Open mike 17/01/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 17th, 2024 - 75 comments
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75 comments on “Open mike 17/01/2024 ”

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  1. Morrissey 1
    17 January 2024 at 7:21 am

    Oh my God! How did this happen? cryingsurpriseangryno

    Let the conniptions begin…

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/16/trump-threat-iowa-caucus-polls

    • Phillip ure 1.1
      17 January 2024 at 8:17 am

      It pays to remember that last time iowa voted for ted cruz..

      Iowa is white/rural/reactionary..unlike most of the rest of america…

      Victory for trump in iowa in no way indicates another term for him..

      • James Simpson 1.1.1
        17 January 2024 at 10:10 am

        Indeed, it does pay to remember that. Trump has won a state he didn't pick up in 2016.

        Doesn't that tell us he is now in a better position to win the Republican nomination when he is winning states he previously lost.

        His victory in Iowa was the largest margin of victory in the history of the state’s Republican caucuses, further securing his position as the Republican frontrunner.

        This is a 1 horse race.

        The only thing that will stop him now is the Supreme Court.

        • Morrissey 1.1.1.1
          17 January 2024 at 10:18 am

          The only thing that will stop him now is the Supreme Court.

          That's not going to happen.

          • James Simpson 1.1.1.1.1
            17 January 2024 at 10:22 am

            On reflection I agree.

            Even if the States that have disqualified him, are successful in the appeal courts, Trump still wins the nomination.

            • Morrissey 1.1.1.1.1.1
              17 January 2024 at 10:53 am

              There's a really interesting analysis of the Iowa result here, following an analysis of the U.S. bombing of Yemen. The Iowa analysis, including an appreciation of Trump's comic ability, begins at the 18:30 mark…

        • Peter 1.1.1.2
          17 January 2024 at 11:02 pm

          I think it's worth mentioning that if the Supreme or some other court stops him that'll be down to what he's done not someone else.

          Naturally, for months he's been on his campaign to convince everyone he's being picked on. Don't want to do the time? Don't do the crime.

    • Corey 1.2
      17 January 2024 at 12:52 pm

      If you don't like this then don't look at the federal election polls.

      Bidens losing in all but one swing state.

      Trump beats Biden with Latinos and voters under 30.

      Bidens lead with African American voters has dissolved by 20% as black voters frustrated over their govt funding Israel and Ukraine while cutting their public services and giving public housing to refugees and immigrants turn to Cornell West, Kennedy and Trump.

      Bidens the most unpopular president seeking reelection in history.

      The senate map is extremely unfavorable to democrats this year and with Biden on the ticket Dems are gonna be obliterated in the senate and congress.

      Trumps probably going to win the popular vote this time and looking at the health of two of the democratic scotus judges… It's not good.

      The gen z and Latino polling numbers are astounding and getting worse and worse.

      • Corey 1.2.1
        17 January 2024 at 1:09 pm

        Trumps approval ratings are higher than Bidens

        The democrats won't be able to blame white people or old people for Trump winning on these numbers, only themselves.

        The irony of attacking and gleefully waving goodbye to working class voters in favor of some fanciful coalition of the college educated, generational and identity based.

        Only for large swaths of that coalition to decide "I make too much money to vote democrat"

        The way the lefts going globally whose going to be left voting for it, uni grads and the lgbt?

        If you're not representing the working class you're a tory, no matter how pretty you talk.

        The working class should be representation of the working class by the working class not by the upper middle class and anyone who says class doesn't apply to usa or nz is highly unlikely to be working class.

        • Morrissey 1.2.1.1
          17 January 2024 at 4:03 pm

          Seven years ago the former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich summed up the rottenness of the Democratic Party. It has not gotten one bit better since then.

          What has happened in America should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.

          At the core of that structure are the political leaders of both parties, their political operatives, and fundraisers; the major media, centered in New York and Washington DC; the country’s biggest corporations, their top executives, and Washington lobbyists and trade associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders, hedge-fund and private-equity managers, and their lackeys in Washington; and the wealthy individuals who invest directly in politics.

