There’s already grounds for impeachment using the emoluments clause. But it won’t happen until enough Repugs in Congress calculate it’s in their political interest to impeach. Actual principles or ethics or what’s written in the constitution won’t matter before that moment.
Too right I did Ad – what a fabulous game. Now life can get back to a bit of normality with earlier nights. Thank goodness I’m retired and can have a wee lie in.
Just remember this: After Trump’s presidential decree banning people from several countries, hundreds – possibly thousands – of civil rights workers and pro bono lawyers descended almost spontaneously on US airports to fight for peoples rights.
What the United States needs is mass public protest. Ongoing. If they leave it to the cowards and fools in Congress, Trump will continue doing what he’s doing.
The people of Romania showed the way in 1989 when they overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Ceaușescu by doing THIS day after day after day….
In good taste substituting ‘the US’ for “The Democrats” in that article’s title, relentless protest offers the high prospect of ‘self-interest first’ GOP representatives turning on the unhinged Trump and reverting to pre-convention positions.
Trump’s personal God fantasies may not be impacted by that of course – he’s lived a lifetime of encouragement to hubris – and he may well “continue doing what he is doing regardless”, but electoral effect would be profound with potential loss of the much vaunted control of both houses – emoluments impeachment looming ?
Already the loathsome draft dodger Trump is vulnerable to the reputational damage GOP “loser” war hero McCain seems intent on doing him. Assisted, weirdly, by psychotic behaviour Trump neither resists nor his dark inner circle can control. In time the damp squibs Ryan and McConnell will fall into line.
US checks and balances may well save the day within two years, if only by dint of coiffed idiots feeling electoral heat. Someone should get the message to the “late great Abraham Lincoln” (Trump’s absurd reference during the campaign) that all is not lost.
You mean talking bollocks that keep media from covering what he is actually doing, or doing studffg that is also nonsense overturned in courts. If Trump is not a senile old git, then what is he is up to coz he’s highly effective at keep media enthralled.
Take abortion, we know the predominant Catholic scotus wont be willing to out pope the pope, so the whole abortion is over scare is a joke. Similarly the border crap, Obama saw more s.American migrants return home that Trump will be hard pressed to match him. Similarly Muslim countries is largely a temporary smoke and mirrors policy. Its about wjat Trump is is doing.
You don’t keep up James ? Already there are 2-3 million more Americans who voted for Clinton than voted for Trump. Trump with already the lowest approval rating of any new president for a long time…….The Chickenhawk Dubya (another outrageous down to $$$ draft dodger) being the last as I recall.
You claim to be a serious commentator James. How come you’re blind to those patently salient factors, US Constitution, and the imminence of mid-terms, James ? Pretty weak arse that, For a ‘serious commentator’.
‘The Orange Being Squeezed’ too much for you what ? Like Actoid Steve Wathall somewhere above. Ooooh, sorry ’bout that. You better get outa Jonestown quick James. Before “I’m Peach……Mint”. Two years baby. Two years.
Yes Morrissey…….what a disgracefully mindless, artless, hag ! “Just returned from Israel….” was the tip-off. A hag who cares not a fig for the children of Gaza murdered and mutilated by the Eastern European NatziYahoo (whom The Orange is extra buddy buddy with). Encouraged in that by annual $US 3,000,000,000 US military aid. A curse on the bloodthirsty hag. And them who pay the ‘baby’ bounty !
Regarding the Labour / Green ‘State of the Nation’ speeches and the path forward?
Constructive criticism from the future ‘fiery’ and ‘fierce’ Independent MP for Mt Albert – Penny Bright 🙂
(AKA ‘Pullya Bennefitt 😉
Where are Labour and the Green’s clear policies prioritising the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005 – which would transform transparency and accountability in our corrupt, polluted tax haven New Zealand, which SO needs a massive ‘clean up’?
“Where the people lead – the politicians will follow…”
Want to see some REAL policies that will help to ‘Roll back Neo-liberal Rogernomic$’?
(1) Every public office and local authority must create and maintain full and accurate records of its affairs, in accordance with normal, prudent business practice, including the records of any matter that is contracted out to an independent contractor.
…”
“So, how come we don’t know exactly where billion$ of taxpayer and ratepayer public monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors at NZ central and government level?”
“What has anyone from Transparency International New Zealand had to say about the endemic and entrenched bribery and corruption revealed in the unprecedented bribery and corruption conviction of just ONE corrupt ‘public official’ and just ONE corrupt contractor – where the bribes totalled $1.2 million over 7 years?
(Where are the Press Releases from Labour and the Greens condemning this entrenched bribery and corruption, and what needs to be done to fix this problem?)
“Reasons for the Verdict of Fitzgerald J”
CRI-2015-044-001286
[2016]NZHC2970
THE QUEEN v STEPHEN JAMES BORLASE (&) MURRAY JOHN NOONE
“How many thousands of ‘public officials’ and private contractors are there across NZ central and local government?”
“As a genuinely (politically fiercely) independent, self-funded proven
‘anti-corruption campaigner’ and Independent candidate for the 2017 Mt Albert by-election here is my ACTION PLAN:
“ACTION PLAN TO ENSURE ‘OPEN, TRANSPARENT AND DEMOCRATICALLY ACCOUNTABLE’ NZ GOVERNMENT AND JUDICIARY”:
……..
nonono penny labour/greens will not release policy until nearer the election it needs to be carefully timed and in small understandable bits
what we should be demanding is where is nationals because they never release any policy and because they don’t want to defend there record the yellow cowards wont front in mt Albert
With National not standing, and Greens simply using it as rehearsal for their Auckland-wide campaign, Penny this could be your chance to scoop up all those National Party votes, all those Act votes, join them together with the NZFirst and Socialist votes, and … you’ll be like Liberty at the Barricades leading your People to Victory!
Victory is within your grasp Penny!
Penny Bright you really could win this thing you know.
Think of all the respect you’ll have when you win!
All that pay!
All those people you currently have to rail against, they will cower before you and fear your wrathful policies.
What shock on Guyon Espiner’s face.
Like another Trump, but right here, right now.
You’ll be an MP! For 6 months at least!
Then you can go into coalition with whomever you want!
Become a Minister of Local Government! From Day 1!
Then you can make them do all that you’ve ever wanted.
There’s so little time.
It’s going to be amazing to see you up there, at last.
hi pm and maui,
re police pursuits; all the power rests with the authorities, sobriety, training, support(both on the ground and with the ‘comms’ team) etc.
the idea of being comfortable that someone dies, as a result of being in a persued car, is abhorrent and very cold.
in a related incident recently in australia, i listened to a senior police officer describe what had unfolded.
we heard all about the environment and driving conditions, about the drivers behaviour and attitude, extensive details of the victims including a baby, and a single line, late in the statement informing us it was a police pursuit.
The idea that only people in authority are responsible for their actions is a pernicious one. When you drive a car, you and no other are responsible for what you do with that car. That is the number one most important fact about driving that a beginning driver needs to learn. If your car ends up speeding through a red light and hitting two other vehicles, you, the person who was driving it, are the only one who could have determined a different course of events.
The Police can try and find ways to minimise the carnage that fuckwits like this cause, but minimise it is the most we can hope for and for fuck’s sake let’s not pretend Fuckwit-Behind-The-Wheel had no agency in the matter. It would be nice if failing to stop was a severe aggravating factor in sentencing, as it would put the responsibility where it properly lies.
When one of these ambulatory turds kills himself without killing or maiming anyone else, I do regard that as a good outcome because it’s taken him off the road before he gets to kill anyone else. That’s not “cold,” it’s “realistic.”
For all the lovelies who want to “turn Labour left”, here’s a great little contest to test that out on:
On the one side is super-racist EU fracturing Euro killing Marine Le Pen, on the rise and ready to strap on the Presidential Knee Pads with Donald Trump, and on the other side, the Socialists have chosen Benoit Hamon, a staunchly leftwing rebel outsider who wants to:
– introduce a universal basic income
– legalise cannabis and
tax robots, among other things.
im pro gardens in school and such , and feeding those whose parents are unable or willing to do it is a must , but i will not trust a bunch of office wallas to feed my kid .
What we really need is to come at it from several directions , educating parents on healthy choices , improving incomes so parents can do it themselves, education around the great contraception out there now (which i believe is having an effect)
Alternatively, the school kitchens could be managed by a school employee and the parents help cook as a community effort.
