Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, February 28th, 2025 - 42 comments
Two recent media related stories made me wonder if there was now formal acknowledgement that the concept that media should fearlessly and impartially report the news is now dead.
Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, February 26th, 2025 - 15 comments
Read an amusing quora reply that rather crystallised my thinking on the US compared to here. It started as a click-bait clearly written by the usual American fool blinded by propaganda glare from their border mirrors. A Canadian responded with with and accuracy. But on a more serious note, if US intentions have skewed towards supporting annexations, we need to improve our military capabilities.
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, February 13th, 2025 - 159 comments
Well it didn’t take that long: from one SecDef to another in a matter of a month. It’s time for a rethink on Ukraine and much else.
Update: Hegseth’s speech video
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, February 5th, 2025 - 49 comments
The Musk takeover
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 4th, 2025 - 50 comments
And why isn’t New Zealand backing Canada against Trump’s self declared trade war?
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, February 1st, 2025 - 29 comments
I did not think it possible but it seems that every week Donald Trump does something that makes me think even worse of him.
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, January 21st, 2025 - 55 comments
He’s baack. The man least suited to running the world’s most powerful country is now President again.
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, January 19th, 2025 - 14 comments
In his final speech Joe Biden has warned the world about the dangers posed by Oligarchs supporting the right into democratic power. He is right.
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, January 11th, 2025 - 33 comments
It’s common these days to see the rapid 2024 exit of multiple global social democrat leaders as just a post-COVID symptom of democratic impatience. But Biden achieved far more than his age-related decline obscures.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, January 10th, 2025 - 18 comments
While he scoops up behind Minister Willis’s Cook Strait ferry disaster, he’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and our primary lead on the rise of President Trump and boy does he have a job ahead of him.
Written By: - Date published: 4:13 pm, December 7th, 2024 - 9 comments
With extensive use of internal documents, Maire Leadbeater’s excellent exposition of the various iterations of the security intelligence services tells a story of constant make-work in search of an adversary defined only by ideology.
Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, November 21st, 2024 - 36 comments
We woke up last week to the post-mortem on the US election. How and why Trump won, and their implications for political alignments everywhere, are front and centre. A fundamental issue, explicitly identified when Trump won in 2016, is the presence of large sections of the working class vote into the Trump camp. So why has that happened – again?
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, November 10th, 2024 - 120 comments
Why did America vote for the least suitable candidate imaginable? And what are the implications for New Zealand politics?
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, November 6th, 2024 - 157 comments
Discussion post.
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 pm, November 4th, 2024 - 50 comments
Tuesday (Wednesday in NZ) is election day in the United States of America. Where billionaires buy elections, the President is not elected by popular vote, and the nominee of the Republican Party attempted to overturn the results after he was voted out of office four years ago. Somehow, despite his crimes, Donald Trump is a coin-toss away from taking back the White House.
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, October 28th, 2024 - 80 comments
Please American voters do the right thing. Signed the rest of the world.
#VoteHarris
Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, October 25th, 2024 - 9 comments
Whoever owns the narrative owns the world – and things just got a lot tougher for those of us opposed to US influence campaigns. In a staggering increase in funding for propaganda and covert action the US House has passed the Countering the PRC (People’s Republic of China) Malign Influence Fund, kicking in an extra $1.6 billion.
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, August 18th, 2024 - 21 comments
It is well time the Prime Minister set out how it is in our interests to move against China by buying into AUKUS.
Written By: - Date published: 3:07 pm, July 24th, 2024 - 16 comments
Don Brash is now publicly standing together with Helen Clark to protest against the subservience of recent New Zealand governments to America’s anti-China policy.
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, July 22nd, 2024 - 80 comments
“My intention is to earn and win this nomination’
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, July 21st, 2024 - 70 comments
I can’t remember American politics ever being this weird. Donald Trump is riding a wave of support and risks being returned to the White House as President. And Joe Biden is considering his options.
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, July 14th, 2024 - 142 comments
In breaking news Donald trump has been shot in a Pensylvania. Film suggests that he is fine although suffered a wound to his ear. The implications for the US elections are profound. This is a post for general discussion and will be updated as matters develop. Updates 1305: BBC interviewed a witness who is talking […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, June 29th, 2024 - 30 comments
Jo Biden’s recent debate with Donald Trump did not go well.
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, June 27th, 2024 - 6 comments
About time. Not that I have that I really have that much sympathy with Julian Assange. Always seemed like a bit of a narcissistic dickhead to me. But I get really pissed off with the level of US over-reach with their laws. Seems to me that this is a good time to rework our extradition treaties with them.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 pm, May 20th, 2024 - 46 comments
Western leaders like to talk about values, shared values, common values. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) says the US and Israel have a partnership based on shared values. I believe them.
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 am, May 19th, 2024 - Comments Off on Bonnie Jenkins: US ignores China proposal for no-first-use of nukes
Questioned by Senator Van Hollen re US response to China’s February 2024 offer of no-first-use, Assistant Secretary Bonnie Jenkins told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee they would have to think about it, but at this point had no intention of changing to a no-first use policy.
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, April 25th, 2024 - 21 comments
Who will defend us when the military chaos now expanding in the world finally hits hard in our region, because that is what is really happening.
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, March 24th, 2024 - 24 comments
RNZ has reported that a foreign agency collected signals intelligence out of the GCSB for years without ministers knowing. And the collection only stopped after the equipment broke down.
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, March 9th, 2024 - 18 comments
in a war over Taiwan” is the title of an Atlantic Council paper produced last September. They mean nuclear weapons. These are serious people; Undersecretary Bonnie Jenkins addressed them last year about AUKUS.
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 pm, February 17th, 2024 - 38 comments
Testifying to the Defence Select Committee last week, Air Marshal Short said Australia was “reshaping” its Defence Force for “a singular threat from a singular direction.” This was described as being an obvious reference to China.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 pm, February 13th, 2024 - 103 comments
Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”
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