putting their self interest first.
Australia's daily new cases for the last 17 days were
And the mass BLM protests, held against all official advice, is going to help how?
In reality I'm optimistic that events like this held outdoors are relatively low risk. Still I'm left to wonder that if even a single new COVID case and avoidable death arises as a consequence of these protests, whether anyone will be held accountable.
Still in principle it's pretty damned galling to see smug left wingers patting themselves on the back for NZ's remarkable achievement (and we should be bloody proud of it), while at the same time cheering on mass protests elsewhere.
One week it's 'lockdowns are good', the next week it's 'lockdowns are irrelevant get out and protest'. Does anyone else here have a really sore neck from this?
lol
Calling for people to be held accountable for BLM-related covid deaths is some inception-level outrage.
Well go and ask one of your elderly relatives how they feel about dying because possibly BLM protests trigger a secondary wave of infection.
Look, covid exists, but there's no way to link an individual death to a systemic problem. Any protestors who spread the infection were just a few bad apples, right? Besides, you haven't presented any alternative to the protest, so obviously that must mean that every non-protestor supports the worst possible course of action of actively applauding murders by racist police officers. And lots of protestors were distant from other protestors, so that means all the protestors were distant from each other. Oh, and identity politics causes covid anyway.
I think that covers your shtick.
That's quite clever, pulling an insane, febrile act in the hope I'll back away very, very carefully.
Meanwhile back in the real world this is what happens when 'no police'.
(Incidentally if you have ever worked with a bunch of Trinidadian instrument techs, it's truly the most delightful experience ever.)
Why would you back away? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery lol
Oh, and I still find it funny that you think “defund the police” must mean some sort of mad max dystopia.
Oh, and I still find it funny that you think “defund the police” must mean some sort of mad max dystopia.
Well I just produced solid real life evidence, you by contrast can't even begin to explain what you really mean by 'defund the police' even though I challenged you to do that numerous times last night.
Given you have completely rejected any political reform process, and despise 'incrementalism', then what exactly do you have in mind? Because it had better be damned good, the people most at risk here are the vulnerable and dispossessed you profess to care about.
And camden is another real-life possibility.
I already said, several times and in several ways, that it's not for me to determine what system other communities choose to replace their obviously broken law enforcement services.
Your "does not compute" loop needs to throw a specific error type if you genuinely want me to help resolve the bug in your cognitive processing.
that it's not for me to determine what system other communities choose to replace their obviously broken law enforcement services.
Well the loudest voices at the moment are making it clear they want police forces to be abolished. I produced the links, that made the demand clear …. zero police.
Now you damn well know that's an insane demand, it's an invitation to revert to local warlordism.
The only rational path forward is to increase police funding and pay, reform training and build professionalism. Merge and eliminate most of the 18,000 separate highly localised agencies that exist today and get coherence and consistency across the whole nation. Eradicate places for bad cops to hide, get the police union on board and engage heavily with the diverse communities they serve. Start with a recognition that at least 95% of cops are good people who serve their communities to the best of their ability.
But you've rejected that as 'incrementalism'.
Elimination of the current paramilitary police does not necessarily mean "zero police" (e.g. camden), and "zero police" does not necessarily mean "local warlordism" (e.g. whatever anarchists come up with).
As for your idea that the way out is to increase police funding, much lols.
As for consolidating police forces with the current paramilitary crowd, state police are often also paramilitary thugs. So that likely won't work in the way you hope.
Well they did fuckall about the other 5%, so no.
Elimination of the current paramilitary police does not necessarily mean "zero police" (e.g. camden), and "zero police" does not necessarily mean "local warlordism" (e.g. whatever anarchists come up with).
Sorry but that is what the BLM links demand. Crystal clear. Zero police. Vaguely implying that 'local communities' can replace them with 'something else' is pretty much the definition of local warlordism.
And what if white communities decide they want their own special armed gangs to return to full segregation and dismantle all progress toward multiculturalism. Return to the Jim Crowe laws, etc? It's a miserable, disgusting prospect, but you could have no possible argument against it.
No, it's not.
