As many have mentioned, It is not really about the wall.
It is about Trump seizing ultimate power
From Trump’s statements I still get the feeling that he is still somewhat hesitant to declare a National Emergency. For a person who doesn’t read, I think that even Trump is dimly aware of the enormity of this step and the resonances of history.
It’s like he is waiting for something…..
Is Donald Trump is waiting for some sort of atrocity to be committed by Latin immigrant, (legal or illegal) before he takes that final step of calling a National Emergency?
Even if the waited for atrocity or crime doesn’t occur, it is inevitable that Donald J. Trump will in his capacity as President eventually call a National Emergency.
On declaring a National Emergency Trump’s first order of business will be to immediately end the government shutdown, and order back-pay to all the suspended government workers, even ordering the contractors be paid for this period as well. If he is smart, Trump will also order them all to be paid a bonus and thank them for the forbearance.
This move will shore up and enlarge Trump’s voting base, and further isolate the Democrats.
Cementing Trump’s reputation as champion of the working man.
The US President has no power to rule the country as an absolute monarch.
The emergency power has to relate to a specific emergency (earthquakes, fires, floods, etc) not a device to run the whole country.
On the wall it would fail. The courts would almost certainly say that such an emergency exceeds his powers. There is no wall in the border now, nothing has happened that suddenly create an emergency.
Crisis? What crisis? Seeing a bunch of right-wingers in the Supreme Court render a majority verdict that a constitutional crisis isn’t an emergency would be fun. Bring it on!
What? You don’t think Trump being prevented from building the wall that he was elected to build is a constitutional crisis? Well, okay, gridlock has become normal. But last I heard the electoral mandate was still part of democracy. Delivery of the result is still meant to be the result of democracy. You think that the logic of democracy is no longer valid? You think the Supreme Court will decide that?
The Supreme Court would focus on the meaning of “national emergency”, not campaign promises. The Supreme Court is not going to resolve the shutdown, that is a matter for the executive and the legislature. I reckon something will be done within the next for weeks to get the government up and running again. Eight weeks is an awful long time for both sides to say they won’t blink. Easy to do initially, harder as time goes on.
Of course Trump could declare a national emergency and build as much of the wall as possible before the courts declare the national emergency wrongly declared.
Would a Federal District Court have the power to stop the spending or would the whole thing have to wait till the Supreme Court ruled? if a Federal District Court could declare the declaration of national emergency invalid and stop construction, the case would be heard within a few weeks. Federal District Courts did stop the initial immigration bans within weeks.
I said that since labour was in power the MP’s have sidestepped advocating for communities and now are back from being “inclusive” with the community now.
As most PA office staff are using the excuses that; – quote; – :”the Minister to to busy now”
Labour promised us a “warm, caring, gentle, ‘inclusive’, transparent. government that gave us all a voice to be listened to, before the 2017 election but we see everything but this now.
Is it any surprise? A year or so ago, Stuart Nash made some crude and stupid comments about some prisoners not deserving any rights—and he’s the Minister of Justice. Greg O’Connor, notorious for his defence of the most indefensible and violent police misconduct, is a List M.P. and they also selected—despite many objections from women—Willie Jackson, who said on radio that he’d “put a knife through her heart” if his “missus” ever cheated on him.
But the question has been asked. It got this answer. Enjoy.
“When during the campaign, I would say ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they’re gonna write out a check, I said they’re going to pay for it. They are,” he said as he prepared to depart the White House for the southern border.
Cool, thanks. You can see why the full explanation wasn’t broadcast here. The small part I saw at the time was obviously carefully edited to make him seem evasive. Can’t expect the msm to do nuance.
So it’s a semantics thing. Some would call it sophistry, but you can tell by his shrug that he expects people to get his intention. He intends everyone to understand that the trade process will produce the payment. Perfectly logical, but only to those who understand the relation between trade and money – which excludes most media pros.
So he wasn’t trying to con people after all. He just forgot that most people don’t understand that payment is relative to the value of what is obtained in the trading process. He meant Mexico would pay by providing value equivalent to the cost of the wall. I suspect the trade deal he set up and signed with the leaders of Canada & Mexico will deliver that. Time will tell.
Except that money made by trade doesn’t end up in the treasury does it? It ends up in the pockets of businesses trading. And with the drop in tax revenue Trump put through they will find it difficult to recover those monies.
I feel like you didn’t read the linked articles at all, and you’re awfully generous to a man who has twice said “I’m like a smart person”.
True, but the left & right routinely argue that the benefits of trade trickle down, so he’s no different. It ought to have been obvious I read the first link (CNN) since I responded to the evidence there (video clip of Trump explaining the pay thing).
As regards the second, I’ve just done a scan of that and agree that his denial is a lie. I have no intention of being generous to him. His various interpretations of how Mexico will pay reflect his lack of decision about the best way to proceed. He campaigned with an intention, and declared his intent to make them pay. He views that as a promise he must honour. I suspect his support base feels the same, so he’s bound to that commitment.
The left i am aware of doesn’t agree with relying on the ‘trickle down’ benefit of trade. That aside, even if we assume this was his intention all along:
Economists and trade experts we interviewed called the president’s logic misguided.
“Even if we accept conceptually the argument that government revenue attributable to the revised trade agreement constitutes ‘Mexico paying for the wall,’ there are no plausible assumptions of USMCA’s impact that would see government revenue increase by $25 billion,” said Geoffrey Gertz, a fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution and a research associate at the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford.
My position: I decided to become neither left nor right in 1971. However in respect of values & aspirations I tend to agree with leftists, and the political compass website located me in the exact center of the left/libertarian quadrant (my red dot showed up in the middle of Bernie Sanders’ face).
I take your point regarding those two views from economists. I presume Trump’s economic advisors are supporting his view, but haven’t seen evidence of that. Wouldn’t surprise me if they are also sceptical…
I assume you mean that you decided not to “identify as left or right”. If you value left wing ideas then you are left wing whether you choose to recognise it or not.
One or two others have said that in the past. I regard it as an example of `to a hammer, everything else is a nail’ type of thinking.
Praxis (what I actually do) defines the reality. I critique left-wing and right-wing views and attitudes without any bias. I have a genuinely independent view. That’s why we formed the Greens – to insert the third option into politics.
The Green Party is a good example. While it doesn’t identify as left wing it IS the left wing of New Zealand parliamentary politics.
You keep using “praxis” to mean “practice” but that is not what it means in a political context. Praxis is a Marxist concept and should be understood as the unified whole of theory and practice. It is the two as one in a dialectic. You can’t have praxis if you don’t have theory.
Yes, I agree I to that technical possibility. I’m as likely to have tacit bias as anyone. Probably against both the left and right, inasmuch as their characteristic behaviour makes me feel alienated from them.
“Praxis (from Ancient Greek: πρᾶξις, translit. praxis) is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Paulo Freire, Ludwig von Mises, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)
So that general usage, consistent with original and historical usage, is how I use the term. Whatever warping marxists did to that meaning has no obvious relevance nowadays.
As a practical matter, forcing POTUS WRECKS to actually comply with the law requires a bunch of other people to do their jobs and fulfill their duties and responsibilities. Which they mostly have been disinclined to do so far.
Such onerous things, “duties and responsibilities”. Avoiding them is typically human. Having been brought up under the rules of the patriarchy, I recall compulsion having spectacular success most of the time. Highly unfashionable nowadays, so we get the consequences…
He’d need to frame the emergency carefully, and yes that scale of reallocation within DoD would still need approval. I see enough Dems folding to do that.
But even being shown to tilt against the windmills and fail would be easy for him to reframe as an heroic loss to the ‘swamp’.
Government appropriates funds for the military with very specific spending requirements. Similar to our Defence force there are key outputs that we are funded to provide. Any spending that falls outside of those outputs needs to be approved by government.
There are three branches of government in the US. Legislative, executive, and Judicial. They balance against each other. Yes the election of the president included a campaign promise that he would build a wall. The more recent victory in the house for the Democrats included fighting a wall. Both branches are carrying out the will of their voters (to the limited extent that they do in the US). Should they come into conflict over the issue it would come down to the judicial branch to sort it out.
The supreme court can’t create legislation and hence can’t take over government. They can merely act as the referee and when any party goes outside of the rules (the constitution) they can direct that they be stopped.
The president in the US should have no power to rule as an absolute monarch.
however, once the president is supported by either the house or the senate – or in the shitstains case by both, you have effectively a one rule party – as he had over the last two years.
Obama was not great, but he was also not served well by having the house / senate held by republicans who literally abdicated their duty to fund and legislate.
