Donald Trump is to make an announcement today concerning the shut down. And Buzzfeed has suggested that the Mueller Investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting that Trump instructed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.
What if Brexit is not a threat to democracy as a system of government or a threat to liberal values? And what if it is an example of British democracy’s best modern exemplars to the world of institutionalised democracy and the rule of all under the law since universal franchise was first granted?
Winston Peters went to Washington last December to see US VP Mike Pence and invited the US to engage more in the South-West Pacific without informing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Patrick Smellie described this apparent oversight as “deeply worrying.” Even more worrying is what Peters said when he was there.
I’m moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches! Donald Trump has yet another bizarro, almost Freudian, moment as his threat to invoke a national emergency to fund his wall falls flat. Peaches, people! Not impeachment, peaches!!!
President Trump is preparing the ground to use the State of the Union address to declare that the Congress delaying funding of the wall on the Mexican-U.S. boundary is a national emergency.
Donald Trump in the longest presidential temper tantrum every is refusing to reopen the US Government unless Congress agree to funding his Mexican Border wall.
An analysis of recent public comments made by Elizabeth Warren and the possible implications for New Zealand of a Warren Presidency.
The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?
Elizabeth Warren has announced that she will be seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the 46th President of the USA. With the Republicans unsure about whether Trump will run again due to the difficulties of campaigning from Federal prison, the Presidential election should be a shoo in for the Dems. Warren is just the first; there will be many more candidates who will see this as the opportunity of a lifetime.
It’s going to be a strong year for democratic politics.
What will happen in 2019?
In Washington last week Winston Peters urged America to involve itself more in the Pacific, in a speech the Prime Minister was apparently unaware of. Referring to Africa, John Bolton outlined what that involvement would mean – American interests first and only. Dangerous with the neocons in charge of the playpen.
Here’s your chance to vote in the Standard’s Politician of The Year awards. The SPOTY’s are recognised worldwide as the leading indicator of political success in NZ and have been awarded annually for over two hundred years.
Now it’s your turn to prick the Thorndon Bubble, dear reader. Who’s your Politician of the Year?
This week in America former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen admitted electoral finance violations by using campaign money to pay off two hookers to stop them going public during the last election campaign with news about Trump’s infidelity. And Russian national Maria Butina was convicted of conspiring to infiltrate the NRA.
With the UK Tories self imploding, the US President contemplating jail time, Angela Merkel moving on and the conservative parties on both sides of the Tasman looking increasingly irrelevant, what should the left do to fill the gap?
The voter turnout in the US mid-terms was the highest that it has been in a hundred years. For the first time that I think Donald Trump, the elected monarch of the strangest “democracy” on the planet actually achieved more than boasting and meaningless hand-waving. Of course that appears to have been an unwelcome accident to him.
I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.
National and ACT have alleged that a United Nations Pact supported by New Zealand in 2016 will take away sovereign rights even though the pact itself says that it is not legally binding.
The GCSB ban on Spark’s use of Huawei technology means this government has gone from “honest broker” to poodle in a very short time. Pressure has been applied by the US and others, apparently fearing we are the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes spy network. Maybe its time we got out of that too – it was designed for war.
The Trump administration has produced an official report outlining the perils of climate change which the POTUS has rejected. And in Australia the dinosaur Liberal Party has suffered a huge loss in Victorian State elections, the loss of their Parliamentary majority and ScoMo has criticised school students taking direct action against the Government’s totally inadequate policies.
Actual press release from the Trump White House.
China certainly has interfered in New Zealand politics, most notably by the offer of a free trade deal which delivered huge benefits to our economy. Party and government officials all stressed to us that they were grateful for New Zealand’s support for their accession to the World Trade Organisation, the rule-based trade body. The US and Australia in contrast want to build a military base on Manus Island north of Papua.
In breaking news it appears that the reason for Donald Trump’s grumpiness may have been the impending release of news that Julian Assange has had charges laid against him.
Yet another front opening up in the demand for action on global warming…
In Yemen right now, children are living in the worst humanitarian crisis we have seen in the last 100 years.
There is still seven weeks of this year left but it appears likely that the tweet of the year has been tweeted.
In the midterm US elections a number of candidates supported by the NRA have lost out to opponents with strong anti gun views. And the youth vote surged. Were these events related?
In Georgia, despite the Repbublican candidate who oversaw the election process engaging in the mass disenfranchisement of Democrat voters, the removal of voting machines to make voting in Democrat areas more difficult and baseless smearing of the Democrat candidate, the result is on a knife edge and a second vote is a possibility.
Politics can be soap, or politics can be real. This post comments on some of the soap and offers an example of something that’s real
Trump’s…I don’t actually have words for this little escapade.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned at the President’s request and has been replaced by someone who thought that Mueller’s investigation into POTUS went too far.
What can we take from the US mid term election results?
If you have 10 minutes to waste and enjoy laughing uproariously I can recommend this video. Warning should not be watched while you are drinking coffee and the contents may be sprayed on your screen …
The US mid term election results are due out today and should start to appear after 12 pm NZT.
Cenk Uygur might be said to have “skin in the game” when it comes to the US Mid-terms, and given that much of this post revolves around, or bounces from his commentary and analysis – which may not be quite as objective as he thinks – that should be borne in mind when reading this post.
In America a young 20 year old Trump supporter has been branded with the hashtag morongate for the most inept dark op smear you could ever imagine happening.