You're conflating legislative change and the current US police system. Specifically:
basically the current system; and
Legislative change, nothing to do with actually how laws and societal norms are upheld.
In any real world society, outside of left wing fantasy land, you understand from your work as a bouncer, that someone has to impose a physical security reality.
That means an agency capable of kicking down doors, taking down violent and threatening offenders, taking meth dealers off the streets, protecting the vulnerable in domestic incidents, tracking down exploiters, fraudsters, thugs and criminals of every kind. You know this perfectly well.
And in the USA where the crims are all armed that means your hypothetical 'something else' must be armed too.
And if blacks can have their own armed gang, then so can the hispanics, the asians, the whites … well here is a list with at least 97 entries. And that's just the dimension of ethnicity. How about all women have their own police (except that these days there is no such thing as sex apparently) and then all catholics, every rich gated community can build it's wall's higher and employ their own heavily armed mercenaries. Every town and hamlet can do their own thing, all 18,000 of them.
Hell you are right, there are elements of this all through the current system. That's precisely what is wrong with it.
See, where you have a complete lack of imagination is that you can only see a standing army or warlords as options.
There's actually a full continuum of options of community involvement in law and order. What situations we need "bouncers" for, and where other services would be more appropriate, and where a variety of other historical options could be used instead of a standing army of paranoid bouncers. As long as the other options work within the legal system, cool. Read up on societies before what we know as police. Not all of them were warlord hellscapes.
Having a non-representative paramilitary force whose members mostly live separate from the citizens it controls has been an abject failure at working within the legal system. Defund those units. If communities want to try something different, they probably won't do too much worse than the current system.
You ask me to imagine something different, yet you cannot even explain what you alternative would look like. You just weakly resort to saying 'it's up to the locals'.
That's nowhere near good enough.
Dude, I'm not your social policy teacher and I'm not the official spokesperson for BLM or defund the police..
You can say it's "not good enough" all you want, but it's still a fuckload better than defending the current regime. It's pathetic to be whining about nobody liking the 95% of cops who aren't racist murderers. They don't deserve a medal for doing their fucking job without braining 75 year olds, and they're not doing their job if they're not immediately arresting the other 5%.
Fire them, and let the communities develop some new ideas, because your ossified perspective ain't working.
It's par for the course really. Hating on business and making it difficult for them then expressing outrage that they dare to ask for certainty about when travel can start again or that their revenue doesn't match expenses and there fore jobs have to go. The right might be coldly calculating, but the outraged naivety expressed by the vocal left is what allows parties like National back into power.
Which comment are you replying to, because it ain’t 1.2.1.1.
Don’t you think that anybody who’s asking for certainty about international travel is a tad naive?
If international film workers are essential, why not any other form of international business person? is the arts somehow more essential than representatives of exporting companies
Inconsistencies create uncertainty.
Which was the point of my comment, and i believe i can speak for redlogix in this instance when i say that it was a point he was making too.
Screen industry workers are only about a quarter of the 200 let in so far. Construction is another obvious sector where (re)importing one foreign specialist can allow restarting dozens of local jobs.
I still don’t know what your comment had to do with 1.2.1.1. Never mind, I’m no mind reader like you.
You seem to be confusing the opening of our borders for the general public with the exemptions that can be and are granted. To manage the risk, the borders will remain closed for the wider public. A simple binary. When they will open depends on the virus in other countries. How long is a piece of string? What are the Lotto numbers this week?
One can apply for an exemption, e.g. as an essential worker. There are eligibility criteria and the decision allows for some discretion AFAIK. The apparent inconsistencies are based on our ignorance about the decision-making process and ignorance leads to uncertainty in some cases. Life is not always a nice binary situation. Tough.
For more information: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/border-closures-and-exceptions
Capitalists justify their lopsided share of profits on the basis that they take more risks than workers do. Yet just watch business owners put their hands out for the state to reduce that risk. Bludgers.
The exemptions at the border have long been in place, as the Prime Minister pointed out on that same RNZ interview.
Once you generate exceptions, there will always be pressure applied at the edges of that criteria.