Currently Mitch McConnell or Yertl the turtle is abdicating his duties by not passing any bills who would not receive a 100% support (which is not needed ) or which would not pass the shitstains veto (which they can also override).
so effectively government is currently being drowned in a tub by Republicans as was wished for many years ago by Grover Norquist. Or as Bannon the Ugly stated, i want to be like Lenin, destroy government as we knew it and rebuild it to my likes.
The point in this exercise is not to build a wall – which for the largest part already is build (other then the Rio Grande River area) but to damage government until the patient is dead. And he is doing an awesome job of it.
Whilst I agree with most of what you say, Obama also had both the House and the Senate when he took over as president.
Unfortunately the way their system works means that as soon as you get a new president you get mid terms that require that the House and Senate go into campaign mode straight away. All those in marginal seats tend to go against the new president on legislation to try and win their elections.
And at the time of hte election that is what i stated, its not the shitstain himself, he is what he is a conman – and anyone who was alive in the 70 – now knew that. But i cautioned against the people he was surrounding himself with, that would in the end run the show. And it is thus now.
And for all those that fawn and expect the hi m to do something, he will not. He can’t, he is not disciplined enough, he is a shit negotiator, and he never quite understood that he does not need the republicans or rather the tea party, but the democrats on his side, cause the Tea Party is not there to govern, they are there to loot, slash n burn. Until literally they have legislated themselves back into the 1750 where everyone had no rights unless they were white, male, landowners. But i guess that is also ok for the shitstain considering that he is white, male, landowner and thus good with the 1750s. Everyone else however might not be so happy.,
There is a way out of this shut down and it only requires only a dozen or so Republican senators to do their duty and reopen the government. The Congress has already approved funding for the Govt to continue – including $1.3B for Border security. Trump refused to sign it in. But the Senate has the power to overturn that veto by voting with a super majority that the funding this should proceed into law.
There needs to be more pressure on Republican Senators to do their job. Every day Trump’s stability and coherence is deteriorating. He is now well out of his depth and it falls on the Republicans to do something about it – not only for his sake but for the sake of the country.
The first one that has to go agree to do his job and comply with the oath he swore is the Turtle. He’s the first obstacle to Congress actually doing its job. I’m not aware of any way of bypassing him beyond the Repugs removing him, which would need at least 27 Repug senators.
If that actually happened that the House bills to reopen the government went to a Senate vote, chances are pretty good it would get 60 votes. But once it got to the White Pride Piper’s desk, he’d likely veto it. The the House and Senate would both need to vote again and pass them with a 2/3 majority, and that’s iffy, needing at least 20 Repug senators and 60 ish (from memory) Repug reps.
Mitch McConnell will not let any bill go to floor in Senate unless he is sure it is being signed by President Shitstain.
He is doing what he did during the Obama years, just the end game here is to show 100% support of the president and nothing less will do.
So congress can get the bill passed with bipartisan support as they have done since they came to power a week ago.
The send the bill to Senate and there it dies. Mitch McConnell would be able to pass the bill with the usual defectors from the Freedom Caucus, but that would be enough to pass it.
If the shitstain were to not sign it or veto it, Congress and Senate could over ride the veto as the Senate would have the support of the Democratic Senators.
So you have the shitstain pulling a tantrum, and you have McConnell wearing headphones not giving a shit.
The US President has no power to rule the country as an absolute monarch.
The emergency power has to relate to a specific emergency (earthquakes, fires, floods, etc) not a device to run the whole country…..
Wrong
…….It would be nice to think that America is protected from the worst excesses of Trump’s impulses by its democratic laws and institutions. After all, Trump can do only so much without bumping up against the limits set by the Constitution and Congress and enforced by the courts. Those who see Trump as a threat to democracy comfort themselves with the belief that these limits will hold him in check…..
……The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him……
……These laws address a broad range of matters, from military composition to agricultural exports to public contracts. For the most part, the president is free to use any of them; the National Emergencies Act doesn’t require that the powers invoked relate to the nature of the emergency……*
……For instance, George W. Bush leveraged the state of emergency after 9/11 to call hundreds of thousands of reservists and members of the National Guard into active duty in Iraq, for a war that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Other powers are chilling under any circumstances: Take a moment to consider that during a declared war or national emergency, the president can unilaterally suspend the law that bars government testing of biological and chemical agents on unwitting human subjects……
…….“I think that Google and Twitter and Facebook, they’re really treading on very, very troubled territory. And they have to be careful,” Trump warned. If the government were to take control of U.S. internet infrastructure, Trump could accomplish directly what he threatened to do by regulation: ensure that internet searches always return pro-Trump content as the top results. The government also would have the ability to impede domestic access to particular websites, including social-media platforms. It could monitor emails or prevent them from reaching their destination. It could exert control over computer systems (such as states’ voter databases) and physical devices (such as Amazon’s Echo speakers) that are connected to the internet…..
……under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or ieepa*. Passed in 1977, the law allows the president to declare a national emergency “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat”—to national security, foreign policy, or the economy—that “has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States.” …….
……Once a person is “designated” under the order, no American can legally give him a job, rent him an apartment, provide him with medical services, or even sell him a loaf of bread unless the government grants a license to allow the transaction. The patriot Act gave the order more muscle, allowing the government to trigger these consequences merely by opening an investigation into whether a person or group should be designated…..
…… presidents have explored the outer limits of their constitutional emergency authority in a series of directives known as Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or peads. peads*, which originated as part of the Eisenhower administration’s plans to ensure continuity of government in the wake of a Soviet nuclear attack, are draft executive orders, proclamations, and messages to Congress that are prepared in advance of anticipated emergencies. peads* are closely guarded within the government; none has ever been publicly released or leaked. But their contents have occasionally been described in public sources, including FBI memorandums that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act as well as agency manuals and court records. According to these sources, peads* drafted from the 1950s through the 1970s would authorize not only martial law but the suspension of habeas corpus by the executive branch, the revocation of Americans’ passports, and the roundup and detention of “subversives” identified in an FBI “Security Index” that contained more than 10,000 names.
Less is known about the contents of more recent peads* and equivalent planning documents. But in 1987, The Miami Herald reported that Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to create a secret contingency plan authorizing “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the United States over to fema, appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law during a national crisis.” A 2007 Department of Homeland Security report lists “martial law” and “curfew declarations” as “critical tasks” that local, state, and federal government should be able to perform in emergencies. In 2008, government sources told a reporter for Radar magazine that a version of the Security Index still existed under the code name Main Core, allowing for the apprehension and detention of Americans tagged as security threats……
……It will fall to Jeff Sessions’s successor as attorney general to decide whether to rein in or expand some of the more frightening features of these peads*. And, of course, it will be up to President Trump whether to actually use them—something no previous president appears to have done……
But will they? Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.
“False Acquisitions the likes of which have never been seen before!”
Stupid, militantly ignorant, nearly illiterate—and he’s President.
In the early hours of Tuesday Sept. 25th last year, Donald Trump looked away from Fox News for a minute and tapped out the following piece of shit. An hour later he deleted it, but it’s worth looking at it here so we can, yet again, appreciate just what calibre of intellect occupies the Oval Office….
The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Acquisitions the likes of which have never been seen before!
Deleted after 1 hour at 2:01 AM on 25 Sep.
No kidding? I hadn’t noticed. I’ve long thought everyone apart from me considers themselves normal kiwis – such a relief to be wrong about that!
This Damien chap has a problem with “warriors battling against a Patriarchal Military Industrial Colonial Racist Rape Culture that, even if it ever existed, died long ago.” The problem is that they have infested the msm: “In desperation the media has taken these entitled preening self-obsessed flotsam and given them all by-lines and Twitter accounts.”
“Their ideas dominate, almost to the exclusion of all other voices. They are, even if they do not know it, in power, if not in office. They define the parameters of allowable discourse and define what is permissible yet fail to see their own power. Their identity is wrapped up in fighting the system, having failed to see that, today, they are the system.”
He ought to have quoted the Who from 1974: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. And “a parting on the left, Is now a parting on the right, and the beards have all grown longer overnight”. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/who/wontgetfooledagain.html
He reckons it “pathetic the way our titans of industry refuse to confront the manufactured hysteria of 25-year-old journalism majors.” “Business, individuals and academics should, indeed have a responsibility, to push back against this monoculture for to fail to is to surrender much of what has we hold to be valuable.”
The prospect of one part of the establishment polarising against another is interesting. He’s not advocating war, just push-back. Farrar & Slater can’t cope.