But even if serco (or compass) provided the meals, if you’re that snickety you’d probably just feed your kids anyway. One less school meal to make.
The point is that your kids might be fine, but a lot of families are struggling. All kids need to be fed in school. How would your system best balance those conflicting facts?
It’s not snickerty to feel its my kid so it’s my responsibility , in this day and age breeding is optional ,which i know makes me sound right wing as fuck. but i did say up thread that it is a problem that has to be attacked from many angles for many years.
the simplest system would be for the school to get a number of how many need feeding in their school and have an existing outfit like a cafe make the lunches , a sandwich , a nut/ muesli bar and some fruit isn’t a big ask.
Funding it is the thorny question.
Breeding might be optional (depending on how trumpy our own govt gets). Changing circumstances aren’t.
Local catering might work for 20 or thirty (but there’d still be a base cost in organising it), but not one of the schools with hundreds of high-dep students.
the simplest system would be for the school to get a number of how many need feeding in their school and have an existing outfit like a cafe make the lunches , a sandwich , a nut/ muesli bar and some fruit isn’t a big ask.
No, that is the most inefficient, time consuming, privacy invasive method available that will be used to denigrate and abuse both the parents and the children.
“. For one thing, I’ve seen what schools think kids should be eating. “Healthy” food nazis can leave my kids alone.”
And yet you put your kids in the same system in order to teach them how they should be thinking. How does that sit with you?
(BTW, I don’t think either is a problem, if you are prepared to spend your time – and meals – with them, showing another choice).
It had its moments. We did eventually get the school to stop passive-aggressively punishing them for not attending religious education classes, and they got earfuls from me every time Life Education Trust came round to tell them that recreational drug use is wrong and ruins your life. But that’s par forf the course – no parent is 100% happy with what the school tells their kids.
Heh. The god-botherers had their “Life Choices” program going at my kids’ school while I was coaching the chess players. None of the keen chess players were religious types, so we decided to do a second session in the “Life Choices” time slot. All of a sudden we had a lot more chess enthusiasts. Including the son of the woman running the “Life Choices”.
Well done Andre ! Chortle inducing indeed. The God-Botherers can be such oppressive, fear peddling, manipulative arseholes. If ya been brought up right (as I was) then ya have the good stuff without the need for all that shit.
I know a guy who’s a spectacularly artful (and resilient in the face of institutional bullying) young lawyer. Doesn’t buy any of that wankery, In The Law or in the bible-banging area. His commanding ethic is this…….”In my life I try to hurt no-one !”
The “option” of religious classes gets me too. Especially when you consider over the course of a year that adds up to around 36 hours. And yet, schools are diligently opposing any child missing time during the school year to go overseas.
I remember the attitude when I was at primary, with teachers being delighted with the students return, and getting them up to tell the class about their travels.
Preparing healthy lunches is not easy. Particulalry when there is no refridgeration for yoghurts etc. It is just another thing to be done at the end of a busy working day usually by mothers. Even if the children do it themselves the have to buy the stuff in and supervise the younger children. When my children were growing up I would happily have paid extra in taxes so they could have a healthy cooked lunch at school. I would still pay higher taxes so all children could have this.
School meals happened in Europe because in the coldest parts of winter (worse than here) kids could not just sit outside and eat sandwiches, nor (more importantly) walk home and back for lunch. (Most Mums were at home in early times.)
Here, we have never needed that. But I like the insightful comments above: I agree that a wise society would provide decent food for its children at school.
I don’t know anything about Benoit Hamon bar the expected piece of slur in ‘The Guardian’.
But let’s say a comparison to Corbyn is about right. So Hamon will broadly advocate policies that are in line with social democratic ideals rather than liberal democratic ideals.
That’s what the SNP did – and won. And then won again. And again.
The parties that stuck with liberal democratic policies lost. And then lost again. And again.
And just like in the UK with Corbyn, the liberals within the left in France, are gunning for Hamon (that includes a fair proportion of the mainstream media – y’know, outlets like ‘The Guardian’)
What were the policies advocated by Trudeau in Canada? Well, a liberal politician from a party called, ‘The Liberal Party’, dumped liberal democratic policies, ran on a social democratic platform and won. Meanwhile, the ‘New Democratic Party’, who for some reason known only to themselves (maybe they were taking a leaf from NZ Greens?) abandoned a social democratic platform, well they tanked.
In the US, Sanders ran on what could best be described as a social democratic platform and very nearly took the Democrat leadership.
Win or lose for Hamon, the tide is well on the turn Ad. And if you’re wedded to liberalism, then you’re going to be all washed up with the rest of them. And here’s the thing, you don’t have to be an anarchist or autonomous Marxist or whatever shade of radical to stand against liberalism. Social Democrats would and do too. People who have no political knowledge find the social democratic message appealing (you did notice that Trump essentially twisted a lot of Sanders’ rhetoric, aye?) Anyway – the numbers of disillusioned liberals is only set to grow. So think about it.
And then come on over here and join with all us ‘lovelies’ 😉
Except I think you’re just a little ahead of yourself kicking over ash looking for coals.
There’s the remote possibility that there will be no further wins by hard-right movements. Maybe Brexit and Trump are its global high points. Maybe the global mainstream media will become so enraged that the opposition to the hard right governments around the world will itself become a gobal upwelling. Maybe, like Federer, the purest and the most elegant moves will win against the odds again.
The above is highly unlikely.
As I pointed out, there’s some great global contests coming up.
Our own in New Zealand is definitely one of the most globally interesting match-ups, due to the strength of the Greens compared to any other democracy. A win would be the closest since the Realos of the German Green Party got into a proper coalition anywhere. I think the approach we have here is the right one. The standard left needs reviving, agreed. But Labour doesn’t want to lose its historical identity, nor let go of its usefully unresolved internal neuroses.
So reviving Labour with an exterior political entity in a proposed coalition is both dignified and effective. Reviving the country with the same is the right approach.
I sincerely hope that arrangement is effective this year.
…there will be wins by ‘hard-right’ movements until and unless liberals step aside.
Liberalism is dead. How does it shuffle into the dustbin of history?
Well, either liberals try to cling to power (by sledging social democrats and anything else to their left while continually playing the fear card) and incidentally enable the ‘hard -right’ or opportunistic populists….which spells the end to liberalism.
Or liberals step aside – take down the barricades they keep constructing against the left and…yeah, that spells the end to liberalism too.
The only question that needs to be asked is, just how misanthropic are they?
So far, the answer hasn’t been anything anyone’d be wanting to write home about.
Wrathall is a science-denying chump as well. He made a laughing stock of himself in 2010 when he made a complaint to the BSA, which found it lacked any merit whatsoever….
Interesting interpretation there Mo, especially given these paragraphs:
[19] At the outset, we do not accept TVNZ’s finding that human induced global climate change is uncontroversial. Likewise, the related issue of whether the observed sea level rise on Tuvalu is due to climate change is also disputed.
[20] However, in our view, this item clearly focused on the experiences and perspectives of the local people, exploring their reactions to the changes in their environment, the ways in which they were adapting to those changes, and how they felt about the possibility of leaving their homeland if it became uninhabitable. It did not attempt to explore the possible causes for those changes. The Authority has previously determined that presenting personal views on, and experiences with, climate change in the Pacific, did not amount to a discussion of a controversial issue of public importance (see Clancy and TVWorks1).
[21] Because the programme did not discuss a controversial issue of public importance, we do not consider that it was necessary, in the interests of balance, for the programme to explicitly state that the rising sea levels could be explained by natural processes, as argued by Mr Wrathall.
The four people on the BSA are not scientists, and they bent over backwards to be nice to our Jew-hating, Arab-baiting friend. That spurious exercise of somehow “balancing” one sound view against one harebrained view is a mandated exercise, no matter how ridiculous it might be. It results in the sort of blather you have so astutely pointed out.
Four scientists would have simply thrown his complaint in the bin, along with the rest of the day’s offerings from flat-earthers, moon-landing deniers, 9/11 Truthers and Elvis-spotters.
And since 2010, sea-level has continued to rise at a non-alarming 3 mm/year (~30 cm/century). And yet the alarmists continue to predict metres of rise this century. Who’s denying science?
Real world observations should be objective (assuming they’re not being altered to ‘hide the decline’ or similar, but the conclusions and related hypotheses emanating from those observations are surely debatable.
