Open mike 15/06/2020

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 15th, 2020 - 29 comments
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29 comments on “Open mike 15/06/2020 ”

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  1. Ad 1
    15 June 2020 at 6:40 am

    Presumably Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms goes to the top of the Biden VP picks with this new Police shooting controversy. A quick Police Chief firing: points.

    • Andre 1.1
      15 June 2020 at 8:18 am

      I dunno. None of the reports I've seen have presented this as Bottoms taking action. They have all presented it as Shields offering up her resignation with no hint of pressure or expectation that she do so.

      Bottoms has also been a long term Atlanta city councilor before becoming mayor in 2018. So she has to wear her share of cultural and lack of oversight problems in Atlanta police.

      • Ad 1.1.1
        15 June 2020 at 8:28 am

        Also zero Federal-level experience in anything. Biden's a one-term human shoe-horn for Democrat White house renewal.

        I still think Warren brings the most.

        • Andre 1.1.1.1
          15 June 2020 at 8:44 am

          Disagree.

          Biden's age means he really really needs his veep to be someone that won't be in the oldest ever club. In the morning of Jan 20, 2021, Warren will be older than any president at their first inauguration – hopefully Biden will reset that bar at noon that day.

          Warren's talents would also be more effective as Treasury Secretary. Pencilling her in to that position would also allow more time for everyone to deal with the problem her resigning her Massachusetts Senator's seat would cause.

          Me, I'm still leaning towards Harris. But I gotta say, the idea of Michelle Lujan Grisham is growing on me.

          • RedBaronCV 1.1.1.1.1
            15 June 2020 at 9:13 am

            I think Biden has also indicated that he will probably only do one term.

            • Andre 1.1.1.1.1.1
              15 June 2020 at 9:25 am

              As I recall, he sort of hinted at that back last year. It provoked a bit of reaction along the lines of "if you're not that keen on the job why should we give it to you". Since then he's been pretty quiet on the idea of only doing one term, just letting it be that big obvious cloud out there he doesn't speak of.

            • bwaghorn 1.1.1.1.1.2
              15 June 2020 at 3:03 pm

              At a doddery 77 I should fucking hope he only does 1 term .

              • OnceWasTim …
                15 June 2020 at 8:34 pm

                For his sake yep. But actually he's not that doddery at the moment – there are others of a lesser age that are a shitload more doddery that Sleepy Joe. Half the bloody National Party for example – they just comport themselves with a younger sort of agility, and often with chemical aids such as botox, colagen and bleach.

                But I've never understood why people can't just age gracefully and rest easy amusing themselves with curmudgeonhood and watching the stupidity of those rhyming with history. Funny old beings those humans eh?

        • UncookedSelachimorpha 1.1.1.2
          15 June 2020 at 6:58 pm

          Come next election – AOC can run.

    • Sanctuary 1.2
      15 June 2020 at 9:23 am

      Keisha Lance-Bottoms (such a scatologically unfortunate name) is a 50 year old rookie mayor of a middling city. My pick for Biden's VP is Susan Rice. She is 55 – practically a strippling in the rarified gerontocracy of Washington – female and black. While Rice is just five years older than Lance-Bottoms her CV is much more impressive:

      • U.S. National Security Advisor (in the Obama Administration) from 2013 to 2017
      • U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013
      • A former Brookings Institution fellow
      • Served on the staff of the National Security Council
      • Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during Bill Clinton's second term.

      IMHO, Rice is the near perfect continuity candidate for the DNC. She ticks all the right identity politics boxes, is young enough to provide a youthful balance to Biden's increasing decrepitude, has lots of experience at the highest level, has solid establishment credentials and she has nostalgic links to the golden age of Democrat neoliberal centrism and presidential electoral success.

      Given Trump's obvious mental and physical decline and Biden's age (he would be 78 at inauguration and 82 at the next election) the VP pick is exceptionally important for both parties. The DNC wants to avoid an AOC run in 2024 at all costs. Transitioning to a 59 year old black female VP from Biden as a single term president would hopefully keep AOC well away from anywhere important for the next decade at least.

      The only blot is her role in the minds of the far right conspiracy theorists in the Benghazi thing (I won’t grace it with the term “affair”). But so far there have been ten(!) politically motivated investigations and she has survived them all, and her appointment by the senate to her ambassadorial role was unanimous, which blunts GOP attacks – so she seems safe on that front.

      • Andre 1.2.1
        15 June 2020 at 9:34 am

        But her e-mails!

        Rice is unfortunately a key player in the Benghazi issue, which led to the nine separate congressional investigations, the final one of which made Repugs aware of Hillary's home-brew e-mail server.

        That no culpability with respect to Benghazi was ever uncovered won't stop Repugs from using her association with it to launch successful smear campaigns leveraging off of it.