The twin-fork style? Rare, indeed. Youngsters seem to have been big on the patriarchal look since a couple of years ago (but not the attitudes that accompanied it). So hard to tell if that’s the usual reversion to the 19th century, or a more novel revival of the biblical style.
Merely cyclical fashion @ Dennis, nothing as deep or meaningful.
There have been attempts already, but I’m waiting for the neo-grunge era.
The Sallies and St Vincent de Paul might start to do a roaring trade
As I go to sleep at night Dennis, I imagine you as the warrior and voice of reason on Gallery with Brian Edwards (and his darling wife as a Commissioning Editor) in a debate between Wayne Mapp and someone like Pablo.
Better still a ‘conversation going forward’ (as opposed to a discussion) between
Green Party Co-leaders. Marama on the very-Left in reclamation mode, with James on the middle right protesting he’s not really a cunt.
It could go on forever, but unfortunately they’ll run out of time
Trudeau does a number on the Saudis in their ongoing spat. Pictures of a smiling and “very brave new Canadian” must infuriate major US ally and one of the worst patriarchal regimes and societies in the world.
An excellent summation by independent American journalist Abby Martin on all the ways Trump has ramped up the US war machine in the past two years.
An interesting question is whether “war monger” Hillary Clinton would even have gotten close to achieving as much. People are still using the “Hillary would have been just as bad” meme, But at the end of the day, this is pure speculation that will never been proven in reality, whereas Trump has proved to be the military nightmare that so many on the Left as well as Right argued Clinton would be.
Well, I watched it for 2.5 minutes and she still hadn’t produced any evidence to validate her thesis. Propaganda works just like advertising. If you can’t hook ’em in the first 30 seconds, you’re wasting your time.
Leftists preaching to the converted yet again. 🙄 Any unbiased observer will deduce that pulling US troops out of Syria & Afghanistan makes Trump anti-imperialist. Real US imperialists were livid, and bitched at him in the media about it.
Life in the leftist bubble seems to induce this type of delusional thinking. If she had evidence he was starting different wars elsewhere, she would have led with that news! Any half-way competent msm presenter, director, or producer, knows that!
He has already peddled back on pulling toops out. He has openly stated he would like to remove troops (under check and balances ) and replace these with mercenaries.
He has yet to stop selling weapons, pull out from anywhere, stop the drone bombing, etc etc etc, he has had the house and the senate for two years and he did nothing.
Can you explain that?
Cause life in the bublle seems to induce this type of delusional thinking.
yep, non so blind as those that don’t want to see.
The shitstain is not gonna stop war as war is literally the only business he has left to make money on. And that is what all of this is about. Making money. War is a racket and the shitstain wants his cuts. After all that is what this presidenting business is all about.
If the shitstain would have wanted to end wars and bring peace he could have done so for two years, yet the only meaningful legislation he and his enablers in congress and senate signed was a tax reform bill that reduced his tax rate even further soon IRS will just send him checks for farting about.
I judge him on what he actually does. It seems to work better than judging him on what he says. The notion that I’d be inclined to switch to judging him on the basis of a bunch of media stories about what media pros think he intends to do is a strange one!
Cause he has done nothing in the two years that he had with full support of the House and Senate held by the Republicans.
The only thing he got from his enablers was a tax cut. That is the sum total of his achievements.
I don’t actually listen to the shitstain, but i read what he says, and you know what? He has not pulled troops out of anywhere. He has not stopped any bombings of Yemen, He has not stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia so that they can continue bombing Yemen. He has not stopped North Korea from developing their nuclear weapons. He has systematically dismantled even the tiniest little bit of environmental legislation passed under presidents before him, and not only Obama. EPA is gutted for all its worth, but hey its all good right?
So i am not sure what you are judging him on, maybe his Golf Game?
Yes, those are valid points. In regard to pulling the troops out, I’m assuming there’s an official time-frame to implement that. So we ought to reserve judgment awhile. I hope you aren’t mistaking me for someone pro-Trump. I just prefer to avoid bias, give credit where due, disagree with criticism that seems inaccurate.
It is true that I appreciate his anti-establishment stance. That’s what has made it hard for him in respect of legislation. Other Republicans are as much enemies as friends, and their support has been slow and conditional.
The man with the golden shitter is the anti establishment idea.
Much like the Mafia, these guys too are anti establishment.
Surely any time now he will drain the swamp, and make life better for the fearful, much maligned, abused, neglected white working male with economic anxiety.
One tax cut at a time.
I was going to watch the All Blacks v Ireland game in 3013 but after 2.5 minutes it was still 0-0 so gave up.
Apparently it was won 24-22 in the 82nd minute after a try was scored in a movement which involved most of one team multiple times. No substance from the outset though meant it was a nothing event, not worth watching.
no she would have not simply due to the fact that she would have had to content with a republican held congress and senate – as did Obama.
Chances are also as the left is not as disciplined when it comes to voting that the democrats would have not won the house in the mid terms she would still be stuck with Rebulicans everywhere.
And that is why quite a few and me included would have voted for her – holding nose and all that – rather then vote for the orange shitstain who has surrounded himself with some of the worst people a political party could potentially house.
But it is now done, the shitstain will in the end be worse the Hillary could have ever been, why? Because no one will ever hold him to account. And considering that the shitstain is lazy, intellectually and physically, has no interest in learning and adjusting ones views but rather wants to be mentally masturbated by arsekissers and boot lickers he will never ever be what he always was, a fraud, a conman, a racist, a misogynist etc etc etc . He will never bring peace to anyone or anywhere, he will not make the US great, but rather cause in the end a civil war which consider that the US is a nuclear country with a lot of bigoted end times obsessed religious nutters, could be interesting for the rest of the planet.
With Germany’s far right AfD now campaigning for Germany to exit the EU, the EU now has an existential fight on its hands.
Success by AfD in the EU elections together with other nationalists could simply explode the entire EU project.
They are likely to be hugely successful in these elections.
The left can now start to imagine a world without the EU – the strongest civilising force in trade, law, environment and human rights that the world has had in 70 years.
.
Anything called the “Empire Files” is hardly independent. Though I guess you mean independent as in not employed by a major news media organisation.
Anyway I viewed the item. It is way overblown. Trump has increased defence expenditure, but that is basically on new multi-billion dollar ships. It will be years before they are delivered. Overseas deployments have hardly changed since the Obama era.
In fact the major combat deployment in Syria is in a wind down. The one major change is the US policy toward Iran, but I don’t believe that will result in war. It is possible, but unlikely. In contrast the situation in the Korean peninsula is headed toward peace. As for China, US military policy is basically a continuation of the Obama policy. On that issue Republicans and Democrats have a singular view. Though will the left side of the Democrats want a new policy? Too hard to tell at the moment.
And again, it must be the democrats that don’t want peace, right? Cause ………….never mind that the republicans have held the house and senate under obama and did jack shit, have held the house and senate under the shitstain and did jack shit, but hey the democrats took the house back a week ago, so let the blame game begin.
What you are saying Wayne is that the conservatives would be so good at running things were it not for the left, and then they run things, and the government gets shut down three times in one year, no war was stopped, no troops have been recalled, the bombs and drones keep on falling, war sales increase, trade wars for shits n giggles, north korea still building its bombs, china still enlarging its territory by building islands and so on.
You are a faithful water carrier that at least can be said about you.
The ongoing saga of the KC-46 Peagasus Tankers has been very interesting from the start and it shows just much clout the US Arms manufactures have. The Airbus Tanker (which won the contact to supply the USAF with new Tankers until Boeing threw its toys out of its cot) is far superior on so many levels it’s not funny and the basic design of the Boeing Aircraft is basically old technology (mid to late 80’s).
The Brits have complained about the technology in RC-135 Airseeker’s that replaced the Nimrod R2’s, but the Poms can’t replace more superior Brit technology because Boeing holds the IP rights and they won’t release the IP because they will lose money on any future upgrades and it’s the same for the P8. The Brits were hoping to replace the Yank stuff on the P8 for the MR4 Nimrod design equipment which again was far superior to the Yank design equipment. Hence why I’m a little bit concerned with the NZG/ MOD buying the P8 as any RNZAF upgrade in the future may have to be done in Australia as they have a very large footprint in Oz? Instead of here in NZ because Boeing holds the IP and NZ will be restricted to what it can do to the P8 as it would be the Boeing way or the Highway. Unlike with the old P3’s that RNZAF have upgraded over the years which has in turn generated money for Safe Air as nations that use the P3 have use Safe Air knowledge to maintain the own P3 due too outside the square thinking of the RNZAF and NZ MOD.
Considering the quality of the advice you seemed to accept with little question during your time as Minister of Defence, Wayne, I would seriously question your critical acumen.