Richard, all you are demonstrating is that simply you don’t appear to understand the basic physics of greenhouse gases.
After all if you did then you’d actually be able to point out the basic points that you have a problem with – using some maths and links to the relevant science. Even a poorly trained quack should be able to figure out the basic physics.
Since you don’t, then I’d presume that your political religious beliefs tend to dominate over your scientific abilities.
On the subject of ‘objective’ measurements. You really are talking simple minded crap. These are measurements done over the whole world over very long periods of time and using a wide variety of measurement technique. They have inherent error in location, in time, in technique, to the methods of recording and storing them, and simply because weather and even climate is chaotic and subject to local changes outside of human caused climate changes.
And that is just the less important in-air measurements. The ocean measurements that are of more significance are pretty sparse both geographically and in the water column.
Almost every earth science measurement is only valid statistically, and even that is only because there are a lot of them made.
Your call for a ‘objective’ measurements just seems to confirm that you have an inability to understand even the most basic principles of measurements in earth sciences.
Here are some “real world observations” for you Steve. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-reveals-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise-20055
While the current rate of sea level rise is around 3 mm / year, that is accelerating from an average rate of around 1.7 mm / year over the past century. Up until the recent past – most sea level rise was driven by our warming oceans, however we now see the sudden collapse of the Greenland ice shelf and the WAIS notably the Larsen A, B and C https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-study-shows-antarctica-s-larsen-b-ice-shelf-nearing-its-final-act
These both have the potential to raise sea level by metres.
The real world observations back up the predictions and support the science.
Time for you and Richard to get real.
You are a cretinous fool whose knowledge of the sciences equates with that of the mythical village idiot. It is typical of many right wingers like yourself who are too dumb to know just how dumb they/you are. We’ve all been associated with them.
Intelligent people recognise their intellectual limitations and are capable of being persuaded with logic, sound reason and expert knowledge. But oh no, not dumb a**es like you. Unlike others on this site I don’t waste my time with detailed facts and figures because I know your ilk are way too stupid to understand.
It was this sort of arrogant we-know-best attitude, as expressed in Anne’s post – from Hillary Clinton, her backers in the media and the Washington elite – that put people off voting for her, with the obvious result.
Wrathall was too ignorant to realize it, but what he endorsed was the modern version of this cartoon, which appeared in the Viennese paper Das Kleine Blatt in 1939….
So the Jews fleeing pre-WWII Germany had 50+ majority-Jewish countries to go to, then tried to set up Jewish law as superior to local law when they were accepted, and many of them carried out terrorist acts in the name of Judaism in their host countries. Your analogy is asanine.
A vanishingly small minority, with nowhere near the number of victims as people killed by family members, buses, right wing economic policy, or homegrown bigots.
So I liked a tweet by Bosch Fawstin? An ex-Muslim mohammed cartooner who jihadists tried to murder in Garland TX. As he was born a muslim, I must be racist against him, and then he changed his race, right?
I think this is a small piece of genus, building on Stephanie’s consistent message over the last few months of treating all the minor causes of the left as if the only way to win any election for the left is through treating the causes of your colleagues with respect, and acting on forming solidarity.
Wouldn’t worry so much about that one word typo, Ad. Much more concerning is the sentence within which it resides – one of the less coherent passages to emerge from your finger tips in recent years.
And the message I’ve managed to wrestle from that messy grammatical entanglement – that we should all be respectful of each others’ particular ideological proclivities – sits rather awkwardly next to your unbearably smug little piss-take (upthread) against Labour’s Left-leaning … what did you call them again ? … oh that’s right … “Lovelies”.
I’ll resist commenting on the irony of an affluent, privileged, middle class Liberal Centrist with Clintonista tendencies having the temerity to call other people “Lovelies”. 🙂
Infused, I would doubt your informant is a Labour supporter. Chris Bishop is not turning up to events ‘in his own time’, or doing charity work out of the goodness of his heart. He is just being a National Party list MP (with lots of National Party money) who wants to be an electorate MP. He does such things so people think he cares. Labour’s Ginny Anderson will easily outclass him though in the election as she has integrity, intelligence and a much better message for the local electorate.
I wrote a big reply to this, but in the end, I don’t really give a shit. I was just comparing how Labour is losing solid support, easily, when it shouldn’t be. And how Little comes across on TV isn’t genuine.
Ethica you obviously do not live in the Hutt. Chris Bishop will easily win Hutt South by over 1,000 votes and also increase the Party Vote. No wonder Mallard chickened out. Chris was brought up in the Hutt and is well known by the locals. He is very hard working . He will probably be PM one day. Many of the Standard posters live in a socialist bubble getting confirmation bias from their twitter feed. Get out and listen to people. No one outside the bubble could tell you anything about the content of the launch. It’s only success was confirming that a vote for Labour or Greens means the same thing. Choose a colour. Any colour. The MOU is great for the Greens but will be disastrous for Labour. I suspect Labour will not get any list seats and that Little will be out of a job. I wish there was a betting market for the election, I understand the real world.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
I have a friend who voted for Chris Bishop and National last time. He’s a minimum wage retail worker. He was rewarded by losing his compulsory work breaks, losing a guaranteed day off at Easter, and an increase in his rent and other expenses. He feels betrayed and won’t make that mistake again.
I have a street who voted Mallard and Labour last time. They like young Chris. Your mate cannot blame Chris Bishop. You give me one anecdote and I’ll give you a hundred. Chris Bishop is winning over at least one person a day. Labour candidate vote – 365 x 3 , Bishop +365 x 3. So easily a 1,000 majority, more like 2,000 plus majority.
Yeah we know about your fabulosity FusedAnus. And your post-truth ‘math’. Like the one Sunday afternoon 2014 when singlehandedly you won over 93.7% of riders on a Pomare-Wellington unit, to Trump (sorry….. Keydashian). For fear of stressing your cheesecutter I don’t mention your spectacular hit rate with puzzled Countdown shoppers up The Valley. You truly are heroic in your struggle to persuade yourself you’re significant, FusedAnus. Got a way to go to match ‘young’ Kellyanne Conway though ma bro’.
Trump to spend more time with the Queen?
Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to assure everyone that a new petition calling for him spend even more time with the Queen during his state visit now has more than five million signatures.
😈
Well one despot to another…
White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, was asked by the press pool for a link to the online petition.
He explained, “This is just typical of you fake news organisations, just typical, trying to take down our new President.
“Of course there is a real petition with five million names on it, yes there is, shut up!
“A guy on Twitter said it, so it must be true, why would he lie?”
Spicer refused to confirm whether the ‘guy on Twitter’ was President Trump.
Days until achieving MAJORITY disapproval from @GallupReagan: 727Bush I: 1336Clinton: 573Bush II: 1205Obama: 936Trump: 8. days. pic.twitter.com/kv2fy0Qsbp— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) January 29, 2017
(AP) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asked the United States on Sunday not to store weapons in local camps under a defense pact, saying his country may get entangled if fighting erupts between China and the U.S.
Duterte said in a news conference that he would consider abrogating a 2014 defense pact that allows U.S. forces to temporarily station in designated Philippine camps if the Americans build weapon depots in those encampments.
“They’re unloading arms in the Philippines now,” Duterte said, identifying three areas where U.S. forces were supposedly bringing in their armaments, including the western Philippine province of Palawan, which faces the disputed South China Sea.
“I’m serving notice to the armed forces of the United States, do not do it, I will not allow it,” Duterte said in the televised news conference after meeting top military and police officials.
Yeah, he’s jumped ship, China is his friend now, dislike to corruption and drug users and dealers, the human rights commission is trying to have him charged with murder for pushing a suspected corrupt official out of a helicopter and then boasting about his action, Just Another Nut Job.
It is gratifying to see so many upset with the mango Mussolini’s banning Muslim immigrants into the states.
I struggle to grok this though – aren’t many, even on this site, not wanting too many immigrants here due to a perceived lack of land, resources and so on.
Is it that he is banning an identifiable group via religion – could be ethnicity, sexuality, ablement etc rather than the attempted reduction of immigrants.
Sure he has dressed it up with all sorts of – keeping extremists out da da da dah
but how do people reconcile this? or have I just got it completely wrong.
For the record I don’t believe in the assumptions within my second paragraph.