        • Sanctuary 1.2.1.1
          15 June 2020 at 9:47 am

          I am of the view Benghazi doesn't rate with voters as an issue that'll decide how they vote, even five ago – https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hillary-clinton-testify-benghazi-public-opinion/

          The GOP right will use it to energize their nutjob base and make a lot of noise, but I doubt it would get any resonance amongst the voters that count for the Democrats.

          • Andre 1.2.1.1.1
            15 June 2020 at 9:57 am

            I'm more worried about the possibility of tankies calling themselves journalists repackaging the inevitable Repug smears and using them to try to get traction amongst convergence moonbats.

            Also in the middle of the political continuum, the effect might be less of anyone buying into it, and more of a sense of fatigue and "I do not want to spend the next four %^&* years hearing about this" combining to put people off from bothering to vote.

      • millsy 1.2.2
        15 June 2020 at 7:22 pm

        I think I read somewhere that AOC wants to be Speaker.

  3. RedBaronCV 3
    15 June 2020 at 9:10 am

    Why is the farming business not more self reliant and again wants the government to solve it problems? Blowing up their problems out of all proportion. What they don’t have is a proven crisis!

    There has been steady media commentary on how the farming industry with a few hundred workers on visa’s stuck overseas need to have these workers flown back immediately and the government has to prioritise this. Workers so skilled they apparently took a decade to train but are on short term visa’s but actually came here with no dairy farm experience. And the farmers could not be bothered investing in training locals?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/121815910/coronavirus-calving-is-about-to-start-but-foreign-dairy-workers-still-considered-nonessential

    The farm source website for jobs, mainly dairy, shows some 750 advertised but a quick bit of filtering shows that around half of these – 350 – are short term or temporary to cover the calving season. Almost none gave any indication of hours, wages & conditions. All apparently to be negotiated! That’s to be expected – remember how farmers didn’t seem to want to comply with the labour & PAYE rules?

    And on the other side – about 1800 people registered as looking for farm work – okay that herd needed culling but around half seemed to have a background or skills in the farming community – a fair number of NZ have seen the back end of a cow.

    So the industry has at best a few hundred three month jobs that need doing. Well decent wages & working conditions would be a good start – plus some part time hours to attract local retired farmers willing to help out (& teach a NEET or two). Check out the wider family pool – maybe a 3rd cousin needing a job.

    And Richard Harman suggests that 70,000 visa’s due to expire in Sept can be extended to cover these jobs. Maybe not!

    https://www.politik.co.nz/2020/06/12/visa-uncertainty-threatens-farm-crisis/might

  4. te reo putake 4
    15 June 2020 at 12:15 pm

    Headline of the Day!

    Labour reveals dresh-faced party list for 2017 election

    Edit: Stuff have changed “dresh faced” to “fresh faced”. However, they still think the election is in 2017.

    • observer 4.1
      15 June 2020 at 12:32 pm

      I guess we'll see a post on this later? Some interesting moves on that list.

      Might need to check out number 70, 75, 80 … is it long enough?

    • bwaghorn 4.2
      15 June 2020 at 3:06 pm

      Now now you'll offend some upcoming gen z er that's to tender to have been taught to fucking proof read.

  5. Forget now 5
    15 June 2020 at 12:46 pm

    I've been watching this brewing over the weekend. Does anyone with Labour party connections know the background of why Hobbs is trying to pull an ECan with the ORC? SDHB is a bit of a cautionary tale for Otago on the inadvisability of commissioners. Hopefully Parker shuts that possibility down.

    But the other side is led by Laws & Calvert, so there may be a valid reason. The other counsellors supporting their coup have to realise that this perfidiousness will be remembered at the next local body election, surely?

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/hobbs-not-prepared-give

    • Graeme 5.1
      15 June 2020 at 1:10 pm

      It’s all a huge water fight.

      A large number of historic water permits going back to mining days, like late 1800s, were extinguished by the RMA. They expire next year and the renewal process has turned to custard. Really it’s never been anything but custard, but has bumbled along for 30 years and is all coming to a head.

      The issue is so big, and positions so intrenched, that it’s very unlikely to be resolved through the Regional Council. It will need something a lot stronger than just a commissioner. Expect legislation or judicial commission

    • Bearded Git 5.2
      15 June 2020 at 1:13 pm

      If Laws and Calvert (and I would guess from the article Fed Farmers) want her gone and (Alexa) Forbes wants her to stay, then she should stay.

      This has the makings of the creation of an ECan situation in Otago. The ACT types Laws and Calvert and the Feds need somebody pliable in the role.

      I’m sure Graeme (above) is right that this has much to do with the water rights issue coming to a head. The farmers would cheerfully see the Lindis and Cardrona Rivers running as a trickle to satisfy their self-interested and voracious appetites, with many attendant ecological problems resulting.

  6. Andre 6
    15 June 2020 at 4:47 pm

    Brutal … schlluuuurrrrp