There's a helluva lot more integration required between the Immigration part of MBIE, and the Business part of MBIE, to ensure that these rules get stretched. Twyford should have long since had the AC36 applications on his desk – and Lees-Galloway should have had the via applications for the same long since processed.
Otherwise we can expect a whole bunch more businesses that rely on specialist overseas inputs to start failing. Thankfully the PM got this immediately this morning when she talked of "knock-on effects" being an evaluative criteria. The lack of internal coordination is pretty stark.
If they can't get this kind of stuff sorted then business including the whole of the APEC visit is in serious doubt.
So yes, business should keep up the pressure on the exceptions for visits. They are in all our interests.
Isn’t that more an operational issue?
On the results it's a political issue that will only get louder as the AC36 and APEC events get nearer.
Becomes political when the agencies are so incompetent that they can't process papers for a high-profile public-funded event like the sportsboating.
And if it’s because the event organisers are trying to get govt to pay their quarantine expenses instead, let’s hear about it.
Do you think the government is keeping the border closed for the hell of it? And a bit of pressure might change their mind? This ‘pressure’ is more political than economic it seems to me.
It's in the interests of shareholders. F..k everybody else.
Sod business–from self employed to SME to corporates, a number of flaws and myths have been well exposed for all to see. There is indeed a layer that viewed Alert Levels and Lockdown as little more than a barrier to “increased shareholder value” and profits–viewed of course from the safety of leafy suburbs and air conditioned rural spreads and boltholes.
Small operators and contractors are in reality closer to workers by another name. The corporates like Graham Hart’s Carter Holt Harvey have been amongst the worst exploiters of the Govt. bailouts. CHH wood division took over 7 million in wage subsidies, trousered it, and made workers take enforced leave entitlements, and now are making substantial numbers redundant (70% for example is proposed for the Marsden Pt LVL plant). Some workers are in “negative leave balance” so they may need to forgo portions of any redundancy payments.
The Govt. did the right thing per immediate bailouts on the “high trust” model to get buy in from the employing class and aspirational petit bourgeois sectors–it would likely had been anarchy, or patchy Lockdown buy-in without the wage subsidies.
I should add that CHH closed their saw mill in Whangarei earlier in the year, 111 jobs gone. They were restructuring their business before C19, but took the Govt. bailout anyway. That is the morality of business.
Sports sponsorship
Does anyone have a handle on how much the big name corporates are putting into the high profile sports events that are about to resume. Nationwide golf tournaments appear to be back on the calendar and the big names are there boots and all. How many of these companies took bailouts over the last few months while making redundancies. The money-go-round starts again.
What business need to be aware of is that there is a risk to their business and their health were Covid -19 to take a hold in NZ. No government can be held to be responsible for the downturn in business which a virus causes.
With more unemployment and the uncertainty of the impact of the virus, people will be more careful with their money.
👍 what don't they understand. I cringe at the level of comprehension of these people.
I don't think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out there are powerful right wing business interests that are a) furious at the lockdown b) deeply alarmed at the prospect of a landslide labour victory and c) really, really pissed off that their unfettered right to profit has been circumscribed. They are not so stupid as to break cover against such an overwhelmingly popular PM and empirical evidence of success. From Steven Joyce to Gareth Morgan to the corporate management of Auckland University they've got a shit ton of egg on their faces and their credibility is badly dented. But you can be sure their proxies in politics and the media are being left in no doubt as to what is expected of them. Think of the ridiculous (but well funded) Plan B group, or the incoherent and sullen recent columns from Fran O'Sullivan or hear the sneering and surly tone of voice used by the likes of Barry Soper when questioning the PM to get some idea of what certain business interests have in mind as a "reward" for the government over the next three months.
How fucking true.
Spot on sadly.
let's hope the govt comes down hard on these companies who've gamed the wage subsidy by not passing it on…. abhorrent behavior.
Nice morning rant. I’m curious to know how the Plan B group is funded and you obviously know about that so why don’t you share it here with us?
The sneering and surly tone of voice used by the likes of Barry Soper when questioning the PM started the day after Ardern became PM in 2017.