It’s not a muslim immigration ban, it’s a travel ban on people associated with seven muslim majority countries. So it affects visitors, people that have already completed their immigration procedures and even those who have gone as far through the process as getting their green card for permanent residence and have already made the US their home. There’s also the tidbits of information suggesting Trump wants to apply a religious test and is attempting to disguise that.
Overall, from his past statements it’s clear he wants to reduce immigration into the US from pretty much all groups (except smokin’ hot white females). But it appears he is going about by singling out groups and applying restrictions to that smaller group. First he’s coming for Syrians/Libyans/Iraqis/Iranians… then he’s coming for… That’s a lot more severe and chilling than changing policies in a ethnicity/religion blind way with the goal of reducing overall immigration sometime in the future.
Just a few of my problems with current immigration policies into New Zealand are:
that it admits many people into a situation where they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and are competing with (and crowding out) our locals for entry-level opportunities,
we don’t have policies and processes in place to ensure our infrastructure keeps up with the demands imposed by a rapidly increasing population (resulting in things like the housing problems),
our welfare state settings are extraordinarily generous to some groups of immigrants at the same time as they are punitive towards locals.
For me, it’s separate to the general immigration debate.
I believe Trump has made a ruling based on religion, likely moderated by personal business interests, that in particular targets refugees (the most vulnerable and in need group of immigrants there is).
That’s beyond the questions of resources and national identity that people raise when debating about whether net migration should be half a percent or five percent of the population.
I believe Trump has made a ruling based on religion,
If they’re lying and the order was drafted by his inner circle, overriding objections and failing to coordinate with officials, I reckon he’s made a ruling based on provocation.
Senior admin official says top congressional staff members on immigration were involved in drafting of exec order.— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 29, 2017
Not one GOP lawmaker or staffer we've talked to will confirm this. Hill Rs say they didn't know what was in order until it went public https://t.co/aVjILPCXsu— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) January 29, 2017
Not irreconcilable. Immigrants, students, and refugees are welcome here as far as I’m concerned but NZ’s infrastructure is underfunded and unable to cope so that communities are now under stress. The Nats refuse to take the tax from the high earners, the people who benefit the most from cheap foreign labour. A different model needs to be found, one where central government is held responsible for the effects of its policy settings.
On RNZ this morning Little said there will be no electorate deals between Labour/Greens. Could this decision cost them the election? I think it could well do, unless they have a ‘cunning plan’ to do deals under the table to allay the outcries of foul play by the hypocritical Right.
Regardless, it is time Labour got real and stopped thinking it is a 40 – 50% party. The tide has gone right out on ‘third way’ lefties trying to play at being kind free-marketeers.
If, on the other hand, Little is trying to cosy up to NZF by shafting the Greens again in the vain hope of a coalition with Peters, Marks and Jones, then he is a bloody misguided dreamer.
Electorate deals are pointless, since it’s the party vote that counts and neither of these parties is at risk of not making the threshold.
There’s conceivably some point in electorate deals that would combat National’s hangers-on (Dunne and Seymour), but Dunne’s the only one that could possibly be at risk from a Green/Labour deal – even then, National voters are as capable of strategic voting as anyone else, so there wouldn’t be much point.
“There was never a gap of ideas. What there was, just as in the 1930s, was a social democratic party too keen to ingratiate itself with the establishment and a deep division between good, decent people – between liberals, Marxists, feminists, greens etc. Whereas the bigots unite behind toxically simplistic stories, progressives tend to fight against one another and thus fall prey to the Nationalist International.”
In regard to drivers and their responsibility;
Police in a pursuit also must consider the public, a duty of care, if you will.
Just cause a driver is fleeing don’t give carte Blanche to per sue.
Being comfortable with the notion that the police bear no responsibility, reeks of an authoritarian mindset.
Fisiani is my handle. It is a noble Chitumbuka name. Do you think you are being humorous to be faecal obsessed? Is that what passes for constructive criticism? Such references are never moderated. I can only assume that such schoolboy attempted humour is actually tolerated and approved. That explains the abject failure of the Left.
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
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The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
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A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
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 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
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The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
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Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
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The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/countries-where-trump-does-business-are-not-hit-by-new-travel-restrictions/2017/01/28/dd40535a-e56b-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html?utm_term=.b09227cac545
‘Business’ in their personal ‘swamp’ will be the undoing of this unhinged creep and his entitled spawn.
There’s already grounds for impeachment using the emoluments clause. But it won’t happen until enough Repugs in Congress calculate it’s in their political interest to impeach. Actual principles or ethics or what’s written in the constitution won’t matter before that moment.
I understand your rueful tone Andre.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/paul-ryan-trumps-refugee-ban-does-not-target-muslims/2017/01/28/e0cf1fe4-e56e-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
Anyone see Federer v Nadal last night?
Seriously awesome tennis.
Too right I did Ad – what a fabulous game. Now life can get back to a bit of normality with earlier nights. Thank goodness I’m retired and can have a wee lie in.
You will have plenty of time for “a we lie in” when you pop your cogs
Ha, ha PP, I get your drift, but I can’t cope with 2am mornings like I used to :).
Just remember this: After Trump’s presidential decree banning people from several countries, hundreds – possibly thousands – of civil rights workers and pro bono lawyers descended almost spontaneously on US airports to fight for peoples rights.
It warms the heart.
What the United States needs is mass public protest. Ongoing. If they leave it to the cowards and fools in Congress, Trump will continue doing what he’s doing.
The people of Romania showed the way in 1989 when they overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Ceaușescu by doing THIS day after day after day….
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/21/article-0-001FD8F400000258-293_468x325.jpg
Be very worried. Trump will continue doing what he is doing regardless.
+1
Mid-term US House of Representatives elections are less than two years away, Same with the Senate as to a third of its members.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/15/look-to-2018-the-midterm-elections-could-be-the-most-important-one-for-the-democrats-yet/
In good taste substituting ‘the US’ for “The Democrats” in that article’s title, relentless protest offers the high prospect of ‘self-interest first’ GOP representatives turning on the unhinged Trump and reverting to pre-convention positions.
Trump’s personal God fantasies may not be impacted by that of course – he’s lived a lifetime of encouragement to hubris – and he may well “continue doing what he is doing regardless”, but electoral effect would be profound with potential loss of the much vaunted control of both houses – emoluments impeachment looming ?
Already the loathsome draft dodger Trump is vulnerable to the reputational damage GOP “loser” war hero McCain seems intent on doing him. Assisted, weirdly, by psychotic behaviour Trump neither resists nor his dark inner circle can control. In time the damp squibs Ryan and McConnell will fall into line.
US checks and balances may well save the day within two years, if only by dint of coiffed idiots feeling electoral heat. Someone should get the message to the “late great Abraham Lincoln” (Trump’s absurd reference during the campaign) that all is not lost.
You mean talking bollocks that keep media from covering what he is actually doing, or doing studffg that is also nonsense overturned in courts. If Trump is not a senile old git, then what is he is up to coz he’s highly effective at keep media enthralled.
Take abortion, we know the predominant Catholic scotus wont be willing to out pope the pope, so the whole abortion is over scare is a joke. Similarly the border crap, Obama saw more s.American migrants return home that Trump will be hard pressed to match him. Similarly Muslim countries is largely a temporary smoke and mirrors policy. Its about wjat Trump is is doing.
But there are millions of Americans that voted for him and agree with it.
You don’t keep up James ? Already there are 2-3 million more Americans who voted for Clinton than voted for Trump. Trump with already the lowest approval rating of any new president for a long time…….The Chickenhawk Dubya (another outrageous down to $$$ draft dodger) being the last as I recall.
You claim to be a serious commentator James. How come you’re blind to those patently salient factors, US Constitution, and the imminence of mid-terms, James ? Pretty weak arse that, For a ‘serious commentator’.
‘The Orange Being Squeezed’ too much for you what ? Like Actoid Steve Wathall somewhere above. Ooooh, sorry ’bout that. You better get outa Jonestown quick James. Before “I’m Peach……Mint”. Two years baby. Two years.
James
One in five eligible voters voted for trump, I’m sure you can do the maths, four out of five didn’t vote for trump, that’s hundreds of millions.
Is Arianna Huffington the stupidest person in America?
