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 You think that the logic of democracy is no longer valid?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.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
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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.