Fury and resentment was written all over his face and Ardern was well aware of it. I recall her neatly passing over his loaded questioning and on to the next questioner before he could respond. It used to infuriate him further.
One thing I am curious about is whether there is any transparency about things like redundancy and business branch closures. Do we know why they are happening in each case? Or is that confidential to businesses? Protecting shareholder profits? Business was overextended and will collapse if it doesn't scale down? Does anyone know?
Case in point
https://twitter.com/rnz_news/status/1270091678523617280
Well the PM can be as angry as she wants to be, if she thought that was not going to happen then she needs more 'reality based' advisors. Besides these guys had the 'restructuring' already going on before Covid. Why should they stop now, its not as if they got more demand or customers with money thanks to Covid.
Also neither the tax payer nor the government is 'taking a hit' as the money the government has to spend is provided by the tax payer – which would be people in work paying PAYE. We all know that rich people pay accountants to 'avoid paying taxes' or at least pay no more then someone on 70.000 before tax a year.. So in essence the government just literally gave the tax payer of this country a refund. So if she feels that the country is a bit short on cash she can start instructing her cabinet / beige suits to start looking at preventing rich people from getting away with tax avoidance. After all the Country may not have enough workers left to pay for the upkeep of the country. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/latest-edition/7549236/Half-NZs-super-rich-dodge-tax
So in essence she should be happy as the Wage subsidy did what it was supposed to do, pay workers who would other wise be claiming unemployment. It was known that at some stage many of these workers will end up on the unemployment benefit. It was known so much that they Government decided to pay the wage subsidy to people who claimed unemployment cause Covid.
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/105188/people-who-lose-their-jobs-could-be-eligible-250-490-week-payment-12-weeks-under-new
As of the women in her 'late fifties' who is afraid of not finding a job in this economy or any other due to age? I feel ya sister. I do.
Now the government could allow for people like her to go onto 'early' retirement…might even give them a decent deal to do so, as this would also take pressure of a dead employment market. But hey, it appears the government and the PM is just not angry enough just yet.
Fact is that demand is down, mind, there is only so much crap one can buy and then demand is down. I would also assume that the businesses listed in this article – Warehouse, Noel Leeming, Warehouse Stationary – etc have now hard competition with KMART and all those two dollar shops, and all the other trash shops that we are happy to build big malls for.
But heck, people buckle up, the ride ain't over, heck it is just beginning.
When it is from borrowing, the money actually comes from future generations of taxpayers and citizens.
They have more urgent things to fund like climate action rather than propping up today's capitalists. Let the owners pay their fair share for once.
Yep – it's the psychic shock of having it rammed in their face that a society is more than just a place where 'business' occurs. They are very vengeful right now.
Nice one Sanc….agree 100 per cent.
Having said that with Oz covid cases having a rolling average of 9/day now I would support borders being open to Oz when this is 2/day and with strict testing/symptom analysis etc
Good work to the US Democrats for introducing a series of sweeping Police reforms.
And they all took the knee on the floor before they did it.
Then Pelosi read out a list of killed Police victims.
This is good agit-prop politics, timed perfectly into electoral season.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52969375
The bill:
– forces federal police to use body and dashboard cameras
– bans chokeholds
– eliminates unannounced police raids known as "no-knock warrants"
– makes it easier to hold police liable for civil rights violations
– calls for federal funds to be withheld from local police forces who do not make similar reforms.
– Makes lynching a federal crime
– Limits the sale of military weapons to the police
– Gives the Department of Justice the authority to investigate state and local police for evidence of department-wide bias or misconduct
– Creates a "national police misconduct registry" – a database of complaints against police.
And of course, they get to then stick it to the Republicans in the Senate when the Republicans vote it all down.
And then stick it to the President as well.
Excellent politics, good initiatives.
Should include mandatory ID as Barr is using federal resources badged 'united states police' with zero ID as front line 'troops' in Trump's war.
Reform is just not needed in the USA police service, it is also required in healthcare.
It's political theatre.
Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD since 1993, that didn't help Eric Garner.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/08/nation/house-democrats-propose-transformative-new-police-procedures-accountability/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nyc-police-chokeholds_n_6272000
For all that energy, seems like more noise than light.
There is already a system to take care of the police indiscretions, but the justice system in the US, is as broken, corrupt and not for for purpose as their many police forces.
Never understood "take a knee". Such a weird compound verb. Why not just say "kneel"?
In American football rules, taking a knee is an action similar to a mark in rugby.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/take-a-knee
Kneeling in general is also commonly an act of submission. Whereas in American football, taking a knee is an assertive act of control, and often also used out of respect for an injured player.
Thanks for spelling all of that out Ad….a sensible parliamentary system would have that passed on a bi-partisan basis very quickly….so no chance.
Wow!
Anybody else been following this?
https://youtu.be/x3JWKgjmRno
Dead cat much?
I was peripherally aware that the Flynn case was shonky to say the least, but this is new information. I've never listened to Ted before, man is he articulate.
Setting aside all partisanship, if the facts he is speaking to are even vaguely correct, then yes partisan law enforcement …. no matter which administration does it …. is incredibly dangerous. If nothing else it ensures that no-one in an administration trusts anyone else, and no-one will speak the truth without paying a terrible price.
"Setting aside all partisanship,"
Good luck with that Red
It's a piece of public political masturbation Cruz posted to ingratiate himself with MADAmorons who might be still concerned he might still possess some remnant of spine and principle sufficient to squeak up against their Dear Leader.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/amy-klobuchar-just-dismantled-ted-cruzs-absurd-smear-of-barack-obama/
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/rosenstein-russia-hearing-fact-check/index.html
I've scanned that Mother Jones reference. It's little more than a bunch of reckons flying in very loose formation.
As for the CNN so called fact check, yes it checks of a list of events, but none seem to directly address what Cruz is saying. Anything to do with this affair seems to vanish down endless rabbit holes very quickly.
In the early days of the Trump administration there seems to have been a genuine effort to reach out to both the Chinese and Russian governments in order to reopen and reset the terms of engagement with them. Whether this was a good idea or not, it's clear there were factions in Washington who have determined nothing like this was going to happen.
As I've repeatedly said, the USA has determined to abandon it's role as the global guarantor of security. And regardless of whether Trump's connections with Russia can be considered legitimate or not, this entire 'Russiagate' debacle only ensures that at least a generation of Presidents will never attempt a negotiation with Russia ever again. The domestic risk is now too high; talking to them in any terms other than sanctions and military posturing are the only modes allowed.
The fundamental premise of the US led post WW2 security order was that nations who trade beneficially with each other are less motivated to go to war. It's an imperfect, but also reasonably effective idea. Combined with the deterrent of nuclear weapons, the past 75 years has seen no major power kinetic conflict, and a general trend towards far less violence than any other time in our history.
Trump's background is a business man, and he would have no doubt framed his approach to Russia as a business opportunity. Whether he understood 'conflict of interest or not' is beside the point, the idea of normalising relations with Russia is essentially a good one. And now an idea that is dead and buried largely at the hands of the Democrats.
In the early days of the Trump administration there seems to have been a genuine effort to reach out to both the Chinese and Russian governments in order to reopen and reset the terms of engagement with them.
You still haven't worked out that any efforts along those lines were merely looking for openings to further personally enrich Odious Maximus and his shoats? Ivanka's trademarks, Moscow hotels and on and on and on and on? I guess some people really can be fooled all of the time.
As for further negotiations with Russia, I doubt there will be a problem for any administration that attempts to conduct negotiations openly, transparently, and with the interests of the American people foremost. All of which were lacking in the events of 2016 and 2017 at issue.
You still haven't worked out that any efforts along those lines were merely looking for openings to further personally enrich Odious Maximus and his shoats?
Maybe it was where I said this:
" Whether he understood 'conflict of interest or not' is beside the point,"
Was that it?
I doubt there will be a problem for any administration that attempts to conduct negotiations openly, transparently, and with the interests of the American people foremost.