Here she is being schooled, with two other fools, by one of the smartest….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EVQ4wzXIWs
Yes Morrissey…….what a disgracefully mindless, artless, hag ! “Just returned from Israel….” was the tip-off. A hag who cares not a fig for the children of Gaza murdered and mutilated by the Eastern European NatziYahoo (whom The Orange is extra buddy buddy with). Encouraged in that by annual $US 3,000,000,000 US military aid. A curse on the bloodthirsty hag. And them who pay the ‘baby’ bounty !
more government sanctioned corruption emerging (emerging at least to those not directly affected)
http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/85690/how-eqc-has-avoided-being-stung-rising-land-values-cameron-preston-has-back-story
Regarding the Labour / Green ‘State of the Nation’ speeches and the path forward?
Constructive criticism from the future ‘fiery’ and ‘fierce’ Independent MP for Mt Albert – Penny Bright 🙂
(AKA ‘Pullya Bennefitt 😉
Where are Labour and the Green’s clear policies prioritising the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005 – which would transform transparency and accountability in our corrupt, polluted tax haven New Zealand, which SO needs a massive ‘clean up’?
“Where the people lead – the politicians will follow…”
Want to see some REAL policies that will help to ‘Roll back Neo-liberal Rogernomic$’?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1701/S00171/the-2016-corruption-perception-index-isnt-worth-the-paper.htm
“If New Zealand was truly ‘the least corrupt country in the world’ – shouldn’t we arguably be the most transparent?
So – why isn’t the Public Records Act 2005, being properly and lawfully implemented and enforced?
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2005/0040/latest/DLM345729.html
“17 Requirement to create and maintain records
(1) Every public office and local authority must create and maintain full and accurate records of its affairs, in accordance with normal, prudent business practice, including the records of any matter that is contracted out to an independent contractor.
…”
“So, how come we don’t know exactly where billion$ of taxpayer and ratepayer public monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors at NZ central and government level?”
“What has anyone from Transparency International New Zealand had to say about the endemic and entrenched bribery and corruption revealed in the unprecedented bribery and corruption conviction of just ONE corrupt ‘public official’ and just ONE corrupt contractor – where the bribes totalled $1.2 million over 7 years?
(Where are the Press Releases from Labour and the Greens condemning this entrenched bribery and corruption, and what needs to be done to fix this problem?)
“Reasons for the Verdict of Fitzgerald J”
CRI-2015-044-001286
[2016]NZHC2970
THE QUEEN v STEPHEN JAMES BORLASE (&) MURRAY JOHN NOONE
https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/cases/r-v-borlase-reasons/@@images/fileDecision
“How many thousands of ‘public officials’ and private contractors are there across NZ central and local government?”
“As a genuinely (politically fiercely) independent, self-funded proven
‘anti-corruption campaigner’ and Independent candidate for the 2017 Mt Albert by-election here is my ACTION PLAN:
“ACTION PLAN TO ENSURE ‘OPEN, TRANSPARENT AND DEMOCRATICALLY ACCOUNTABLE’ NZ GOVERNMENT AND JUDICIARY”:
……..
Read on – if you dare 😉
Penny Bright
PROVEN ‘anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’.
Future ‘fierce’ and fiery Independent MP for Mt Albert 🙂
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I can’t see the relevance of this comment to the post. Don’t do it again.
BTW: The PB immitation was pretty good. ]
nonono penny labour/greens will not release policy until nearer the election it needs to be carefully timed and in small understandable bits
what we should be demanding is where is nationals because they never release any policy and because they don’t want to defend there record the yellow cowards wont front in mt Albert
With National not standing, and Greens simply using it as rehearsal for their Auckland-wide campaign, Penny this could be your chance to scoop up all those National Party votes, all those Act votes, join them together with the NZFirst and Socialist votes, and … you’ll be like Liberty at the Barricades leading your People to Victory!
Victory is within your grasp Penny!
Penny Bright you really could win this thing you know.
Think of all the respect you’ll have when you win!
All that pay!
All those people you currently have to rail against, they will cower before you and fear your wrathful policies.
What shock on Guyon Espiner’s face.
Like another Trump, but right here, right now.
You’ll be an MP! For 6 months at least!
Then you can go into coalition with whomever you want!
Become a Minister of Local Government! From Day 1!
Then you can make them do all that you’ve ever wanted.
There’s so little time.
It’s going to be amazing to see you up there, at last.
At Last!
6 months of an MP salary should just about cover the outstanding rates bill.
hi pm and maui,
re police pursuits; all the power rests with the authorities, sobriety, training, support(both on the ground and with the ‘comms’ team) etc.
the idea of being comfortable that someone dies, as a result of being in a persued car, is abhorrent and very cold.
in a related incident recently in australia, i listened to a senior police officer describe what had unfolded.
we heard all about the environment and driving conditions, about the drivers behaviour and attitude, extensive details of the victims including a baby, and a single line, late in the statement informing us it was a police pursuit.
even the police aren’t happy with the situation.
The idea that only people in authority are responsible for their actions is a pernicious one. When you drive a car, you and no other are responsible for what you do with that car. That is the number one most important fact about driving that a beginning driver needs to learn. If your car ends up speeding through a red light and hitting two other vehicles, you, the person who was driving it, are the only one who could have determined a different course of events.
The Police can try and find ways to minimise the carnage that fuckwits like this cause, but minimise it is the most we can hope for and for fuck’s sake let’s not pretend Fuckwit-Behind-The-Wheel had no agency in the matter. It would be nice if failing to stop was a severe aggravating factor in sentencing, as it would put the responsibility where it properly lies.
When one of these ambulatory turds kills himself without killing or maiming anyone else, I do regard that as a good outcome because it’s taken him off the road before he gets to kill anyone else. That’s not “cold,” it’s “realistic.”
The New Zealand Herald: getting it wrong for 79 years
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/new-zealand-herald/1938/9/30/11
For all the lovelies who want to “turn Labour left”, here’s a great little contest to test that out on:
On the one side is super-racist EU fracturing Euro killing Marine Le Pen, on the rise and ready to strap on the Presidential Knee Pads with Donald Trump, and on the other side, the Socialists have chosen Benoit Hamon, a staunchly leftwing rebel outsider who wants to:
– introduce a universal basic income
– legalise cannabis and
tax robots, among other things.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/french-socialists-leftwing-rebel-benoit-hamon-elysee-manuel-valls-francois-hollande-presidency
Let’s see how that one works out.
Seems to me we can get a big clue on whether there’s any value in turning Labour left from Joe Carolan’s vote count in the Mt Albert by-election.
hi ad, not too sure what you are getting at here.
“lovelies”?
can you want labour to turn left without being a lovely?
do you have a pejorative term for the status-quo ists who don’t want to scare the horses, i am doing ok thanks?
france is france, probably better to look at left policies in this country, put them up the flagpole and see who salutes them.
eg 100% free education,
feed all children in schools,
communioty gardens in schools,
ftt, hone heke tax or robin hood tax……
I don’t want someone else feeding my child in school , my child my responsibility .
does that mean no child could be fed in a school?
would you be happy for your child to assist growing, preparing and cooking in order to feed other children?
im pro gardens in school and such , and feeding those whose parents are unable or willing to do it is a must , but i will not trust a bunch of office wallas to feed my kid .
What we really need is to come at it from several directions , educating parents on healthy choices , improving incomes so parents can do it themselves, education around the great contraception out there now (which i believe is having an effect)
Why not?
And don’t just say that it’s your responsibility. You’d be paying the taxes to provide the food so your responsibility is covered.
would you trust serco to feed your loved ones ?
Alternatively, the school kitchens could be managed by a school employee and the parents help cook as a community effort.
But even if serco (or compass) provided the meals, if you’re that snickety you’d probably just feed your kids anyway. One less school meal to make.
The point is that your kids might be fine, but a lot of families are struggling. All kids need to be fed in school. How would your system best balance those conflicting facts?
It’s not snickerty to feel its my kid so it’s my responsibility , in this day and age breeding is optional ,which i know makes me sound right wing as fuck. but i did say up thread that it is a problem that has to be attacked from many angles for many years.
the simplest system would be for the school to get a number of how many need feeding in their school and have an existing outfit like a cafe make the lunches , a sandwich , a nut/ muesli bar and some fruit isn’t a big ask.
Funding it is the thorny question.
Breeding might be optional (depending on how trumpy our own govt gets). Changing circumstances aren’t.