Is there a more laughable public figure
in New Zealand than Bob McCoskrie?
Think of the really outré figures in this country. It’s not that big a list. There are the unspeakably evil (Garth “The Knife” McVicar, Allan Titford), the plain silly (David Seymour), the foolish (Jordan Williams), the mad (Cameron Slater), the bad (Nevil “Breivik” Gibson), and the sad (Christine “Spankin'” Rankin).
And then there is Bob “Hairbrush” McCoskrie. Despite calling himself a Christian, he’s notorious for advocating the beating of children. He reckons using a hairbrush as a weapon to hit an infant is godly.
But in the following bizarre post, he seems to have decided that any physical force is a bad thing. What’s he smoking? And, no, I do NOT want a puff of it….
A Mormon Moron. The next big Story will be a push back on the inquiry into sexual abuse in religion. Fringe cult Church’s with Patriarchal leadership have much higher levels of sexual abuse ie the Exclusive Brethren 27% of their children are abused.
Na he used to be a Methodist but hived off with some of the congregation of his former church when the Methodist church of New Zealand said it was OK for a gay person to be a minister if the church concerned was happy with it.
Money system mismanagement through not applying the right incentives at the right time seems to be a regular thing. Also too much connectedness, amounting to a syndicate of banks, led to the spread of a what would otherwise have been a localised difficulty.
In 1836, directors of the Bank of England noticed that the Bank’s monetary reserves had declined precipitously in recent years, possibly because of poor wheat harvests that forced Great Britain to import much of its food.[5]
To compensate, the directors indicated that they would gradually raise interest rates from 3 to 5 percent. The conventional financial theory held that banks should raise interest rates and curb lending when faced with low monetary reserves. Raising interest rates, according to the laws of supply and demand, was supposed to attract species since money generally flows where it will generate the greatest return (assuming equal risk among possible investments).
In the open economy of the 1830s, characterized by free trade and relatively weak trade barriers, the monetary policies of the hegemonic power – in this case, Great Britain – were transmitted to the rest of the interconnected global economic system, included the U.S. The result was that as the Bank of England raised interest rates, major banks in the United States were forced to do the same.[6]
Get out of Iraq. Get out of Pakistan. Get out of Afghanistan.
Get out of Yemen. Get out of Syria.
Saying “the US was stabilizing in opposition to the state” is like saying “the serial killer nurse was stabilizing her patients by injecting air into their arteries.”
“My job title is Executive Support and Research. It’s a pretty complex job: I balance the diary, conduct research, produce comms material and do pretty much anything else my MP needs. This includes managing and responding to traditional letters and emails; it also means dealing with the wonderful world of Facebook messages – the one part of her social media where my MP has relinquished control to me.”
For this person, the experiential difference produced by gender was a shock, and it seems to have motivated the writer to publicise what female politicians are likely to encounter from the public. After discussing examples, he concludes with this:
“There are some simple things we as men can do to change this really nasty culture. We can look at our own actions for starters and how they impact the lives of others. Don’t be a fuckwit. If you’ve been a creep in the past, learn from it. Help your friends do the same if they need it. That might look like just giving them friendly advice on how to Tinder without being a dick, or you know, maybe suggesting they don’t try and hit on members of parliament via Facebook.”
Gabbard was one of 47 Democrats who voted to stop refugees from Syria and Iraq from entering the United States and called for non-Muslim refugees from the Middle East to be given priority.
Gabbard’s also besties with far-right-wing Netanyahu/Trump apologist Shmuley Boteach and top GOP donor Miriam Adelson and David Duke, alt-right leader Richard Spencer and Steve Bannon all reckon she’s the bomb, too.
Heh. My kid is looking for a Linux laptop. His grandpa is taking a round trip to the US soon. So I told him to check out getting it delivered to rellies in the US and have grandpa bring it back.
Looks like it’s going to be quite a bit cheaper to have it shipped to NZ. Because if it’s delivered to a US address, Drumpf tariffs apply, but those tariffs don’t apply when it’s shipped here.
Yeah. But that happens regardless of whether it’s shipped in or carried back in person. In theory anyway. My kid is quite rule-compliance-oriented so he would have issues with grandpa trying to get it in without paying the GST.
But you can put Linux on any laptop. Surely he knows this. Why does he need to get it delivered to the US considering they’re just about exclusively made in Asian countries?
1) Firstly, banking has been practising versions of it for a long time, and look how well it has worked out for that industry.
2) The problem is not so much accumulated capital, as it is accumulated capital that is not good or capable to much else in society other than more accumulation, that is to say accumulated capital rather than being an asset to the real economy, it is a liability.
I’m not sure a capital gains tax really does much to change that current dynamic.
Doesn’t work, far too easy to shift financial transactions offshore. The success of the this type of tax depends upon retaining the trades that happen within the next, debt and bond markets; as the revenue generated from point of sale transactions is simply not enough without these big capital markets.
The article details how this failed in Sweden when tried.
“A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/climate/ocean-warming-climate-change.html
“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”
“As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer. They have slowed the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 percent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere.”
“Our best estimate is that the rate of warming since the 1970s is about 40 per cent faster than was reported in the estimates published in the last IPCC report,” Dr Hausfather said. In the period between 1991 to 2010, the ocean warmed, on average, more than five times faster than in the 1971 to 1990 period, according to the research.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-01-11/ocean-warming-accelerating-faster-than-thought-science/10693080
“This latest analysis, headed by Lijing Cheng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at four different studies published since 2013, that used improved statistical and analytical methods to estimate historic warming. Each of these studies independently came to the same conclusion, according to Dr Hausfather.”
“There’s been four different estimates of ocean-heat content published since the 2013 IPCC report,” he said. “They all show more warming than previous projections.”
Some of us are, eh? I think we now have strong evidence that the IPCC has been too conservative. Still, the younger generations are the only ones likely to still be here when thing get out of control.
Those still voting National currently look like the most endangered species. Not so much boiled frogs as frogs on the road chanting in unison “you do not exist” at the approaching global-warming steamroller. Well, to be technically correct, diesel-roller.
I’d like a bit more information about the Christchurch chase involving 3 young men in a car running from police, and then crashing into a tree; all are dead I think.
They reached a speed of 135 kmh but what speed were they travelling at when he police first got on their tail?
I think some psychological discussion needs to go on here. The police becoming involved, once they start to try to outrun them, their adrenalin is pumping, this is not reasoned policing. It does not endear people to the police force, who don’t seem to be involved with the citizens at any age which puts the police in a positive light around the country. Individuals yes, but I feel that meeting targets is more important than good relationships with people.
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 ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
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 arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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. ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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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. ...
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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 ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
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To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing what’s important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to “lock your ...
A warning – suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television – even though it’s been pointed out ...
Essay: If the Crown harms children, how do you hold it accountable? Analysis by Aaron Smale in light of the Waitangi Tribunal court decision. The post The Crown versus Māori Children appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are a class of thousands of man-made chemicals used widely in everyday consumer items such as textiles, packaging, and cookware, popular for their water, grease and stain-repellent properties. However, the very properties that make PFAS so attractive to manufacturers are also what ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 3 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priestley Habru, PhD candidate, public diplomacy, University of Adelaide Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament. The result is a mixed bag for ...
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Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
The US gets closer to its Reichstag moment.
As many have mentioned, It is not really about the wall.
It is about Trump seizing ultimate power
From Trump’s statements I still get the feeling that he is still somewhat hesitant to declare a National Emergency. For a person who doesn’t read, I think that even Trump is dimly aware of the enormity of this step and the resonances of history.
It’s like he is waiting for something…..
Is Donald Trump is waiting for some sort of atrocity to be committed by Latin immigrant, (legal or illegal) before he takes that final step of calling a National Emergency?
Even if the waited for atrocity or crime doesn’t occur, it is inevitable that Donald J. Trump will in his capacity as President eventually call a National Emergency.
On declaring a National Emergency Trump’s first order of business will be to immediately end the government shutdown, and order back-pay to all the suspended government workers, even ordering the contractors be paid for this period as well. If he is smart, Trump will also order them all to be paid a bonus and thank them for the forbearance.
This move will shore up and enlarge Trump’s voting base, and further isolate the Democrats.
Cementing Trump’s reputation as champion of the working man.
Rule you like a King
Trump gets closer to ruling the US under emergency powers, using the shut down and the wall as his excuse for taking absolute rule.