Hilarious. Do you really imagine the Repugs sitting quietly by while Joe Biden opens up channels to Russia. And what makes you imagine that anything about such contacts, at least initially while each side explores it's positions, is ever held openly and transparently?
That "reopen and reset the terms of engagement" made it look like you were claiming there was a good faith effort to act in the interests of the US as a whole, when there plainly wasn't. The conflict of interest wasn’t a minor nuance, strictly personal benefit was the entire effort.
As far as initial approaches to open up channels, sure, historically there have always been hush-hush back channel negotiations, conducted by the State Department. It may be that CovidCamacho and his minions have so thoroughly fucked things up with respect to Russia that in the future there will need to be some very public positioning before anything substantial can actually happen. As a new way of managing relations, that might not be a bad thing.
historically there have always been hush-hush back channel negotiations, conducted by the State Department.
And going nowhere under Obama, or pretty much any other President since the end of the Cold War. No vision, no wider goals … strategic drift at it's worst.
I've made it clear elsewhere, Trump's foreign policy has been nothing but the inelegant charge of a psychopathic bull into a wobbly china shop.
But here's the thing, of the several million fine people who stood for the Democrat nominee, they all agreed on one thing, that Trump was being too soft on trade.
Whether layered over with a gentile veneer of 'legality' (like Hunter Biden's antics) or Trump's crass self interest, Washington's approach to Russia and foreign policy points in one direction only … inwards.
… going nowhere under Obama …
Given what Obama achieved with Iran and Cuba among others, I'm inclined to attribute lack of progress in Russia-US relations much more to Pootee being a colossal arse rather than Obama's failings. An impression that Pootee's actions since 2016 have only substantially reinforced.
Foreign policy is the one area that a President can act in with relatively little pushback from Congress or the Senate. Obama had two whole terms to implement a wholesale refresh and opening up of US foreign policy, to reset the mistakes of the past and reinvigorate the global trade order on a sustainable basis.
And it's fair to say he got some things done, but in hindsight it hasn't amounted to much. Much like John Key, heaps of political capital, mainly a bunch of very nice cycleways to show for it.
Good Guardian article about the removal of the Coulston statue in Bristol.
There is a large part of me that thinks the statue and others like it should stay in some form. With this proviso, an accompanying dominant sculpture or structure should pair it, informing those who pause to look, about the true nature and efforts of the original person, and how long it has stood as a reminder of corrupted power and historical ignorance.
I'm sure there are many other city assets named after Edward Coulston.
My opinion is, don't remove his statue and his name completely. People like him, who have been feted long after their death, despite the nature of their lives, need to be remembered truthfully. And their relationship with persistent power structures and the ongoing resistance to change should be recognised and recorded.
I'm sure there are a lot of activists and artists around that would come up with a diversity of ways to create paired sculptures – the original one (perhaps changed) to represent the failures of the past to address inequity and wrongdoing, and another to show – truth and progress.
I agree totally Molly. Human history is complex, nuanced, and deeply fascinating. There is much we can learn from it if we set aside our modern biases and look through the eyes of the people who lived through it.
Thanks, but I'm not sure that we are actually agreeing…
A cast-bronze scattering of dying slave-women and children about the statue’s feet might provide balance.
I believe you'd need about 84,000 of them, Robert, to truly reflect his impact.
(Drilling 84 thousand holes into the original might have some impact, but I'm no creative.)
I just think that alongside the original atrocities committed by this man, there were accompanying ignorance and failure to recognise his harm by successive governments, councils and communities. The statue stood there for over a hundred years. That needs to be recognised and recorded in some way too.
nah, a cast bronze of a white slave holder raping his slave women for 'free slaves' that she will bear him….cause profit – cause that is what it was. Right?
Putting this one in a museum where the historical and contemporary contexts can be presented seems a reasonable compromise.
The site the statue was taken from seems a good place to do what you are suggesting, but my sense is it shouldn't involve this statue, because of the recent history.
That's a good idea. But does remove the discussion from a more visible public space, and that may sweep the reality away. In situations like this, the decision should lie with the local community on how to record and recognise not just the initial problem, but the systems that allowed it to stay prominently displayed for so long.