Local catering might work for 20 or thirty (but there’d still be a base cost in organising it), but not one of the schools with hundreds of high-dep students.
No, that is the most inefficient, time consuming, privacy invasive method available that will be used to denigrate and abuse both the parents and the children.
Is that a reason or just a fear?
Of course, I’d have the food brought in from local farms and prepared by local people but that’s me.
Food from local farms?
A Hereford heifer and a truck of turnips?
last time I looked farms didnt grow bread or muesli bars.
Last time I looked I make my own bread and muesli bars from stuff produced on farms.
Not bloody likely.
I don’t want someone else feeding my child in school…
Yes. For one thing, I’ve seen what schools think kids should be eating. “Healthy” food nazis can leave my kids alone.
French school lunches look pretty good.
“. For one thing, I’ve seen what schools think kids should be eating. “Healthy” food nazis can leave my kids alone.”
And yet you put your kids in the same system in order to teach them how they should be thinking. How does that sit with you?
(BTW, I don’t think either is a problem, if you are prepared to spend your time – and meals – with them, showing another choice).
It had its moments. We did eventually get the school to stop passive-aggressively punishing them for not attending religious education classes, and they got earfuls from me every time Life Education Trust came round to tell them that recreational drug use is wrong and ruins your life. But that’s par forf the course – no parent is 100% happy with what the school tells their kids.
Heh. The god-botherers had their “Life Choices” program going at my kids’ school while I was coaching the chess players. None of the keen chess players were religious types, so we decided to do a second session in the “Life Choices” time slot. All of a sudden we had a lot more chess enthusiasts. Including the son of the woman running the “Life Choices”.
Well done Andre ! Chortle inducing indeed. The God-Botherers can be such oppressive, fear peddling, manipulative arseholes. If ya been brought up right (as I was) then ya have the good stuff without the need for all that shit.
I know a guy who’s a spectacularly artful (and resilient in the face of institutional bullying) young lawyer. Doesn’t buy any of that wankery, In The Law or in the bible-banging area. His commanding ethic is this…….”In my life I try to hurt no-one !”
What more could you ask ?
The “option” of religious classes gets me too. Especially when you consider over the course of a year that adds up to around 36 hours. And yet, schools are diligently opposing any child missing time during the school year to go overseas.
I remember the attitude when I was at primary, with teachers being delighted with the students return, and getting them up to tell the class about their travels.
Preparing healthy lunches is not easy. Particulalry when there is no refridgeration for yoghurts etc. It is just another thing to be done at the end of a busy working day usually by mothers. Even if the children do it themselves the have to buy the stuff in and supervise the younger children. When my children were growing up I would happily have paid extra in taxes so they could have a healthy cooked lunch at school. I would still pay higher taxes so all children could have this.
Your child is required by law to be present at school for around seven hours a day, five days a week.
In every other government institution – you either receive remuneration, or are given meals – ie. hospital, prison – sometimes both.
If we are keeping children in school for this length of time, and good nutrition is a requirement for achievement – then that is easy fix isn’t it?
The community aspect of shared lunches, as well as the physical and learning benefits would only be of benefit to schools and wider communities.
It might even save money, if the cost of providing meals is deducted from working for families etc.
School meals happened in Europe because in the coldest parts of winter (worse than here) kids could not just sit outside and eat sandwiches, nor (more importantly) walk home and back for lunch. (Most Mums were at home in early times.)
Here, we have never needed that. But I like the insightful comments above: I agree that a wise society would provide decent food for its children at school.
Yes gsays. France is France, and it will turn right because of the migrant problem.
Sure, lets just keep on with the current middle of the road NZ Labour Party, UK New Labour, and DNC policies.
And hows that been working out??
I don’t know anything about Benoit Hamon bar the expected piece of slur in ‘The Guardian’.
But let’s say a comparison to Corbyn is about right. So Hamon will broadly advocate policies that are in line with social democratic ideals rather than liberal democratic ideals.
That’s what the SNP did – and won. And then won again. And again.
The parties that stuck with liberal democratic policies lost. And then lost again. And again.
And just like in the UK with Corbyn, the liberals within the left in France, are gunning for Hamon (that includes a fair proportion of the mainstream media – y’know, outlets like ‘The Guardian’)
What were the policies advocated by Trudeau in Canada? Well, a liberal politician from a party called, ‘The Liberal Party’, dumped liberal democratic policies, ran on a social democratic platform and won. Meanwhile, the ‘New Democratic Party’, who for some reason known only to themselves (maybe they were taking a leaf from NZ Greens?) abandoned a social democratic platform, well they tanked.
In the US, Sanders ran on what could best be described as a social democratic platform and very nearly took the Democrat leadership.
Win or lose for Hamon, the tide is well on the turn Ad. And if you’re wedded to liberalism, then you’re going to be all washed up with the rest of them. And here’s the thing, you don’t have to be an anarchist or autonomous Marxist or whatever shade of radical to stand against liberalism. Social Democrats would and do too. People who have no political knowledge find the social democratic message appealing (you did notice that Trump essentially twisted a lot of Sanders’ rhetoric, aye?) Anyway – the numbers of disillusioned liberals is only set to grow. So think about it.
And then come on over here and join with all us ‘lovelies’ 😉
That would be … lovely.
Except I think you’re just a little ahead of yourself kicking over ash looking for coals.
There’s the remote possibility that there will be no further wins by hard-right movements. Maybe Brexit and Trump are its global high points. Maybe the global mainstream media will become so enraged that the opposition to the hard right governments around the world will itself become a gobal upwelling. Maybe, like Federer, the purest and the most elegant moves will win against the odds again.
The above is highly unlikely.
As I pointed out, there’s some great global contests coming up.
Our own in New Zealand is definitely one of the most globally interesting match-ups, due to the strength of the Greens compared to any other democracy. A win would be the closest since the Realos of the German Green Party got into a proper coalition anywhere. I think the approach we have here is the right one. The standard left needs reviving, agreed. But Labour doesn’t want to lose its historical identity, nor let go of its usefully unresolved internal neuroses.
So reviving Labour with an exterior political entity in a proposed coalition is both dignified and effective. Reviving the country with the same is the right approach.
I sincerely hope that arrangement is effective this year.
This is the bit you’re missing Ad…
…there will be wins by ‘hard-right’ movements until and unless liberals step aside.
Liberalism is dead. How does it shuffle into the dustbin of history?
Well, either liberals try to cling to power (by sledging social democrats and anything else to their left while continually playing the fear card) and incidentally enable the ‘hard -right’ or opportunistic populists….which spells the end to liberalism.
Or liberals step aside – take down the barricades they keep constructing against the left and…yeah, that spells the end to liberalism too.
The only question that needs to be asked is, just how misanthropic are they?
So far, the answer hasn’t been anything anyone’d be wanting to write home about.
I posted mid last year on the decline of the liberal order.
Well ahead of you.
Is that a willy comparison comment?
Wrathall is a troll.
Ignore his Islamophobia.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
His Twitter page is a place populated by all sorts of right wing intolerance.
https://twitter.com/stevehwrathall
Note his enthusiastic approval of an ancient theme.
Wow. Amazing similarities between Nazi propaganda and the current US administration.
Wrathall is a science-denying chump as well. He made a laughing stock of himself in 2010 when he made a complaint to the BSA, which found it lacked any merit whatsoever….
https://bsa.govt.nz/decisions/2548-wrathall-and-television-new-zealand-ltd-2010-076
Interesting interpretation there Mo, especially given these paragraphs:
[19] At the outset, we do not accept TVNZ’s finding that human induced global climate change is uncontroversial. Likewise, the related issue of whether the observed sea level rise on Tuvalu is due to climate change is also disputed.
[20] However, in our view, this item clearly focused on the experiences and perspectives of the local people, exploring their reactions to the changes in their environment, the ways in which they were adapting to those changes, and how they felt about the possibility of leaving their homeland if it became uninhabitable. It did not attempt to explore the possible causes for those changes. The Authority has previously determined that presenting personal views on, and experiences with, climate change in the Pacific, did not amount to a discussion of a controversial issue of public importance (see Clancy and TVWorks1).
[21] Because the programme did not discuss a controversial issue of public importance, we do not consider that it was necessary, in the interests of balance, for the programme to explicitly state that the rising sea levels could be explained by natural processes, as argued by Mr Wrathall.