          At the start of the 2016 election cycle, this power structure proclaimed Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush shoo-ins for the nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties. After all, both of these individuals had deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisers and all the political name recognition any candidate could possibly want….

          https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/democrats-working-class-americans-us-election

    • Sanctuary 1.3
      17 January 2024 at 1:42 pm

      Only 14% of registered Republicans voted in vile weather in Iowa, and just under half of them voted against Trump.

      Its an interesting opinion poll on where the GOP is at.

      • Phillip ure 1.3.1
        17 January 2024 at 6:59 pm

        So those record majority claims earlier in the thread are just an example of stats being total horseshit/meaningless….

        • James SimpsonYou\'re arg 1.3.1.1
          18 January 2024 at 11:03 am

          Why do you think they are meaningless Phillip?

          The turnout in 2024 was almost identical to the 2012 caucuses. There was record turnout in 2016, but event then only 24% of registered Republicans turned up?

  2. Ghostwhowalks 2
    17 January 2024 at 8:06 am

    So only 51% of the most committed republicans want Trump ?

    How is that a victory in the sense of intra party support

    It says to me 49% dont want him as their candidate – even though hes that rareity a former President

  3. Robert Guyton 3
    17 January 2024 at 9:40 am

    “And that has meant, for example there have been police investigations into those threats almost the entire time that she has been a Member of Parliament, and so obviously if you’re living with that level of threat in what is already quite a stressful situation then there are going to be consequences for that.”

    Imagine, if you will, how that might have been.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/506852/former-green-mp-golriz-ghahraman-subject-to-continuous-threats-whilst-in-parliament-shaw

    • George 3.1
      17 January 2024 at 11:32 am

      She would have been better off if she assaulted someone with a piece of furniture… Much more acceptable.

      • bwaghorn 3.1.1
        17 January 2024 at 11:38 am

        Or physically harassed a waitress by repeatedly pulling her hair, also fondling kids hair is a ok.

      • George 3.1.2
        17 January 2024 at 12:06 pm

        Also…glasshouses and all that…I worked in the fashion industry for some years, some years ago. I also worked at a very high end shop. The amount of shoplifting by the women who were well off in the high end shop was Epic! Much less in the lower socio economic areas at that time. I believe it's a way that some people use to release anxiety. We need to support our women more.

      • Robin The Goodfellow 3.1.3
        17 January 2024 at 12:13 pm

        Like, allegedly, assaulting a member of your staff?

        [right, you’re one of the people I’ve had to spend moderator time on this week. Take a day off while I have a look at your posting history, because I think you’ve been warned about trolling and commenting before. 

        ​​​​​​​In the meantime, read this and have a think about whether you want to keep your commenting ability on TS and what you are willing to do to retain that. https://thestandard.org.nz/we-need-a-better-class-of-right-wing-troll/ – weka]

        [consensus among the mods is that you’re here to troll and don’t add much to the site. Plus you’ve already been given a final warning. Permanent ban – weka]

    • weka 3.2
      17 January 2024 at 11:41 am

      the press conference yesterday where Shaw said that was quite moving. I think many people have no idea how much abuse people like Ghahraman are subjected to, or what it means.

      • bwaghorn 3.2.1
        17 January 2024 at 12:06 pm

        That should start realieasing them to public , with the senders name and photo if possible,

        • weka 3.2.1.1
          17 January 2024 at 12:18 pm

          I'm guessing there are reasons to not do that. Escalation, plus what happens when/if they get to court.

          • Visubversa 3.2.1.1.1
            17 January 2024 at 12:34 pm

            It would be very simple to have everyone who leaves an abusive message for an MP to get a swift response from some senior member of the Diplomatic Protection Squad. It should not have to threaten violence – just anything offensive should have their call or message returned.