“I have the absolute right to call a national emergency,” Donald Trump
Fox News 14 hours ago:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-on-justice-with-judge-jeanine?cmpid=prn_msn
Fox News 2 days ago:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-has-the-absolute-right-to-declare-national-emergency-in-fox-news-interviewhttps://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-on-justice-with-judge-jeanine?cmpid=prn_msn
The USA currently has 31 ongoing national emergencies
The US President has no power to rule the country as an absolute monarch.
The emergency power has to relate to a specific emergency (earthquakes, fires, floods, etc) not a device to run the whole country.
On the wall it would fail. The courts would almost certainly say that such an emergency exceeds his powers. There is no wall in the border now, nothing has happened that suddenly create an emergency.
Crisis? What crisis? Seeing a bunch of right-wingers in the Supreme Court render a majority verdict that a constitutional crisis isn’t an emergency would be fun. Bring it on!
What? You don’t think Trump being prevented from building the wall that he was elected to build is a constitutional crisis? Well, okay, gridlock has become normal. But last I heard the electoral mandate was still part of democracy. Delivery of the result is still meant to be the result of democracy. You think that the logic of democracy is no longer valid? You think the Supreme Court will decide that?
The Supreme Court would focus on the meaning of “national emergency”, not campaign promises. The Supreme Court is not going to resolve the shutdown, that is a matter for the executive and the legislature. I reckon something will be done within the next for weeks to get the government up and running again. Eight weeks is an awful long time for both sides to say they won’t blink. Easy to do initially, harder as time goes on.
Of course Trump could declare a national emergency and build as much of the wall as possible before the courts declare the national emergency wrongly declared.
Would a Federal District Court have the power to stop the spending or would the whole thing have to wait till the Supreme Court ruled? if a Federal District Court could declare the declaration of national emergency invalid and stop construction, the case would be heard within a few weeks. Federal District Courts did stop the initial immigration bans within weeks.
100% Dennis I agree.
Are Supreme court now running the country and not elected politicians?
Someone had better go to Mt Rushmore and place those Supreme Court Justices on the hillside now!!!!!!!
Oh no!!! ; – we cant vote for them can we?
‘Democracy is gone now’; – and a bunch of (not publicly elected justice’s) are now running the most powerful country on the planet now!!!!!
Talking about “who runs what” I contributed to Arthur Taylor’s bitch at Labour MP’s inaction in the prisoners debarkle today.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/category/most-recent-blogs/
I said that since labour was in power the MP’s have sidestepped advocating for communities and now are back from being “inclusive” with the community now.
As most PA office staff are using the excuses that; – quote; – :”the Minister to to busy now”
Labour promised us a “warm, caring, gentle, ‘inclusive’, transparent. government that gave us all a voice to be listened to, before the 2017 election but we see everything but this now.
Is it any surprise? A year or so ago, Stuart Nash made some crude and stupid comments about some prisoners not deserving any rights—and he’s the Minister of Justice. Greg O’Connor, notorious for his defence of the most indefensible and violent police misconduct, is a List M.P. and they also selected—despite many objections from women—Willie Jackson, who said on radio that he’d “put a knife through her heart” if his “missus” ever cheated on him.
No Morrissey, Greg O’Connor is an electorate MP.
He won Ohariu, when Dunne stepped down rather than lose, when he saw the writing on the wall.
Thanks James.
But Mayhico’s paying for it franxie. So why’s chump trying to rob the yanker taxpayers? He needs to praxis what he peaches.
Well done. 🙄 Haven’t seen the media asking him that, not sure why! It’s been the obvious question for weeks now. 🤔
But the question has been asked. It got this answer. Enjoy.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/10/politics/trump-mexico-pay-wall/index.html
A wee reminder of a few of the many ways Mexico was going to pay:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/10/fact-check-trump-mexico-pay-indirectly/2535573002/
Cool, thanks. You can see why the full explanation wasn’t broadcast here. The small part I saw at the time was obviously carefully edited to make him seem evasive. Can’t expect the msm to do nuance.
So it’s a semantics thing. Some would call it sophistry, but you can tell by his shrug that he expects people to get his intention. He intends everyone to understand that the trade process will produce the payment. Perfectly logical, but only to those who understand the relation between trade and money – which excludes most media pros.
So he wasn’t trying to con people after all. He just forgot that most people don’t understand that payment is relative to the value of what is obtained in the trading process. He meant Mexico would pay by providing value equivalent to the cost of the wall. I suspect the trade deal he set up and signed with the leaders of Canada & Mexico will deliver that. Time will tell.
Except that money made by trade doesn’t end up in the treasury does it? It ends up in the pockets of businesses trading. And with the drop in tax revenue Trump put through they will find it difficult to recover those monies.
I feel like you didn’t read the linked articles at all, and you’re awfully generous to a man who has twice said “I’m like a smart person”.
True, but the left & right routinely argue that the benefits of trade trickle down, so he’s no different. It ought to have been obvious I read the first link (CNN) since I responded to the evidence there (video clip of Trump explaining the pay thing).
As regards the second, I’ve just done a scan of that and agree that his denial is a lie. I have no intention of being generous to him. His various interpretations of how Mexico will pay reflect his lack of decision about the best way to proceed. He campaigned with an intention, and declared his intent to make them pay. He views that as a promise he must honour. I suspect his support base feels the same, so he’s bound to that commitment.
The left i am aware of doesn’t agree with relying on the ‘trickle down’ benefit of trade. That aside, even if we assume this was his intention all along:
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/12/is-mexico-paying-for-the-wall-through-usmca/
Just seeking a quick clarification: do you not consider yourself of the Left?
My position: I decided to become neither left nor right in 1971. However in respect of values & aspirations I tend to agree with leftists, and the political compass website located me in the exact center of the left/libertarian quadrant (my red dot showed up in the middle of Bernie Sanders’ face).
I take your point regarding those two views from economists. I presume Trump’s economic advisors are supporting his view, but haven’t seen evidence of that. Wouldn’t surprise me if they are also sceptical…
I assume you mean that you decided not to “identify as left or right”. If you value left wing ideas then you are left wing whether you choose to recognise it or not.
One or two others have said that in the past. I regard it as an example of `to a hammer, everything else is a nail’ type of thinking.
Praxis (what I actually do) defines the reality. I critique left-wing and right-wing views and attitudes without any bias. I have a genuinely independent view. That’s why we formed the Greens – to insert the third option into politics.
And a certain amount of hubris, if you genuinely believe that. Everyone has acknowledged or unacknowledged bias.
The Green Party is a good example. While it doesn’t identify as left wing it IS the left wing of New Zealand parliamentary politics.
You keep using “praxis” to mean “practice” but that is not what it means in a political context. Praxis is a Marxist concept and should be understood as the unified whole of theory and practice. It is the two as one in a dialectic. You can’t have praxis if you don’t have theory.
Yes, I agree I to that technical possibility. I’m as likely to have tacit bias as anyone. Probably against both the left and right, inasmuch as their characteristic behaviour makes me feel alienated from them.
“Praxis (from Ancient Greek: πρᾶξις, translit. praxis) is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Paulo Freire, Ludwig von Mises, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)
So that general usage, consistent with original and historical usage, is how I use the term. Whatever warping marxists did to that meaning has no obvious relevance nowadays.
If I were President I would make it a matter of national security and instruct the armed forces to design, fund, and execute the wall.
they have plenty of money to reallocate.
he has direct authority over them.
Here’s an explanation of some of the rules why he can’t.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/trump-border-wall-military-congress-shutdown-emergency.html?via=rubric_recirc_recent
As a practical matter, forcing POTUS WRECKS to actually comply with the law requires a bunch of other people to do their jobs and fulfill their duties and responsibilities. Which they mostly have been disinclined to do so far.
Such onerous things, “duties and responsibilities”. Avoiding them is typically human. Having been brought up under the rules of the patriarchy, I recall compulsion having spectacular success most of the time. Highly unfashionable nowadays, so we get the consequences…
cheers for the link.
i think its still the least-worst route for him.
He’d need to frame the emergency carefully, and yes that scale of reallocation within DoD would still need approval. I see enough Dems folding to do that.
But even being shown to tilt against the windmills and fail would be easy for him to reframe as an heroic loss to the ‘swamp’.
I see him able to salvage this ok so far.
Government appropriates funds for the military with very specific spending requirements. Similar to our Defence force there are key outputs that we are funded to provide. Any spending that falls outside of those outputs needs to be approved by government.
There are three branches of government in the US. Legislative, executive, and Judicial. They balance against each other. Yes the election of the president included a campaign promise that he would build a wall. The more recent victory in the house for the Democrats included fighting a wall. Both branches are carrying out the will of their voters (to the limited extent that they do in the US). Should they come into conflict over the issue it would come down to the judicial branch to sort it out.