The four people on the BSA are not scientists, and they bent over backwards to be nice to our Jew-hating, Arab-baiting friend. That spurious exercise of somehow “balancing” one sound view against one harebrained view is a mandated exercise, no matter how ridiculous it might be. It results in the sort of blather you have so astutely pointed out.
Four scientists would have simply thrown his complaint in the bin, along with the rest of the day’s offerings from flat-earthers, moon-landing deniers, 9/11 Truthers and Elvis-spotters.
And since 2010, sea-level has continued to rise at a non-alarming 3 mm/year (~30 cm/century). And yet the alarmists continue to predict metres of rise this century. Who’s denying science?
There’s a debate among scientists about the likely future sea level rise. That is science.
So that makes the person denying it, you.
However if the debate is about the veracity of the global warming hypothesis itself, that’s apparently science denial.
Yes, it is apparent that people who deny real world observations are pathetic and ridiculous. Or is it Quantum Physics you think you can debunk?
Predictions are not “real world observations” by definition. The non-alarming sea level rise is a real world observation.
Real world observations should be objective (assuming they’re not being altered to ‘hide the decline’ or similar, but the conclusions and related hypotheses emanating from those observations are surely debatable.
Richard, all you are demonstrating is that simply you don’t appear to understand the basic physics of greenhouse gases.
After all if you did then you’d actually be able to point out the basic points that you have a problem with – using some maths and links to the relevant science. Even a poorly trained quack should be able to figure out the basic physics.
Since you don’t, then I’d presume that your political religious beliefs tend to dominate over your scientific abilities.
On the subject of ‘objective’ measurements. You really are talking simple minded crap. These are measurements done over the whole world over very long periods of time and using a wide variety of measurement technique. They have inherent error in location, in time, in technique, to the methods of recording and storing them, and simply because weather and even climate is chaotic and subject to local changes outside of human caused climate changes.
And that is just the less important in-air measurements. The ocean measurements that are of more significance are pretty sparse both geographically and in the water column.
Almost every earth science measurement is only valid statistically, and even that is only because there are a lot of them made.
Your call for a ‘objective’ measurements just seems to confirm that you have an inability to understand even the most basic principles of measurements in earth sciences.
Here are some “real world observations” for you Steve.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-reveals-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise-20055
While the current rate of sea level rise is around 3 mm / year, that is accelerating from an average rate of around 1.7 mm / year over the past century. Up until the recent past – most sea level rise was driven by our warming oceans, however we now see the sudden collapse of the Greenland ice shelf and the WAIS notably the Larsen A, B and C https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-study-shows-antarctica-s-larsen-b-ice-shelf-nearing-its-final-act
These both have the potential to raise sea level by metres.
The real world observations back up the predictions and support the science.
Time for you and Richard to get real.
You are a cretinous fool whose knowledge of the sciences equates with that of the mythical village idiot. It is typical of many right wingers like yourself who are too dumb to know just how dumb they/you are. We’ve all been associated with them.
Intelligent people recognise their intellectual limitations and are capable of being persuaded with logic, sound reason and expert knowledge. But oh no, not dumb a**es like you. Unlike others on this site I don’t waste my time with detailed facts and figures because I know your ilk are way too stupid to understand.
Are you a Trump supporter?
http://www.salon.com/2016/09/30/idiocracy-now-donald-trump-and-the-dunning-kruger-effect-when-stupid-people-dont-know-they-are-stupid/
It was this sort of arrogant we-know-best attitude, as expressed in Anne’s post – from Hillary Clinton, her backers in the media and the Washington elite – that put people off voting for her, with the obvious result.
The Wrathall kid has been asking for it for a long time.
Apart from that… listen to who is talking. You’re arrogance on this site is legendary!
https://thestandard.org.nz/punching-nazis-and-practicing-resistance/
🙂
Wrathall was too ignorant to realize it, but what he endorsed was the modern version of this cartoon, which appeared in the Viennese paper Das Kleine Blatt in 1939….
http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/564b63a41f00002400f3cf97.jpeg
So the Jews fleeing pre-WWII Germany had 50+ majority-Jewish countries to go to, then tried to set up Jewish law as superior to local law when they were accepted, and many of them carried out terrorist acts in the name of Judaism in their host countries. Your analogy is asanine.
many of them
A vanishingly small minority, with nowhere near the number of victims as people killed by family members, buses, right wing economic policy, or homegrown bigots.
Blow harder.
I thought so. You’re as anti-Jewish as you are anti-Arab.
I’m not at all surprised.
And often have you spoken against Zionism, Mo?
No, I haven’t spoken against Zionism, but I’ve often spoken against the massive crimes of the Israeli government.
So I liked a tweet by Bosch Fawstin? An ex-Muslim mohammed cartooner who jihadists tried to murder in Garland TX. As he was born a muslim, I must be racist against him, and then he changed his race, right?
You don’t know what you think, actually, because you don’t read seriously or in depth.
You’re a fool.
Check out Stephanie Rodgers’ ode to Mr Bradbury; all quotes from his own words on his own blog, apart I suspect from the very last paragraph:
https://bootstheory.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/unity-a-poem-inspired-by-martyn-bradbury/
I think this is a small piece of genus, building on Stephanie’s consistent message over the last few months of treating all the minor causes of the left as if the only way to win any election for the left is through treating the causes of your colleagues with respect, and acting on forming solidarity.
And on that she is perfectly on the money.
Genius. Not ‘genus’.
Excuse me.
Wouldn’t worry so much about that one word typo, Ad. Much more concerning is the sentence within which it resides – one of the less coherent passages to emerge from your finger tips in recent years.
And the message I’ve managed to wrestle from that messy grammatical entanglement – that we should all be respectful of each others’ particular ideological proclivities – sits rather awkwardly next to your unbearably smug little piss-take (upthread) against Labour’s Left-leaning … what did you call them again ? … oh that’s right … “Lovelies”.
I’ll resist commenting on the irony of an affluent, privileged, middle class Liberal Centrist with Clintonista tendencies having the temerity to call other people “Lovelies”. 🙂
Oh no, I am far less lovely than you.
Your loveliness is radiant.
May it shine.
Love.
“Lovelies”
Is that a class thing?
Isn’t it usually something said about flamboyant actor/theatrical types?
I have a lefties I work with (damm annoying) he said that speech turned him off. He’s American born and said Andrew came across fake as hell.
He’s a 10yr labour supporter
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: This is rather weak as it carries absolutely no actual argument related to the post. It simply looks like made up hearsay.
Your followup comment looked like a advertisement for a National list MP and was completely unrelated to the post.
I’d suggest that doing such obvious diversion comments like these is not the safest thing you could do on this site. ]
To add he’s been impressed by Chris bishop who’s turned up to alot of his events in his own time. Blew him away. He does alot of non profit work.
Donno if he will vote Nats but interesting.
This is one of the most genuine, believable and authentic things I have ever read.
roflnui.
Sounds to me like he works for Mr Thiel’s.
Infused, I would doubt your informant is a Labour supporter. Chris Bishop is not turning up to events ‘in his own time’, or doing charity work out of the goodness of his heart. He is just being a National Party list MP (with lots of National Party money) who wants to be an electorate MP. He does such things so people think he cares. Labour’s Ginny Anderson will easily outclass him though in the election as she has integrity, intelligence and a much better message for the local electorate.
I wrote a big reply to this, but in the end, I don’t really give a shit. I was just comparing how Labour is losing solid support, easily, when it shouldn’t be. And how Little comes across on TV isn’t genuine.
Says you, a right winger.
Infused with stupidity!!!!
Socialist Party in US doubles in numbers since Trump won.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/19795/socialisms-trump-bump-democratic-socialists-america
Democratic Socialist Party of America and Socialist Party USA (more leftwing) have both doubled their supporters and the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have had big increases too.
Ethica you obviously do not live in the Hutt. Chris Bishop will easily win Hutt South by over 1,000 votes and also increase the Party Vote. No wonder Mallard chickened out. Chris was brought up in the Hutt and is well known by the locals. He is very hard working . He will probably be PM one day. Many of the Standard posters live in a socialist bubble getting confirmation bias from their twitter feed. Get out and listen to people. No one outside the bubble could tell you anything about the content of the launch. It’s only success was confirming that a vote for Labour or Greens means the same thing. Choose a colour. Any colour. The MOU is great for the Greens but will be disastrous for Labour. I suspect Labour will not get any list seats and that Little will be out of a job. I wish there was a betting market for the election, I understand the real world.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: See https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30012017/#comment-1293479
And please make an effort to hit the Reply button. ]
Fisiani, are you Chris Bishop?