I agree. I gather some of the problem here is that the local council have been ignoring the community on what to do with the statue.
That would be true across many countries I would believe. It shows clearly the institutional racism, and the less able to be defined culture that allowed it to prevail for so long.
On a bit of a tangent, but on the same lines, I had discomfort about a local civic minded group who were funded to beautify the neighbourhood. Their idea, paid for by ratepayers, was to create a side garden on one of the main streets with pseudo gravestones commemorated selected deaths from WWI. We already have cemeteries and war memorial halls aplenty.
This infusion and constant repetition of what is considered important enough to commemorate, has an insidious effect on sharing knowledge and understanding. When I posted about an Auckland Transport (don't ask me..) project that signposted places around Auckland with tangata whenua links, I had several emails complaining that the land had been utilised by settlers for many years. Which is true. After it was confiscated.
Those very public – public spaces are important and should contain designs and sculpture that are constant reminders of the society we are aiming for.
i would assume that this one statue is only the smallest thing in what is a checkered history going back to what the 1600?
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/28/592878135/an-english-city-grapples-with-the-slave-trading-past-of-its-most-celebrated-figu
also Scotland
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/time-scotland-reparations-slavery-181126095041892.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-52950006
Maybe the best thing that could be done is build a museums to the Slave traders, Slave holders, Slave Masters and their property and what they did with it. Make it free entrance and walk every child through it. Maybe that would change perception?
I'm glad Churchill's racism has been recognised. The neglect of the Bengal famine. His belief in conquest, despite his words for Britain. No Indian can respect him with full knowledge.
Hmm, few people attacking or at least suspicious of the SIS pod yesterday. I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I think I said I was wary of Espiner, but he is a capable journo who has done a lot of principled work.
Quote pulled out today and on the 10am RNZ news is 'anti-nuclear movement' was a gift to the USSR. Which considering the PM's referencing of that is interesting.
Also there are a lot more issues with the 5 eyes over the last 30 years. Not much use to democracy to only get the 30 year old stuff.
My post yesterday was to enquire whether Guyon Espiner is essentially a tory–if not attack, then sheep worrier–type of dog. Within hours, Minister Andrew Little was being drawn into it–would he deny authorising Embassy Break Ins? A variation on the classic “when did you stop beating your wife” line of questioning.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-service/418531/sis-minister-andrew-little-refuses-to-deny-signing-off-on-embassy-break-ins
Detailed research on the NZSIS using a new “snout” and reactionaries such as Mr Hensley who was close to traitorous to David Lange during the Nuclear Free NZ period, will certainly be of historic interest–and–it seems as an angle to poke at the current Govt.
The question is whether that can be considered an attack or just opportunistic promotion for his podcast. There's some cheap shade thrown for sure, but it's also possible he's not responsible for how it's used and which angles are considered newsworthy.
Given that we are now far from a benign strategic environment do we still take such close cues from our five eyes partners? Our intelligence community seems to be more important than ever. There seems to be much more active work now that the public is mostly unaware of.
How kind (opportunistic?) of Mr Muller.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12338288
The months to the election are going to seem like years if this is to be the daily dross:
"Paul Goldsmith tells Prime Minister to 'stick to her knitting' after Ardern's outrage as mass job cuts." NZ Herald headline.
"I don't think it's helpful for the Prime Minister to be criticising struggling businesses, she should stick to her knitting," Goldsmith said. Rather than getting angry, Ardern should be "better focused" on the Government's plan to grow the economy, he said.
So she makes a remark, she should have used all of the time it took to make the observation and the time should have been used being focused on something else? She was 'outraged'?
Well, obviously, she should have been knitting.
Gubmint's job is to lavish subsidies on hard-working companies, not expect accountability from them!
Therefore Goldsmith believes that 'business' is above any form of democratic oversight, i.e. it's not a part of society, it is superior to it. Good to get such a clear, unambiguous demonstration of National's extremism and how unfit to govern they are.