The supreme court can’t create legislation and hence can’t take over government. They can merely act as the referee and when any party goes outside of the rules (the constitution) they can direct that they be stopped.
A lot of ugly things will crawl out from under the STONE
Do you really think this is still about a wall, Ad?
Could the US military build it?
I very much doubt it, The US military can’t even fight their wars without massive logistical support of private sector contractors.
The same private sector contractors that will be called on to build ‘a wall’ of sorts.
But don’t worry Ad, I am sure the US military will have a role to play in the State Trump Of National Emergency.
The president in the US should have no power to rule as an absolute monarch.
however, once the president is supported by either the house or the senate – or in the shitstains case by both, you have effectively a one rule party – as he had over the last two years.
Obama was not great, but he was also not served well by having the house / senate held by republicans who literally abdicated their duty to fund and legislate.
Currently Mitch McConnell or Yertl the turtle is abdicating his duties by not passing any bills who would not receive a 100% support (which is not needed ) or which would not pass the shitstains veto (which they can also override).
so effectively government is currently being drowned in a tub by Republicans as was wished for many years ago by Grover Norquist. Or as Bannon the Ugly stated, i want to be like Lenin, destroy government as we knew it and rebuild it to my likes.
The point in this exercise is not to build a wall – which for the largest part already is build (other then the Rio Grande River area) but to damage government until the patient is dead. And he is doing an awesome job of it.
Whilst I agree with most of what you say, Obama also had both the House and the Senate when he took over as president.
Unfortunately the way their system works means that as soon as you get a new president you get mid terms that require that the House and Senate go into campaign mode straight away. All those in marginal seats tend to go against the new president on legislation to try and win their elections.
This happened to Obama and also trump.
yep, two years, and he too got shit done.
And at the time of hte election that is what i stated, its not the shitstain himself, he is what he is a conman – and anyone who was alive in the 70 – now knew that. But i cautioned against the people he was surrounding himself with, that would in the end run the show. And it is thus now.
And for all those that fawn and expect the hi m to do something, he will not. He can’t, he is not disciplined enough, he is a shit negotiator, and he never quite understood that he does not need the republicans or rather the tea party, but the democrats on his side, cause the Tea Party is not there to govern, they are there to loot, slash n burn. Until literally they have legislated themselves back into the 1750 where everyone had no rights unless they were white, male, landowners. But i guess that is also ok for the shitstain considering that he is white, male, landowner and thus good with the 1750s. Everyone else however might not be so happy.,
There is a way out of this shut down and it only requires only a dozen or so Republican senators to do their duty and reopen the government. The Congress has already approved funding for the Govt to continue – including $1.3B for Border security. Trump refused to sign it in. But the Senate has the power to overturn that veto by voting with a super majority that the funding this should proceed into law.
There needs to be more pressure on Republican Senators to do their job. Every day Trump’s stability and coherence is deteriorating. He is now well out of his depth and it falls on the Republicans to do something about it – not only for his sake but for the sake of the country.
The first one that has to go agree to do his job and comply with the oath he swore is the Turtle. He’s the first obstacle to Congress actually doing its job. I’m not aware of any way of bypassing him beyond the Repugs removing him, which would need at least 27 Repug senators.
If that actually happened that the House bills to reopen the government went to a Senate vote, chances are pretty good it would get 60 votes. But once it got to the White Pride Piper’s desk, he’d likely veto it. The the House and Senate would both need to vote again and pass them with a 2/3 majority, and that’s iffy, needing at least 20 Repug senators and 60 ish (from memory) Repug reps.
Mitch McConnell will not let any bill go to floor in Senate unless he is sure it is being signed by President Shitstain.
He is doing what he did during the Obama years, just the end game here is to show 100% support of the president and nothing less will do.
So congress can get the bill passed with bipartisan support as they have done since they came to power a week ago.
The send the bill to Senate and there it dies. Mitch McConnell would be able to pass the bill with the usual defectors from the Freedom Caucus, but that would be enough to pass it.
If the shitstain were to not sign it or veto it, Congress and Senate could over ride the veto as the Senate would have the support of the Democratic Senators.
So you have the shitstain pulling a tantrum, and you have McConnell wearing headphones not giving a shit.
In the meantime everything else goes to shit.
Wrong
* (my emphasis, J.
On the powers of the President.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTOs7KqRgOk&feature=youtu.be
But will they? Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/
“False Acquisitions the likes of which have never been seen before!”
Stupid, militantly ignorant, nearly illiterate—and he’s President.
In the early hours of Tuesday Sept. 25th last year, Donald Trump looked away from Fox News for a minute and tapped out the following piece of shit. An hour later he deleted it, but it’s worth looking at it here so we can, yet again, appreciate just what calibre of intellect occupies the Oval Office….
“The baying mob of left-wing commentators aren’t brave or radical – and they can barely spell” declares Damien Grant on Stuff. “One of the great tragedies we face as a nation is a surfeit of radicals. Everyone, from Marama Davidson to the coffee-person at The Spinoff, considers themselves a radical.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/109877613/damien-grant-the-baying-mob-of-leftwing-commentators-arent-brave-or-radical–and-they-can-barely-spell-or-use-a-spreadsheet
No kidding? I hadn’t noticed. I’ve long thought everyone apart from me considers themselves normal kiwis – such a relief to be wrong about that!
This Damien chap has a problem with “warriors battling against a Patriarchal Military Industrial Colonial Racist Rape Culture that, even if it ever existed, died long ago.” The problem is that they have infested the msm: “In desperation the media has taken these entitled preening self-obsessed flotsam and given them all by-lines and Twitter accounts.”
“Their ideas dominate, almost to the exclusion of all other voices. They are, even if they do not know it, in power, if not in office. They define the parameters of allowable discourse and define what is permissible yet fail to see their own power. Their identity is wrapped up in fighting the system, having failed to see that, today, they are the system.”
He ought to have quoted the Who from 1974: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. And “a parting on the left, Is now a parting on the right, and the beards have all grown longer overnight”. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/who/wontgetfooledagain.html
He reckons it “pathetic the way our titans of industry refuse to confront the manufactured hysteria of 25-year-old journalism majors.” “Business, individuals and academics should, indeed have a responsibility, to push back against this monoculture for to fail to is to surrender much of what has we hold to be valuable.”
The prospect of one part of the establishment polarising against another is interesting. He’s not advocating war, just push-back. Farrar & Slater can’t cope.
Amazing how a wealthy white male can feel so oppressed, so emasculated. Is he actually claiming ‘his people’ have lost their fight long ago?
Gentlemen, part your beards.
The twin-fork style? Rare, indeed. Youngsters seem to have been big on the patriarchal look since a couple of years ago (but not the attitudes that accompanied it). So hard to tell if that’s the usual reversion to the 19th century, or a more novel revival of the biblical style.
Merely cyclical fashion @ Dennis, nothing as deep or meaningful.
There have been attempts already, but I’m waiting for the neo-grunge era.
The Sallies and St Vincent de Paul might start to do a roaring trade
As I go to sleep at night Dennis, I imagine you as the warrior and voice of reason on Gallery with Brian Edwards (and his darling wife as a Commissioning Editor) in a debate between Wayne Mapp and someone like Pablo.
Better still a ‘conversation going forward’ (as opposed to a discussion) between
Green Party Co-leaders. Marama on the very-Left in reclamation mode, with James on the middle right protesting he’s not really a cunt.
It could go on forever, but unfortunately they’ll run out of time
Sorry for that
Trudeau does a number on the Saudis in their ongoing spat. Pictures of a smiling and “very brave new Canadian” must infuriate major US ally and one of the worst patriarchal regimes and societies in the world.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12189378
Go the canaks fuck the Saudis
Ae!, and Peter Dutton for that matter
An excellent summation by independent American journalist Abby Martin on all the ways Trump has ramped up the US war machine in the past two years.
An interesting question is whether “war monger” Hillary Clinton would even have gotten close to achieving as much. People are still using the “Hillary would have been just as bad” meme, But at the end of the day, this is pure speculation that will never been proven in reality, whereas Trump has proved to be the military nightmare that so many on the Left as well as Right argued Clinton would be.
Well, I watched it for 2.5 minutes and she still hadn’t produced any evidence to validate her thesis. Propaganda works just like advertising. If you can’t hook ’em in the first 30 seconds, you’re wasting your time.
Leftists preaching to the converted yet again. 🙄 Any unbiased observer will deduce that pulling US troops out of Syria & Afghanistan makes Trump anti-imperialist. Real US imperialists were livid, and bitched at him in the media about it.