You are seriously underestimating Ginny Anderson.
Pretty sure he’s overseas. So I doubt it.
Hensley, don’t bother. Some of these people really have no idea. Mallard left for exactly this reason.
Chris has been out there 7 days a week for going on 2-3 years now. I don’t know how he does it to be honest.
“Chris has been out there 7 days a week for going on 2-3 years now. I don’t know how he does it to be honest.”
Just read all the Bishop stuff and this last bit provides a challenge I can’t resist …
7 days a week for going on 2-3 years? I thought God rested after a certain number of days.
I have a friend who voted for Chris Bishop and National last time. He’s a minimum wage retail worker. He was rewarded by losing his compulsory work breaks, losing a guaranteed day off at Easter, and an increase in his rent and other expenses. He feels betrayed and won’t make that mistake again.
I have a street who voted Mallard and Labour last time. They like young Chris. Your mate cannot blame Chris Bishop. You give me one anecdote and I’ll give you a hundred. Chris Bishop is winning over at least one person a day. Labour candidate vote – 365 x 3 , Bishop +365 x 3. So easily a 1,000 majority, more like 2,000 plus majority.
cool story, bro
Yeah we know about your fabulosity FusedAnus. And your post-truth ‘math’. Like the one Sunday afternoon 2014 when singlehandedly you won over 93.7% of riders on a Pomare-Wellington unit, to Trump (sorry….. Keydashian). For fear of stressing your cheesecutter I don’t mention your spectacular hit rate with puzzled Countdown shoppers up The Valley. You truly are heroic in your struggle to persuade yourself you’re significant, FusedAnus. Got a way to go to match ‘young’ Kellyanne Conway though ma bro’.
Trump to spend more time with the Queen?
Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to assure everyone that a new petition calling for him spend even more time with the Queen during his state visit now has more than five million signatures.
😈
Well one despot to another…
Yeah, leave our pumpkin pinochet alone, or else!.
“Who’s cleaning house?” Conway said. “Which one is going to be the first one to get rid of these people that said things that just aren’t true?
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/johnwright/conway_calls_for_firing_of_journalists_who_talked_smack_all_day_long_about_donald_trump
Next up, special courts.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/24/journalists-charged-felonies-trump-inauguration-unrest
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/27/journalist-inauguration-arrest-charges-dropped-evan-engel
Wonder what the princes will say about that…….given the Pussy Grabber’s claim re…….you know……his chances with their mum ?
heh
https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/825781634330980352
Duterte’s saner the Trump.
MANILA, Philippines
(AP) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asked the United States on Sunday not to store weapons in local camps under a defense pact, saying his country may get entangled if fighting erupts between China and the U.S.
Duterte said in a news conference that he would consider abrogating a 2014 defense pact that allows U.S. forces to temporarily station in designated Philippine camps if the Americans build weapon depots in those encampments.
“They’re unloading arms in the Philippines now,” Duterte said, identifying three areas where U.S. forces were supposedly bringing in their armaments, including the western Philippine province of Palawan, which faces the disputed South China Sea.
“I’m serving notice to the armed forces of the United States, do not do it, I will not allow it,” Duterte said in the televised news conference after meeting top military and police officials.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics-government/article129470414.html
Yeah, he’s jumped ship, China is his friend now, dislike to corruption and drug users and dealers, the human rights commission is trying to have him charged with murder for pushing a suspected corrupt official out of a helicopter and then boasting about his action, Just Another Nut Job.
It is gratifying to see so many upset with the mango Mussolini’s banning Muslim immigrants into the states.
I struggle to grok this though – aren’t many, even on this site, not wanting too many immigrants here due to a perceived lack of land, resources and so on.
Is it that he is banning an identifiable group via religion – could be ethnicity, sexuality, ablement etc rather than the attempted reduction of immigrants.
Sure he has dressed it up with all sorts of – keeping extremists out da da da dah
but how do people reconcile this? or have I just got it completely wrong.
For the record I don’t believe in the assumptions within my second paragraph.
It’s not a muslim immigration ban, it’s a travel ban on people associated with seven muslim majority countries. So it affects visitors, people that have already completed their immigration procedures and even those who have gone as far through the process as getting their green card for permanent residence and have already made the US their home. There’s also the tidbits of information suggesting Trump wants to apply a religious test and is attempting to disguise that.
Overall, from his past statements it’s clear he wants to reduce immigration into the US from pretty much all groups (except smokin’ hot white females). But it appears he is going about by singling out groups and applying restrictions to that smaller group. First he’s coming for Syrians/Libyans/Iraqis/Iranians… then he’s coming for… That’s a lot more severe and chilling than changing policies in a ethnicity/religion blind way with the goal of reducing overall immigration sometime in the future.
Just a few of my problems with current immigration policies into New Zealand are:
that it admits many people into a situation where they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and are competing with (and crowding out) our locals for entry-level opportunities,
we don’t have policies and processes in place to ensure our infrastructure keeps up with the demands imposed by a rapidly increasing population (resulting in things like the housing problems),
our welfare state settings are extraordinarily generous to some groups of immigrants at the same time as they are punitive towards locals.
Thanks Andre, McFlock and Muttonbird
I did wonder if I was being a bit precious – I still have twinges around this but I think I’ll sit and read more before I spout off.
For me, it’s separate to the general immigration debate.
I believe Trump has made a ruling based on religion, likely moderated by personal business interests, that in particular targets refugees (the most vulnerable and in need group of immigrants there is).
That’s beyond the questions of resources and national identity that people raise when debating about whether net migration should be half a percent or five percent of the population.
If they’re lying and the order was drafted by his inner circle, overriding objections and failing to coordinate with officials, I reckon he’s made a ruling based on provocation.
Not irreconcilable. Immigrants, students, and refugees are welcome here as far as I’m concerned but NZ’s infrastructure is underfunded and unable to cope so that communities are now under stress. The Nats refuse to take the tax from the high earners, the people who benefit the most from cheap foreign labour. A different model needs to be found, one where central government is held responsible for the effects of its policy settings.
On RNZ this morning Little said there will be no electorate deals between Labour/Greens. Could this decision cost them the election? I think it could well do, unless they have a ‘cunning plan’ to do deals under the table to allay the outcries of foul play by the hypocritical Right.
Regardless, it is time Labour got real and stopped thinking it is a 40 – 50% party. The tide has gone right out on ‘third way’ lefties trying to play at being kind free-marketeers.
If, on the other hand, Little is trying to cosy up to NZF by shafting the Greens again in the vain hope of a coalition with Peters, Marks and Jones, then he is a bloody misguided dreamer.
Both parties are well over the threshold, so no problem for them.
Might screw Mana, though.
Electorate deals are pointless, since it’s the party vote that counts and neither of these parties is at risk of not making the threshold.
There’s conceivably some point in electorate deals that would combat National’s hangers-on (Dunne and Seymour), but Dunne’s the only one that could possibly be at risk from a Green/Labour deal – even then, National voters are as capable of strategic voting as anyone else, so there wouldn’t be much point.
The new member of the National Security Council.
(video inside)
https://twitter.com/JessikaJayne/status/825911923485048834
“There was never a gap of ideas. What there was, just as in the 1930s, was a social democratic party too keen to ingratiate itself with the establishment and a deep division between good, decent people – between liberals, Marxists, feminists, greens etc. Whereas the bigots unite behind toxically simplistic stories, progressives tend to fight against one another and thus fall prey to the Nationalist International.”
https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2017/01/25/the-establishment-is-in-denial-interviewed-in-english-text/
a united european left or a belated vision?
https://diem25.org
In regard to drivers and their responsibility;
Police in a pursuit also must consider the public, a duty of care, if you will.
Just cause a driver is fleeing don’t give carte Blanche to per sue.
Being comfortable with the notion that the police bear no responsibility, reeks of an authoritarian mindset.
Fisiani is my handle. It is a noble Chitumbuka name. Do you think you are being humorous to be faecal obsessed? Is that what passes for constructive criticism? Such references are never moderated. I can only assume that such schoolboy attempted humour is actually tolerated and approved. That explains the abject failure of the Left.