The stunningly brilliant Rap News take on Black Lives Matter. Years old but unfortunately still totally on message.
That was good and will surely reach some people who will like the style and some of the message should get through. And so up to date!
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2006/S00072/be-part-of-the-election-team.htm Lots of people needed to help with the election.
I know a good way for politicians to raise funds and we can all have fun. There should be a Trust set up to run a book on who wins the election, split the funds up with most going to the smaller parties, but the threshhold has to stay at 4% or we'll have more prosperity church types seeing it as a good thing.
What a pragmatic way to raise funds from a sports-living nation where gambling is useful for funding from raffles at cake stalls, to lotteries of houses in Queensland. Under this veneer of rationality we all want to win something. If it is against the law, then change it. We want laws that help our society.
[Link fixed]
Comment on online video about Washington last week and Barr's part in it:
"Why did the Attorney General gas the crowd? So the chicken could cross the road." I like that.
The same Barr of “Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant,” he told CBS News. “It’s not chemical.”
Clearly a condiment, not a chemistry.
Here's your antifa – a wannabe cop who paraded in his flogged popo kit.
The Third Precinct was overrun during protests on May 28 and heavily damaged due to vandalism and arson, with investigators identifying multiple fires being started in the building.
On June 3, St. Paul police officers were called to a home improvement store in St. Paul about an individual, later identified as Wolfe, wearing body armor and a law enforcement duty belt and carrying a baton was trying to get into the store. Store employees said WOLFE had been working as a security guard at the store but was fired earlier that day over social media posts about stealing items from the Third Precinct.
Police arrested Wolfe and say they found him wearing multiple items stolen from the Third Precinct, including body armor, a police-issue duty belt with handcuffs, an earphone piece, baton, and knife. Officers say Wolfe’s name was handwritten in duct tape on the back of the body armor. Law enforcement says it recovered items belonging to the Minneapolis Police Department, including a riot helmet, 9mm pistol magazine, police radio, and police issue overdose kit, from Wolfe’s apartment.
https://www.kimt.com/content/news/St-Paul-man-arrested-for–571111961.html
But 95% are okay guys..
/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wk-mRv1Nlo&feature=youtu.be
https://www.motherjones.com/anti-racism-police-protest/2020/06/videos-show-cops-slashing-car-tires-at-protests-in-minneapolis/
we need to call the people who put vandals before the cou- oh damn.
antifa bad
https://twitter.com/venturecommunis/status/1270132502355537920
https://twitter.com/venturecommunis/status/1270211049195626496
a bit like how all those pallets of antifa bricks were actually for municipal works or acting as safety barriers, and had often been there for significant amounts of time before Floyd was killed..
Geardos out and about.
https://twitter.com/CarrilloA1/status/1269451851465809923
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=2634207596858824&set=pcb.2634208256858758
ouch
https://twitter.com/TeaPainUSA/status/1270152298317131781
All these better go in the National Archives.
https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1270056326173847553?s=21
edit: Rick Wilson’s original thread that started it really deserves a direct link here for those that might not otherwise find their way to it. Betcha can’t get through the first 20 replies without at least a half-dozen actual lols.
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1270101251229986817
Hehehe love this sign
https://twitter.com/cheecierom/status/1270102011778871296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1270102011778871296&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2020%2F06%2Ftinyman-square-internet-suggests-names-for-new-fencing-complex-around-white-house%2F
Can't have his feels hurt.
https://twitter.com/ifindkarma/status/1269751154218373121
Kate Hawkesby:"…if the Prime Minister gets her way, no more working from home."
Has Jacinda actually said that people are not to work from home?
Politicians have been out on the campaign trail today.
Quality trolling from Ardern, going to a kiwifruit place in Muller's own electorate, getting a warm reception from the locals (sorry, "hard-working Kiwis").
A wee reminder too – only 2 months ago these were the headlines ..
A chorus of "the election should be delayed until November" (Paula Bennett, Winston Peters, various media mouths). File that one under Doom & Gloom During Lockdown, a long list, now shredded.
Lol…Winston may wish to play for time but would suggest he of all people probably should go asap