Life in the leftist bubble seems to induce this type of delusional thinking. If she had evidence he was starting different wars elsewhere, she would have led with that news! Any half-way competent msm presenter, director, or producer, knows that!
He has already peddled back on pulling toops out. He has openly stated he would like to remove troops (under check and balances ) and replace these with mercenaries.
He has yet to stop selling weapons, pull out from anywhere, stop the drone bombing, etc etc etc, he has had the house and the senate for two years and he did nothing.
Can you explain that?
Cause life in the bublle seems to induce this type of delusional thinking.
how about bombing iran
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/white-house-asked-pentagon-plans-strike-iran
how about stealing the oil wealth?
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/09/16/trumps-take-the-oil-madness/
pulling out of syria? Oh noes, equiment yes, troop numbers might actually increase
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/middleeast/us-syria-troop-withdrawal.html
afghanistan? privatise the war? might even go to syria?
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/21/mattis-is-out-and-blackwater-is-back-we-are-coming/
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/ominous-blackwater-is-coming-advert-raises-prospect-trump-has-privatised-war/news-story/784ce81fc6ebdd9113edba2e2da17044
yep, non so blind as those that don’t want to see.
The shitstain is not gonna stop war as war is literally the only business he has left to make money on. And that is what all of this is about. Making money. War is a racket and the shitstain wants his cuts. After all that is what this presidenting business is all about.
If the shitstain would have wanted to end wars and bring peace he could have done so for two years, yet the only meaningful legislation he and his enablers in congress and senate signed was a tax reform bill that reduced his tax rate even further soon IRS will just send him checks for farting about.
I judge him on what he actually does. It seems to work better than judging him on what he says. The notion that I’d be inclined to switch to judging him on the basis of a bunch of media stories about what media pros think he intends to do is a strange one!
No you judge him on what he says.
Cause he has done nothing in the two years that he had with full support of the House and Senate held by the Republicans.
The only thing he got from his enablers was a tax cut. That is the sum total of his achievements.
I don’t actually listen to the shitstain, but i read what he says, and you know what? He has not pulled troops out of anywhere. He has not stopped any bombings of Yemen, He has not stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia so that they can continue bombing Yemen. He has not stopped North Korea from developing their nuclear weapons. He has systematically dismantled even the tiniest little bit of environmental legislation passed under presidents before him, and not only Obama. EPA is gutted for all its worth, but hey its all good right?
So i am not sure what you are judging him on, maybe his Golf Game?
Yes, those are valid points. In regard to pulling the troops out, I’m assuming there’s an official time-frame to implement that. So we ought to reserve judgment awhile. I hope you aren’t mistaking me for someone pro-Trump. I just prefer to avoid bias, give credit where due, disagree with criticism that seems inaccurate.
It is true that I appreciate his anti-establishment stance. That’s what has made it hard for him in respect of legislation. Other Republicans are as much enemies as friends, and their support has been slow and conditional.
The man with the golden shitter is the anti establishment idea.
Much like the Mafia, these guys too are anti establishment.
Surely any time now he will drain the swamp, and make life better for the fearful, much maligned, abused, neglected white working male with economic anxiety.
One tax cut at a time.
I was going to watch the All Blacks v Ireland game in 3013 but after 2.5 minutes it was still 0-0 so gave up.
Apparently it was won 24-22 in the 82nd minute after a try was scored in a movement which involved most of one team multiple times. No substance from the outset though meant it was a nothing event, not worth watching.
Poor analogy. Try harder. 🙄
Totally disregarding something because it doesn’t immediately engage is silly. I realise the long game isn’t for you hence your short reply.
As an effort to show a shallowness of thinking can be judged in the first four words it is most appropriate.
no she would have not simply due to the fact that she would have had to content with a republican held congress and senate – as did Obama.
Chances are also as the left is not as disciplined when it comes to voting that the democrats would have not won the house in the mid terms she would still be stuck with Rebulicans everywhere.
And that is why quite a few and me included would have voted for her – holding nose and all that – rather then vote for the orange shitstain who has surrounded himself with some of the worst people a political party could potentially house.
But it is now done, the shitstain will in the end be worse the Hillary could have ever been, why? Because no one will ever hold him to account. And considering that the shitstain is lazy, intellectually and physically, has no interest in learning and adjusting ones views but rather wants to be mentally masturbated by arsekissers and boot lickers he will never ever be what he always was, a fraud, a conman, a racist, a misogynist etc etc etc . He will never bring peace to anyone or anywhere, he will not make the US great, but rather cause in the end a civil war which consider that the US is a nuclear country with a lot of bigoted end times obsessed religious nutters, could be interesting for the rest of the planet.
But hey,. her emails.
With Germany’s far right AfD now campaigning for Germany to exit the EU, the EU now has an existential fight on its hands.
Success by AfD in the EU elections together with other nationalists could simply explode the entire EU project.
They are likely to be hugely successful in these elections.
The left can now start to imagine a world without the EU – the strongest civilising force in trade, law, environment and human rights that the world has had in 70 years.
.
Anything called the “Empire Files” is hardly independent. Though I guess you mean independent as in not employed by a major news media organisation.
Anyway I viewed the item. It is way overblown. Trump has increased defence expenditure, but that is basically on new multi-billion dollar ships. It will be years before they are delivered. Overseas deployments have hardly changed since the Obama era.
In fact the major combat deployment in Syria is in a wind down. The one major change is the US policy toward Iran, but I don’t believe that will result in war. It is possible, but unlikely. In contrast the situation in the Korean peninsula is headed toward peace. As for China, US military policy is basically a continuation of the Obama policy. On that issue Republicans and Democrats have a singular view. Though will the left side of the Democrats want a new policy? Too hard to tell at the moment.
of course the ge ntlement from boeing would never push boeing now that he is secretary of defense…….
surely not.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/acting-defense-secretary-boosted-boeing-his-former-employer.html
no absolutely not
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/10/despite-flaws-air-force-accepts-boeings-long-delayed-troubled-tanker/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cf671b8b259e
cross my heart and bless your cotton socks,
https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/boeing-air-force-tanker-deal-kc-46a-pegasus-20190113
So much education, so little learned.
And again, it must be the democrats that don’t want peace, right? Cause ………….never mind that the republicans have held the house and senate under obama and did jack shit, have held the house and senate under the shitstain and did jack shit, but hey the democrats took the house back a week ago, so let the blame game begin.
What you are saying Wayne is that the conservatives would be so good at running things were it not for the left, and then they run things, and the government gets shut down three times in one year, no war was stopped, no troops have been recalled, the bombs and drones keep on falling, war sales increase, trade wars for shits n giggles, north korea still building its bombs, china still enlarging its territory by building islands and so on.
You are a faithful water carrier that at least can be said about you.
The ongoing saga of the KC-46 Peagasus Tankers has been very interesting from the start and it shows just much clout the US Arms manufactures have. The Airbus Tanker (which won the contact to supply the USAF with new Tankers until Boeing threw its toys out of its cot) is far superior on so many levels it’s not funny and the basic design of the Boeing Aircraft is basically old technology (mid to late 80’s).
The Brits have complained about the technology in RC-135 Airseeker’s that replaced the Nimrod R2’s, but the Poms can’t replace more superior Brit technology because Boeing holds the IP rights and they won’t release the IP because they will lose money on any future upgrades and it’s the same for the P8. The Brits were hoping to replace the Yank stuff on the P8 for the MR4 Nimrod design equipment which again was far superior to the Yank design equipment. Hence why I’m a little bit concerned with the NZG/ MOD buying the P8 as any RNZAF upgrade in the future may have to be done in Australia as they have a very large footprint in Oz? Instead of here in NZ because Boeing holds the IP and NZ will be restricted to what it can do to the P8 as it would be the Boeing way or the Highway. Unlike with the old P3’s that RNZAF have upgraded over the years which has in turn generated money for Safe Air as nations that use the P3 have use Safe Air knowledge to maintain the own P3 due too outside the square thinking of the RNZAF and NZ MOD.
Considering the quality of the advice you seemed to accept with little question during your time as Minister of Defence, Wayne, I would seriously question your critical acumen.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/review-of-he-toki-huna-new-zealand-in.html
Is there a more laughable public figure
in New Zealand than Bob McCoskrie?
Think of the really outré figures in this country. It’s not that big a list. There are the unspeakably evil (Garth “The Knife” McVicar, Allan Titford), the plain silly (David Seymour), the foolish (Jordan Williams), the mad (Cameron Slater), the bad (Nevil “Breivik” Gibson), and the sad (Christine “Spankin'” Rankin).