          • bwaghorn 3.2.1.1.2
            17 January 2024 at 6:43 pm

            These are gutless cowards , they won't escalate they'll cower and run , my first thought was put them in the stocks and throw cabbages at them ,

            • weka 3.2.1.1.2.1
              17 January 2024 at 8:41 pm

              I'm sure most of them are. However, poking the bear is not a safe response. It's only going to take one for us to step over the line and become more like the US.

      • Robert Guyton 3.2.2
        17 January 2024 at 6:55 pm

        Shaw, on behalf of the party, is showing genuine empathy and balance, all of which will be lost on those who don't wish to be empathetic. I admire that guy.

        • weka 3.2.2.1
          17 January 2024 at 8:29 pm

          nearly every time he fronts on something like this he comes through. Lots of respect. Agree that it will be lost on some, and likewise that empathy is choice. Maybe not social and emotional intelligence.

  4. ianmac 4
    17 January 2024 at 10:00 am

    No Right Turn has strong words for Willis claiming that the previous government had cooked the books and left the new government with a financial mess to clean up. It was a serious allegation from Willis but …

    https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2024/01/willis-made-no-complaints-about-prefu.html

  5. Ffloyd 5
    17 January 2024 at 12:46 pm

    I believe texting 13 year old girls by certain ministers is also acceptable.

  6. SPC 6
    17 January 2024 at 1:05 pm

    The most noticeable stat is that Northland, BOP/Rotorua have a problem in their primary schools – Waikato also, to a lesser degree.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2024/01/vaping-smoking-bigger-issue-in-primary-schools-than-secondary-new-figures.html

  7. Rolling-on-Gravel 7
    17 January 2024 at 2:27 pm

    This article by David Farrier is exactly how I feel about the Golriz Ghahraman affair:

    Yesterday, Ghahraman resigned. It’s a big news story here, as it would be if any MP was caught shoplifting. These are elected officials, and we have to hold them to account. But New Zealand is covering it like they’ve caught a serial killer. Our biggest website, Stuff, is soaking in it:

    https://www.webworm.co/p/golriz

    We have to do better by our female politicians and our minority group politicians in our beautiful land.

    • Ad 7.1
      17 January 2024 at 2:37 pm

      Agree.

      Compare it to the massive hui for this weekend and the roll-on it will have to Waitangi.

      Compare it to the policy issues that are released today such as the Electoral Commission's 500-page report with masses of recommendations, including

      – Votes for all prisoners

      – 4 year voting term

      – MMP threshold down to 2.5%

      … and many more.

      List MPs are just changed within weeks requiring no further political focus.

      We don't need to whitewash any allegation, but can we get back to the actual policy contests.

      • Rolling-on-Gravel 7.1.1
        17 January 2024 at 4:31 pm

        – 4 year voting term

        – MMP threshold down to 2.5%

        These are very important policies that should be considered the most in our society. This absolutely affects Aotearoa/NZ the most in terms of policies.

        I find it weird that our lip-licking & gore-grubbing media don't seek out to be thoughtfully and humanly discussing this sort of proposed policy for our country given that we will be affected by a longer parliamentary term, a house full of more political parties and politicians and so on…

        The 4th Estate is in crisis.

        • Phillip ure 7.1.1.1
          17 January 2024 at 6:03 pm

          I think the horrors this gummint is going to unleash..mean that a four year term is dead in the water..

      • George 7.1.2
        17 January 2024 at 5:52 pm

        Nothing quite like feeding people to the lions as a distraction from their own dodgy issues…

  8. Sanctuary 8
    17 January 2024 at 2:33 pm

    The North Asian arms race gets very little coverage here, which is bizarre because a big conflict there would almost certainly involve us via our status as a military client state of Australia.

    South Korea is an excellent example of the rapid decline of the influence of the traditional European military power houses. The ROK provided Ulraine with a third of a million 155mm artillery shells with six weeks of the request and last year provided more of this vital ammunition type to Ukraine than the entire EU combined, and hardly raised a sweat doing it.

    Poland is buying thousands of Korean tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery – and it's all being done on a timeline of a few years, not decades and with handy locally assembly offsets. Estonia, Finland, Norway and Romania have all made recent large orders for South Korean equipment which is cheaper, as good as anything produced in Europe, gets delivered promptly, has excellent supply chains and doesn't come with protracted debates in the Bundestag about if they should be allowed them in the first place.

    Outside of Europe the ROK has made waves with big orders to Egypt and Australia for their Self-propelled artillery and Infantry Fighting Vehicles. The Germans, who used to dominate the tank market, haven’t had a big non-EU sale in a long while.

    The Naval arms race is simply mind boggling. The Chinese PLAN currently launches about one major warship every 12-14 weeks, and has done for almost a decade and plans to continue to do so for the foreseable future. The Japanese Navy has 30 submarines, mostly built in the last 15 years, and forty or so majore surface combatants. To put it another way, the JMSDF is bigger than the British and French navies combined. South Korea's navy has 22 attack submarines and is 50% bigger than the Royal Navy in major surface warships. Again, mostly new. The ROK is mulling building an aircraft carrier or two and since they they have 1000s of Short Range Ballistic Missiles's they are wondering about developing nuclear warheads for them.

    The United States is scrambling to re-open closed shipyards and dockyards to again mass produce warships.

    Australia as well know want a dozen nuclear attack submarines and a big surface fleet, whilst the Australian arms industy os going gangbusters – they've just signed a deal to produced ATACMS and HIMARS missiles domestically.

    The Phillipines, sick of being pushed around by China, is ordering new ships and is re-opening the Subic bay naval base for it’s allies to use if they need a helping hand.

    Arguing if we should have an arms industry is now moot. We should be building a modern 155mm ammunition plant next to Glenbrook steel mill, think of the export $$$$!!!!

    • Ad 8.1
      17 January 2024 at 2:39 pm

      Did you check out the Chinese ballistic missile scandal and resulting 'restructures'?

      • Sanctuary 8.1.1
        17 January 2024 at 3:04 pm

        I don't believe half of what was reported about the Chinese scandal, some of it read like wishful thinking from the West. For a start, liquid fuelled missiles are really, really old technology and I would be surprised if those that are still in service would be particularly relied on. Everyone has used solid rocket fuel since the 1980s and I can’t imagine China hasn’t had the plans of Russian ICBMs on their harddrives since the 1990s when the chaos of Yeltsin’s Russia meant everything was for sale (I read a possibly apocryphal and hair raising tale of a couple of wags who rang a Russian naval base in the late 1990s pretending they were from Venezuela and asking after a cruise missile submarine. The were asked if they wanted it with the missiles or without…)

        The faulty silo lids I could believe, simply because that is a classic n00b mistake and mirrors similar Russian problems from ages ago – I assume the Chinese acquired those Russian blueprints as well.

        But the meta is a military that has undergone breakneck expansion in an economy where quality control isn't much of thing and corruption and kickbacks in the CCP is rampant. I was reading just the other week that foreign observers of Chinese peacekeepers found Chinese equipment fragile and of poor construction. The J-20 stealth fighter has a powerplant plagued with reliability issues, high fuel consumption, and inability to develop the promised thrust while the Chinese struggle with the high maintenance costs of their latest kit as much as the Americans do with theirs.

        China hasn't fought a major war since Korea, and I suspect that lack of warfighting experience would lead to initial major systemic failures in combat against an opponent like the United States.

  9. Ad 9
    17 January 2024 at 4:24 pm

    Shoutout to Bernie Sanders for tabling a proposal that the US subject Israel to scrutiny about its human rights record (the overlooked provision 502B) by analysing the human rights record of any country receiving US aid.

    The 11 Senators voting in favour included Rang Paul, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Wlch, and Jeff Merkley.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-senate-vote-against-human-rights-report_n_65a70499e4b00bbb446d0088

    Sure it was a doomed effort, but it was a principled one. So good on Bernie.