And then there is Bob “Hairbrush” McCoskrie. Despite calling himself a Christian, he’s notorious for advocating the beating of children. He reckons using a hairbrush as a weapon to hit an infant is godly.
But in the following bizarre post, he seems to have decided that any physical force is a bad thing. What’s he smoking? And, no, I do NOT want a puff of it….
http://bobmccoskrie.com/?p=23303#sthash.Vyk6wG5n.dpbs
A Mormon Moron. The next big Story will be a push back on the inquiry into sexual abuse in religion. Fringe cult Church’s with Patriarchal leadership have much higher levels of sexual abuse ie the Exclusive Brethren 27% of their children are abused.
Is McCoskrie a Mormon?
He used to work for Radio Rhema. One of his fellow DJs there was particularly obnoxious after the death of Bob Hope in 2003.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/fundamentalist-loonies-consign-bob-hope.html
Na he used to be a Methodist but hived off with some of the congregation of his former church when the Methodist church of New Zealand said it was OK for a gay person to be a minister if the church concerned was happy with it.
Money system mismanagement through not applying the right incentives at the right time seems to be a regular thing. Also too much connectedness, amounting to a syndicate of banks, led to the spread of a what would otherwise have been a localised difficulty.
In 1836, directors of the Bank of England noticed that the Bank’s monetary reserves had declined precipitously in recent years, possibly because of poor wheat harvests that forced Great Britain to import much of its food.[5]
To compensate, the directors indicated that they would gradually raise interest rates from 3 to 5 percent. The conventional financial theory held that banks should raise interest rates and curb lending when faced with low monetary reserves. Raising interest rates, according to the laws of supply and demand, was supposed to attract species since money generally flows where it will generate the greatest return (assuming equal risk among possible investments).
In the open economy of the 1830s, characterized by free trade and relatively weak trade barriers, the monetary policies of the hegemonic power – in this case, Great Britain – were transmitted to the rest of the interconnected global economic system, included the U.S. The result was that as the Bank of England raised interest rates, major banks in the United States were forced to do the same.[6]
Do we learn? Are we managing our national finances better now? We are all connected now, isn’t that good? Details of the USA in one century alone.
https://www.thoughtco.com/financial-panics-of-the-19th-century-1774020
List of notable depressions since the year dot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_economic_crises
Get out of Iraq. Get out of Pakistan. Get out of Afghanistan.
Get out of Yemen. Get out of Syria.
Anonymous: “I’ve worked at parliament for three different MPs over five years. For the first time, I’m now working for a woman MP, and the kind of messages sent to her online are shocking.” https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/14-01-2019/what-you-see-when-its-your-job-to-open-a-woman-mps-facebook-messages/
“My job title is Executive Support and Research. It’s a pretty complex job: I balance the diary, conduct research, produce comms material and do pretty much anything else my MP needs. This includes managing and responding to traditional letters and emails; it also means dealing with the wonderful world of Facebook messages – the one part of her social media where my MP has relinquished control to me.”
For this person, the experiential difference produced by gender was a shock, and it seems to have motivated the writer to publicise what female politicians are likely to encounter from the public. After discussing examples, he concludes with this:
“There are some simple things we as men can do to change this really nasty culture. We can look at our own actions for starters and how they impact the lives of others. Don’t be a fuckwit. If you’ve been a creep in the past, learn from it. Help your friends do the same if they need it. That might look like just giving them friendly advice on how to Tinder without being a dick, or you know, maybe suggesting they don’t try and hit on members of parliament via Facebook.”
As inane & trite this stuff is to swallow on the surface….
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/noted/109910243/winston-peters-in-uncomfortable-position-over-governments-immigration-policy
….the influence of accumulated money through neo-conservative rorting from the economy is anything but.
NZ1st!
Tulsi Gabbard should have a good chance of rolling the Trumpster for POTUS IMHO.
Yeah, the pro-Assad muslim-bashing homophobic vote is just yuuuuge.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/tulsi-gabbard-is-running-for-president-can-she-shake-her-ties-to-dictators-and-nationalists/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tulsi-gabbard-homophobic-remarks_us_5c3a6030e4b01c93e00a5952
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party
Gabbard reckons Egypt’s murderous Fattah el Sisi, has shown great courage and leadership in taking on this extreme Islamist ideology.
Never mind the torture, mass detention and military action.
https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/photos-rep-tulsi-gabbard-meets-egypt-president-el-sisi-and-other-leaders-cairo
Gabbard was one of 47 Democrats who voted to stop refugees from Syria and Iraq from entering the United States and called for non-Muslim refugees from the Middle East to be given priority.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/20/house-democrats-refugee-bill-social-media-backlash
Gabbard’s also besties with far-right-wing Netanyahu/Trump apologist Shmuley Boteach and top GOP donor Miriam Adelson and David Duke, alt-right leader Richard Spencer and Steve Bannon all reckon she’s the bomb, too.
Heh. My kid is looking for a Linux laptop. His grandpa is taking a round trip to the US soon. So I told him to check out getting it delivered to rellies in the US and have grandpa bring it back.
Looks like it’s going to be quite a bit cheaper to have it shipped to NZ. Because if it’s delivered to a US address, Drumpf tariffs apply, but those tariffs don’t apply when it’s shipped here.
Just remember that if it’s over $400 NZD they’ll ping you for GST at the border.
Yeah. But that happens regardless of whether it’s shipped in or carried back in person. In theory anyway. My kid is quite rule-compliance-oriented so he would have issues with grandpa trying to get it in without paying the GST.
But you can put Linux on any laptop. Surely he knows this. Why does he need to get it delivered to the US considering they’re just about exclusively made in Asian countries?
Financial Transaction Tax better than Capital Gains i’d say, for primarily two reasons:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/109818642/capital-gains-tax–what-we-know-about-how-it-would-work
1) Firstly, banking has been practising versions of it for a long time, and look how well it has worked out for that industry.
2) The problem is not so much accumulated capital, as it is accumulated capital that is not good or capable to much else in society other than more accumulation, that is to say accumulated capital rather than being an asset to the real economy, it is a liability.
I’m not sure a capital gains tax really does much to change that current dynamic.
Transaction tax…would impact on black market cash deals and money laundering.
That means it will never be enacted.
https://www.ft.com/content/b9b40fee-9236-11e2-851f-00144feabdc0
Doesn’t work, far too easy to shift financial transactions offshore. The success of the this type of tax depends upon retaining the trades that happen within the next, debt and bond markets; as the revenue generated from point of sale transactions is simply not enough without these big capital markets.
The article details how this failed in Sweden when tried.
Just redefine ‘offshore’ rury.
“A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/climate/ocean-warming-climate-change.html
“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”
“As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer. They have slowed the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 percent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere.”
“Our best estimate is that the rate of warming since the 1970s is about 40 per cent faster than was reported in the estimates published in the last IPCC report,” Dr Hausfather said. In the period between 1991 to 2010, the ocean warmed, on average, more than five times faster than in the 1971 to 1990 period, according to the research.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-01-11/ocean-warming-accelerating-faster-than-thought-science/10693080
“This latest analysis, headed by Lijing Cheng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at four different studies published since 2013, that used improved statistical and analytical methods to estimate historic warming. Each of these studies independently came to the same conclusion, according to Dr Hausfather.”
“There’s been four different estimates of ocean-heat content published since the 2013 IPCC report,” he said. “They all show more warming than previous projections.”
and are we concerned?….apparently not
“Global carbon emissions reached an all-time high in 2018,”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-emissions-reached-an-all-time-high-in-2018/
Some of us are, eh? I think we now have strong evidence that the IPCC has been too conservative. Still, the younger generations are the only ones likely to still be here when thing get out of control.
Those still voting National currently look like the most endangered species. Not so much boiled frogs as frogs on the road chanting in unison “you do not exist” at the approaching global-warming steamroller. Well, to be technically correct, diesel-roller.
whos to say when or how but very likely long before we expected
I’d like a bit more information about the Christchurch chase involving 3 young men in a car running from police, and then crashing into a tree; all are dead I think.
They reached a speed of 135 kmh but what speed were they travelling at when he police first got on their tail?
I think some psychological discussion needs to go on here. The police becoming involved, once they start to try to outrun them, their adrenalin is pumping, this is not reasoned policing. It does not endear people to the police force, who don’t seem to be involved with the citizens at any age which puts the police in a positive light around the country. Individuals yes, but I feel that meeting targets is more important than good relationships with people.
Post up now, greywarshark. Adrenaline gets a mention.