  10. observer 10
    17 January 2024 at 4:59 pm

    When you witness violent offending and various other crimes in central Auckland (as I have numerous times) you soon learn that it's hardly worth calling the cops. They are too busy and/or understaffed, we're told. Especially for places like dairies, when there are robberies. Just not important enough.

    But five – yes, five – officers are available to visit an obviously non-violent person who is then charged with a non-violent crime. They'd get exactly the same result by asking "please pop round to the police station". She's not running away.

    I have never seen five cops at a local dairy, unless there is blood on the floor.

    Police charge former Green MP Golriz Ghahraman over shoplifting allegations – NZ Herald

    • higherstandard 10.1
      17 January 2024 at 5:45 pm

      "I have never seen five cops at a local dairy, unless there is blood on the floor."

      Even then you'd be hard pressed. Five officers required to interview one non violent young woman about some shoplifting ? This is pathetic behaviour from PC Plod.

    • Anne 10.2
      17 January 2024 at 5:50 pm

      Reminds me of the overkill when they ransacked Nicky Hager's home cos… rawshark etc. etc. He eventually got recompense and an apology, but it sometimes seems they don't learn from their own mistakes.

    • George 10.3
      17 January 2024 at 6:00 pm

      Only if the pies are being restocked

    • Incognito 10.4
      17 January 2024 at 6:49 pm

      Not sure what your angle is and what fantastic narrative you’re trying to create here …

      I’d add that this seems very unlike you surprise

      • Anne 10.4.1
        17 January 2024 at 7:08 pm

        I think Observer's angle is the obvious over-kill in sending five cops plus more in unmarked cars for a violent free crime when the culprit was obviously not a violent person and had already confessed to her guilt.

        Unless they saw it as good PR… see here folks, we’re doing our job. 😉

      • observer 10.4.2
        17 January 2024 at 7:11 pm

        The only angle or narrative is that this is ridiculous overkill, as other commenters have noted.

        According to the Stuff report, the police were there all day, from 7 am. A strange priority for police resources. There was no risk of Golriz doing anything except co-operate. Make one phone call, one appointment, court date Feb. A few minutes of formalities, nothing more.

        So why the big show?

        Police lay charges following Golriz Ghahraman shoplifting allegations | Stuff

        • Robert Guyton 10.4.2.1
          17 January 2024 at 8:05 pm

          Perhaps they were protecting a woman who has received death threats.

          • observer 10.4.2.1.1
            17 January 2024 at 8:24 pm

            I thought that too and would really like to believe it. Problem is, death threats don't go away on schedule this afternoon. But the police did.

            • weka 10.4.2.1.1.1
              17 January 2024 at 8:28 pm

              Or, the police went round early hours or overnight because of concern, and now it's less of an threat for whatever reason. For whatever reason because none of us know what is going on.

              I think the least likely explanation is that the police felt they needed 5 police people to interview Ghahraman.

          • weka 10.4.2.1.2
            17 January 2024 at 8:25 pm

            that would be my guess. Reporter said an unmarked police car was outside her house since 7am. Doesn't say if that's when police arrived or the reporter arrived. But odds on she has received death threats.

        • Incognito 10.4.2.2
          17 January 2024 at 8:46 pm

          frown

  11. Bryan Dods 11
    17 January 2024 at 6:43 pm

    In one fell swoop five plods have attained a better work story.

    I have not seen footage. Did a police-person of the female persuasion visit Golriz or was it just the boys?

  12. Morrissey 12
    17 January 2024 at 9:03 pm

    To take your minds off unpleasant things like overbearing police and the character assassination campaign against one of our few decent politicians, here's the latest release from Bucklands Beach's finest…

  13. adam 13
    17 January 2024 at 10:03 pm

    God bless the UAW – getting new union members and pushing for better wages and conditions.

    Message from UAW President Shawn Fain. On the attack on workers trying to unionise.